department supervisor

food & beverage supervisor

associate

food service associate

food & beverage manager

Round One Entertainment

When I worked at Round 1, there were days I was the happiest I've ever been in my life. There were also days I went outside and cried because of how stressful it was. The majority of the time though, I was fulfilled, cared about, lifted up,  and taught how to succeed. I would say that while each location is run under the same guidelines, they're more like franchises in terms of how operations are run. Your experience will vary greatly depending on the location you work at. I trained 8 managers for locations other than my own, and I saw a lot of different management types. It's not a one size fits all approach, but it works for the majority. I started as an Associate in Food and Bar in 2019, then the pandemic hit and our location closed for 14 months. When we came back I was promoted to Lead, and 6 weeks later to Supervisor. 6 months later (the expected review period, they rarely promote or give raises outside of semi annual reviews which are in Feb and Aug) I was promoted to Manager where I stayed for 2 years. As a manager of a department you're required to run your own staff, and the store as a whole. It varies by location but the hardest part by far was the absolutely ridiculous manner in which the company wants to retain customers. We were told to find a solution to every problem, even when it was clear the customer was not deserving of anything, and sometimes emotionally or verbally abusive to the staff. The only time we were allowed to tell someone to leave was if they were physical with another person, threatening violence, or under the influence of drugs or alcohol. If I had more trust placed in me as a manager to decide if a customer was able to be placated or if they needed to leave, my experience would have been 100x better. I left the company after my maternity leave ended in Feb of 2023 because I did not have the resources to find childcare while I worked 40 hours (minimum) a week. If I had not had my child I would likely still be employed there and who knows where I would have been promoted to. I was respected, genuinely uplifted in my role, given consistent and constructive feedback for improvement, and taught how to do better not only as a manager but as a person too. I loved my job and the people I worked with. I was given many opportunities for success and advancement in my own location and by regional/national management as well. Some days I wish I had been able to stay and advance my career further in the Food and Beverage department of the company. Work-Life balance aside, this was the best job I've ever had. 

This is my first job ever. I'm an associate in the food and beverage department.

If you work evenings on the weekend it's the weirdest kind of way to start your workforce experience.

You start with an orientation, which you get paid for attending (that's cool). I'm not sure if I get a pay of $10.15 or $10.25, but I'm sure my pay is getting docked or something, because I try to clock in the earliest possible (5 minutes before shift, and you get paid by the minute, actually) and yet, my pay for 4 days/2 weeks is just a little higher than 2 days/1 week, around $200 flat each paycheck. I'm on a 1 exemption. (myself)

No PTO, but they encourage overtime if you're willing to, but you would have to adjust your breaks according to how much time you plan to work, even counting overtime. So be careful if you feel like stretching your hours every now and then! Once, I worked around a half hour overtime just to finish prepping ALL the chicken wings they needed for the week. It was fun I guess.

Round 1 is a Japanese-founded place, so a lot of customs, tasks and rules are absolutely SOAKED in Japanese influence, which is why as a food and beverage associate, I still have to do some janitorial work. In fact, everyone is required to pick up janitorial work if no janitors are on the clock. It's only fair to keep the place clean, anyway, so I don't mind it. It's also an excuse to get out of the kitchen and listen to the music on the speakers. It also shuts my mind off so the time can go by a little quicker.

My managers are okay. Not spectacular, though. They rotate a lot and work at different locations all over the country for a month or so, then go back to their usual store. My opinion is that they're sort of glorified jack-of-all-trades, except for being engineers. There are a few shining people though! I appreciate them and their diligence to keep everyone on track. The rest, though, I don't even know by name, and almost never see them come out of the office. SO REALLY, it's dependent on the individual. Of course!

Personally, for my store, they have this "mandatory" meeting almost every Monday, yet I've never gone to one and I haven't gotten in trouble for it, either. I guess as long as you have a plausible excuse (for me, school) they won't bother pestering you. Maybe you get paid for going though? I don't know! Might go to a meeting once, but I don't want them to think I'm out of school, because then they might make me work on fridays, and like, I wanna have fun...I gave my weekends to you, so I don't want to risk my fridays.

The Good: The co-workers, lunch policy, work life balance is very good. I personally loved everyone I worked with and plan to work with in the future. The work culture is amazing and motivating. The training is engaging and fun, and so is the work itself. You learn something new every day. Fixing the machines and the bowling equipment are like figuring out electronic puzzles.

 In terms of enjoyment of my job, this is the best job I have ever had. The hardest (and honestly still interesting) part of the job is when sometimes new machines ship broken on arrival, and we have to spend a few hours diagnosing what is wrong with it and what we need to do to fix it so it doesn't sit on the floor dead. The managers are very understanding of personal situations (within reason) and definitely do their best to help every single employee.

-------------------------------------------

The Bad: The upper management and Japanese corporate are ridiculously draconian. We have suffered unnecessary budget cuts, hour cuts, mass firings. Everyone got furloughed / laid off due to COVID and they did not bring 90% of the original workers back. This leaves the few that are left understaffed and overworked. 25% of the games don't work or aren't updated properly. 

We were given acceptable training but the people who weren't former IT or electrical engineers were usually left to flounder aimlessly until they were cut for lack of productivity. The mechanics that are left here truly try their best, but it's clear the place is falling apart from a management standpoint. COVID did not help this process.

This location is also particularly horrible at enforcing the mask policies, which makes people both coming to work and play here unsafe. Majority of the patrons are not wearing masks or wearing them improperly and the other employees are very hesitant to confront people even though it is store policy and a government mandate. They also tend to allow people to walk around eating food on the floor with their masks down which again, is against current store policy. Two managers doing infrequent floor walks can only do so much to stop people from breaking the rules. 

As much as I love working at Round1, I would very much suggest the Exton, PA location or the new upcoming Deptford, NJ location if you wish to have a better work and play experience until this virus blows over. As it stands now, I'm sorry but I cannot recommend the Philadelphia location to anyone.

Round 1 Entertainment, Inc. is a substandard, cultural biased, discriminating company designing their employee handbook at their own discretion as time progresses.  This is clearly evident by the job culture of Round 1 Entertainment's management who discriminate against employees who find themselves displaced and/or underprivileged due to domestic hardship while they are employed by the company.  
Round 1 Entertainment's substandard management usurps their authority around the facility over an indefensible subordinate employee working class in order to gain unfavorable disadvantages. Ex. Locking up an easily accessible employee bathroom in order to give it special privileges to only those (management) who they allow to use it. They cunningly did so by first placing blame on the subordinate working class for its uncleanliness. Then, they disallowed the subordinate working class any use of it by putting a lock on the outside of the door and putting a grip hold on to the key.  In reality, management was at fault for the uncleanliness since it was their responsibility to see to it that the duties of maintaining the restrooms were practiced; and that, in a timely manner.  Instead, management displayed their laxity in a most substandard way by not accepting responsibility (since when did maintaining bathrooms become a high priority on anyone's agenda, especially a manager's). Therefore, it was easier to lay blame on the poor guy than to swallow one's pride and humbly take up the higher standard and be that example for many to follow.  I'm sure that, to this day, the easily accessible bathroom is still kept locked and that its unfair, unfavorable penal ordinance is very much still in effect. Management can lock the bathroom if they so choose. They can even require that an employee request the key, or have a supervisor unlock the bathroom for each employee. However, they MUST make the bathrooms available to ALL EMPLOYEES when nature calls, under OSHA worker safety regulations. In other words, if the employees have to wait 15 to 20 minutes for the supervisor to be available to give out the bathroom key, that would be a violation of OSHA standards. As long as both, the key and the bathroom, is available within 5 minutes, then, locking the bathroom is fine. Otherwise, unlock the door, throw away the key, and expunge that biased ordinance for the sake of ALL hard-working employees of Round 1 Entertainment, Inc.

I worked at Tucson's Round 1 for 3 and a half years. Started as an associate with the stores grand opening and grinded my way to assistant manager of the amusement department. 
Generally a day at Round 1 is just seeing where the metaphorical fires are and trying to keep afloat of the customers and service calls throughout the day/night. 
This job was bittersweet and not only taught me some handy management skills I'll certainly use elsewhere, it also taught me to look out for myself while employed, because most of my management team left me to drown when I was promoted. The hardest part of the job was trying everything I could to learn my position, without much guidance from available management at my store, and still being fired for "not doing enough". 

The workplace culture as I remember it, was everything worked out fine as long as you didn't upset one of the managers pets. They play favorites there. And they will act on it and say it's within their job description to validate their claims to upper management. You practically have to gather info and proof to get some of them to budge.

Pros:
-Easy job flow for the pay rate they offer
-Their regular customers are friendly and tend to remember the good associates
-Generally a fun atmosphere when it's calm
-Connected to Park Place Mall, making lunch breaks and parking easy

Cons:
-Most of the management and upper management of the store at time of writing this are subpar at their job, cherry picking which rules they can bend while they themselves aren't supervised, leading to conflict among management and associates.
-Most of the managers at time of writing were once associates/leads who were promoted to their positions after previous manager was terminated
-Managers play to their favorite employee(s), causing several instances of suspected romance/conflict/termination with associates and/or management since the store has opened.
-Work scheduling is haphazard between the ADP app not working on Mobile, or they reschedule associates without warning and issue write ups for at minimum 1 minute tardiness.
-Upper department management outside of the store tends to sweep problems under the rug, even when it came to needing outside approval for store needs or even just responding to emails,sometimes taking weeks to respond with prodding.

Round1 is a Japanese owned company that places a high amount of value on its presentation with how the games are set up. The UFO catchers are highly unique and you learn a lot about how to set them up to achieve a certain payout. Overall it is an enjoyable work environment for fans of anime and arcades in general. The arcade I worked at was one of the best in the city for both its variety in games and prizes. Employees, however, are not allowed to play any ticket or prize games, but are given perks such as free bowling and karaoke with guests, and also one hour of time play games every week. You also receive discounts on food purchases. 

Starting pay is very low and due to COVID-19 there hasn't been a lot of chance for raises. The company will promote from within based on your continued performance and during scheduled employee evaluations, so the potential for growth is there if that is what you wish to pursue. For myself I was promoted to Amusement Lead after three months of working there and I had a clear chance for career growth. Yet hours aren't always guaranteed, and my department was only able to get the hours we did because of how short staffed we were. Ultimately I left the company in good terms for another job that would ideally help me find a better balance of working hours, as I was attending classes and the late hours into night shift started getting in the way of my true career goals.

I would recommend the job for people who don't mind working nights and weekends, or those who love the arcade scene. Good customer service skills is important to have in order to succeed in this job, because people will be incredibly rude to you over factors that you cannot control. My area in particular had many customers like these that had a habit of bringing trouble. My fellow associates made many of these interactions bearable with how efficiently we worked as one team able to jump between whatever department was needed.

They call it part time but really it’s just full time without the benefits

I don’t know where to begin. The management at my location was bad. I never seen a dysfunctional team in my life. Everyone was very young and not an old person in sight, so they didn’t have a foundation of experience and expectations. Every time I make changes that would benefit my team (bowling) they would change it back. 

The kitchen always have some kind of flies hovering something 

The management can’t handle customer complaints at all. To the point where I have to explain to the customers that the management won’t be able to help them and recommend them other similar places. Every time someone wants to reserve lanes for a party, the team was told to always give them the lanes where some of the buttons of the console don’t work for unknown reason. And we always get complaints about the buttons not working. It’s not hard to move to another two lanes and shut the other two lanes down till it’s fixed but my guess is they prioritize on profits rather than customer satisfaction which is dumb because fixing the lanes in the first place not only bring business therefore profits but as well as customer satisfaction. Most of the games in the arcade keeps breaking down every single day and it’s always those certain machines. 

Speaking of the arcade, when the workers need to do a basic thing that need to do and always do every day, they need a key that only managers have it. So it’s only a matter of time before the arcade workers need the key but no manager can help, so you ended up with a long and annoyed customers. There are other things that make no sense and can be easily be solved if we were given permission to do it by our selves  

Round One Entertainment is a fast-paced, high-pressure environment that offers significant exposure to large-scale, multi-department operations. As a General Manager/Multi-Unit Manager, a typical day involves managing constant operational issues, staffing challenges, performance gaps, and escalations across multiple business lines, often simultaneously.

The role provides strong experience in operational leadership, crisis management, and accountability. You learn quickly how to make decisions with incomplete information, manage large teams, and keep locations running under pressure. The experience gained is valuable and transferable within hospitality and entertainment leadership roles.

However, the workload and expectations are intense, with long hours and limited work-life balance. Compensation does not consistently reflect the scope of responsibility, and support structures can be inconsistent depending on leadership and region. Advancement exists, but sustainability is a concern.

The most rewarding part of the job is developing leaders, improving operations, and seeing measurable results from hands-on involvement. This role is best suited for individuals seeking rapid growth and experience, not long-term balance.

I'm not sure if the experience is better across the company, but I was an amusement department manager and I've never had less of a balance between work and home life. I genuinely feel like I'd sold my soul to a company who couldn't have cared less about me. I had to work consistent overtime to get the work done that's demanded of me and then was chastised for the accruement of said overtime. My associates were/are paid well under what they deserve an hour so it was difficult to keep them given the amount of work they're required to do. The company only hires people over 18 so they're asking adults to work with no benefits for $10.50 to start and when they got wage increases for associates, the pay bump didn't reflect on management pay so shift leads only made 50 cents less the manager that worked for me. They only offer benefits to management so even if an associate works 35-40 hours, they're left with nothing. Loses were focused on and wins weren't celebrated. I'm finally starting to feel like myself again a month into a new position at a new company, but I wouldn't recommend this company to anyone. It's not a company that cares about the people it hires.

The environment is stressful. No matter how good you are at your job, no matter how much you give to your team, you're always stuck in 'another six months' for review cycles and are stuck working far above your actual position because of it. The hours are there if you need them and work hard, but they will overwork you and put you on constant bad shifts or open to closes/close to opens. The shift times are unpredictable and often times you would receive your schedule a day before instead of two weeks before. The upper management is sketchy, but the store management and associates are good. Absolutely draconian corporate policies, and no clear support for individual stores. The way upward is unclear or extremely delayed without caring about your current progress. Interested in the corporate jobs, but they do not even send newsletters to their staff or recruit online, so it all feels mysterious. Not to mention at this location the customer base is so bad, we need ODO's and security that don't consistently show up, and even then there's constant threats. They do not value their employees or upward mobility, there is an air of paranoia from upper management. All the good workers are gone or leaving. They hung everyone to dry during COVID, and the crew was already a skeleton crew before then.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Department supervisor 33 salaries reported	$22.59 per hour
Food & beverage supervisor 107 salaries reported	$21.54 per hour
Associate 236 salaries reported	$17.40 per hour
Food service associate 204 salaries reported	$17.26 per hour
Food & beverage manager 55 salaries reported	$25.03 per hour

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