cook

host/hostess

server

shift leader

dishwasher

Sharis Cafe and Pies

A typical day at work; you come in ten minutes early just in case they need you out there before your shift starts, clock in on time and get to it! There's just about a constant stream of customers at any given point in time; your job is to seat them in one of four sections following a pattern to make sure everyone gets a fair share of customers (sometimes this angers servers who haven't gotten tipped, sometimes the servers seat themselves a ton and mess up the pattern, and sometimes customers will want to sit somewhere specific and you have to explain why you broke pattern), bus/clean tables, get drinks, make milkshakes, cash people out at the til, answer phone calls, and take care of take-out orders. 

You will be constantly moving, constantly speaking to people, and certainly working up a sweat! Often times the servers can be temperamental, occasionally taking out frustrations and anger on other employees...But when you do well, they will periodically tip you out and offer praise.

If you can't keep up the pace, be ready to get some serious talking-to's, even if you are suffering from some form of mental health issue, you are liable to be sent home with a written warning about your inadequacy.

If you CAN keep up the pace and the stress of the customers, and co-workers is able to just roll off your back? Be ready to be potentially showered with praise, good tips, and be generally treated VERY well, so long as you make sure everyone is happy with the efforts you're putting forth.

Holidays can be absolute chaos, 'fast walking' or 'we cannot run, so move as quickly as you can without lifting your feet too much' becomes the norm, you'll hear people calling out "BEHIND" as they hurry over to a microwave to heat up a piece of pie as you're bending down to grab glasses for about ten drinks at one table with a bunch of teenagers who might just steal all of the tips at the other tables.

I have Worked for Sharis Cafe and pies on multiple occasions now. I have worked every position from DMO all the way up the ranks to Assistant Manager. My best times at sharis have been as a server and overall I would be willing to be a server again. As a part of the management team though I found my job to be very challenging. As a assistant the company will move you around to different locations with out consulting you about it first. This could be a good move or a bad move depending how your management style fits with the rest of the management team.They also currently are unwilling to pay overtime to their hourly employee so as management on salary it is your responsibility to make sure that staff members that are getting close to over time are cut early and sent home regardless of the needs of the store. This leave the rest of the crew and the management to pick up the extra work left behind by the employee that was sent home early. This can also lead to very long work days. Lets say a cook calls in for his/her shift but the other available cooks would go into overtime if they came into cover the shift. In this case the management is expected to work the shift with out calling anyone in to cover. This prevents you from being on the floor to help with guests and make sure the store is running smoothly. If you are required to pick up extra shifts due to lack of staff or because you are trying to avoid staff going into overtime you are not compensated for your time. They will not offer any extra pay for the extra time spent and they do not offer any extra time off to balance out the extra time working.

A very disappointing place to work now, I have been with the company for over 20 years and can vouch for its gradual decline. They used to be A LOT more concerned with keeping their cooks happy and motivated to excel, not so much anymore. Raises and reviews are non-existent despite what they might say, I went for an embarrassingly long 11 years without so much as a review, much less a raise. I stuck it out since I needed the paycheck but it really ruined my view on the company. Things are only getting worse, the higher ups plainly want to milk as much profit it off things without rewarding the people who do the work. All the long term cooks are either in the process of leaving for better jobs or are already gone. Training has taken a major step down as well, what used to be a lengthy, thorough process is now reduced to a few days of part time training before being put on line expected to perform, then they wonder why new cooks struggle, it's infuriating. I no longer suggest working here to anyone and I never suggest eating here unless I'm working, I've seen to much sketchy stuff and garbage being served to customers. I'm in the process of leaving for greener pastures myself, it just isn't the same restaurant I got hired at, which is really sad. They also took away most benefits, when they were forced to give sick hours they took away vacation time, talk about cheap. They could turn things around but I won't be here to see it, I've put in too much time hoping and waiting for change, I'm done.

Graveyard is an 7 1/2 hour shift because once you hit 8 hours you are required to take a break (which I never received), but you are also forced to sign a break waver for the break you're supposed to get after 5 hours (that was never presented to me no matter how much I asked the manager for a copy so I could sign).

For roughly anywhere between 4-6 hours, you are by yourself in the front of house with only one cook in the back of house, so if one of you has a medical emergency you have to pray you can catch your coworkers notice.

A typical shift looked like this:
-clock in at 10:30 and kick all other servers off the floor to make labor
-take care of the customers through the last bit of dinner (usually till about 1am)
-rush to stock all dry and frozen storage so the manager can lock them because they want to leave as soon as possible
-2:30 is when lottery closes and is the best time to vacuum, but people fresh from the local bars come in to give you a small rush so you have to be careful not to miss their entrance
-4am you rotate whatever products require it
-4:45am you start coffee as customers start to trickle in. All that should be left is what your co-workers left you the night previous
-6am you relief clocks on and tells you every. little. thing. that you "missed" (that they can't be bothered to do even though the first hour of their shift is fairly slow
-if you are lucky you are off by 6:10, but I could never manage it

I loved working there, most of the time. It just seems like a lot more had been expected of me for the same pay. Promotion was the only way to get more pay because people rarely tip more than 20% and servers do not get raises. Some management or shift leads expected servers to do all of these things during our shift while maintaining good service, the stuff honestly could get done on our regular shifts with just a little help from management or shift leaders but the execution of time management was wasted. They expect the servers to pick up all that extra work that builds up over time. I’ve worked with managers that had worse systems and ones that had better. The head management isn’t so bad it’s the shift leaders on their phones all the time that got annoying. They sat at the employee table a lot and gave orders of things that honestly could be done by them but they claimed that it wasn’t their job to help make our job easier so things start to pile up and the job never got completely done and you have to leave feeling overworked, underpaid, and unappreciated. Really is sad cause it wasn’t always that way. Lots of gossip between employees that is very toxic and hard to keep positive attitude while giving good service customers deserve. I should not have to worry if someone is going to cuss at me and treat me badly and then expect me to smile and be happy for their customers. 

I knew things were bad when I first started, but holy cow I did not expect things to nose dive so much in less than a year's time. I work at the Shari's from Berry Hill within Oregon City and that place has been falling apart both metaphorically and physically, I'm surprised its still yet to be shut down even after a healthy inspector came along to examine the place, but also did a poor job doing so anyway, instead of asking employees for their thoughts or findings, they just let things slide here or there and wasn't until I pointed things out they found some things. But even still its open somehow with problems yet to be resolved as of this writing. I'm leaving because management has yet to find someone new for store manager position and they've had since Thanksgiving of the previous year to find someone new. Its nearly the end of February now and I'm at my wits end how this place is even held together. The staff are a mixed bag like with any job, you have the slackers, the people who try their best and those who want to boss around others with zero accountability. If you value your time, don't come to work here, its not even worth doing so as part of in-between gigs. The free meals for working the back of the house are nice though, I'll give them that and the food when prepped by the right cook is a delight as are some of the servers. 

I was very excited to begin working at Shari's. My locations managers were great, most of my coworkers were great, the pay wasn't liveable but I'd done the math and was sure I would meet all my bills with my first paycheck. I'd worked over 10 hours of Overtime and didn't see a cent for any of it. Payroll even marked that I'd worked over 50 hours and still didn't pay me OT rates. After leaving the company I came out having spent more money getting too and from work than I made, and Shari's Management Company owes me over $1000 in unpaid wages.
On top of that, the management team and most of my coworkers were in the process of leaving the company over issues with the regional manager. That was undoubtedly the hardest part of the job, having just learned the rules and preferences of one team of managers and then having them be replaced due to some vendetta between the regional manager and my location. 
The location itself was in a very bad part of town. Coworkers had their lives threatened by customers, my partner and I received homophobic harassment from customers, people would spend the entirety of my shift asleep in booths after paying and react violently to being woken up. Shoreline is not a safe place to work, especially not in a 24 hour location.
I cannot recommend taking a job with this company in King County.

My shift was usually the mid morning to mid afternoon, covering the busy lunch time.  The restaurant had a great family focused energy and management was unfortunately well prepared to handle unhappy guests.  I learned a great deal about speed of service and how to 'shut the door behind you' when at a table when it is extremely busy.  It is important to block everything else out as much as possible and make absolute sure the guest you are focused on gets the proper attention to ensure accurate order and the best customer service.  At times the hardest part of this job was the self-serving nature of some coworkers and how that impacted guests.  Other aspects I found challenging at this establishment was related to the low to mid quality of food product.  Being a corporation, I feel much of the food quality issues were related to lowering the food cost by using low quality ingredients.  Other financial cuts for the business I saw effecting food quality included hiring low paying cooking staff and not making product quality a priority.  This made it more challenging for me as a server, though I learned how to work with it in a positive way.

I sited managemt because I was given few options, but not all of the management was all that bad. Just the main manager had a really bad temper and would lose it so often that we were constantly understaffed because each time he really lost it we would lose that person he lost it at. Either they quit or he fired them. Turn over was insane, we were training every week; often more than one person and nobody was permitted to put in a two weeks notice. If you did you would be flipped out on and told to just leave now. This was a known phenomenon. Only one person successfully finished a notice, theirs was a couple months long because they were moving. Every time we were yelled at or a new insane rule was implemented we were gaslighted into believing it was our fault.

A typical day at work is fast paced. As soon as I clock in I am usually already seating people and taking orders. some days its pretty busy and I don't get a chance to do my pre-shift evaluations of dessert temps and soup temps until I get a break. Some days its so slow that my shift is cut a bit. 
I have learned how to prioritize my tasks and use my time wisely. I have sharpened my customer service skills. I have also learned how to accommodate the lottery section, which consists of cashing ticking and printing keno slips. 
There is room to grow at Sharis, some servers go on to become supervisors and then I believe  if desired the next step is assistant manager. Those positions definitely require more than a part time commitments. 
Sometimes the hardest part of the job is dealing with unsatisfied customers. People can be very mean sometimes but you have to keep a smile on your face and try to accommodate them as best as you can. 
The best part of the job is when your customers experience is great and they tell you that they appreciate you! it is very satisfying to hear that you made their meal special or made their day!

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Cook 17 salaries reported	$17.25 per hour
Host/hostess 2 salaries reported	$15.75 per hour
Server 26 salaries reported	$16.56 per hour
Shift leader 11 salaries reported	$18.29 per hour
Dishwasher 6 salaries reported	$17.00 per hour

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