sous chef

line cook

bar manager

server

bartender

Tavern in the square

I have never worked in such a hostile environment before. The assistant managers are amazing, they truly care about your progress and make effort to build a relationship with you but the GM is rude and unprofessional. She will talk down on you, even behind your back to other employees. 
Unfortunately, the servers that work there are just as bad. Some of them are very nice but many will boss you around, act friendly towards you and then talk behind your back, and talk to you very ill-mannered. 
The GM, along with the servers make going to work miserable. I would go home crying because of how much I hated it. It's a horrible work environment and ever since I stopped working there my stress levels have dropped tremendously. 
Since it's located in the Wrentham outlets, there are many foreign people that come in. Most guests are kind hearted and will ask you about your life and others are in a rush and more impolite. The work itself is easy once you get the hang of what your doing. However, there is a lot of side work and on busier shifts it can be harder to complete. 
A typical day at the Tavern if you're opening, it's pretty simple. If you are closing the restaurant, you will get out a lot later than anticipated. When working a double (very common), you will rarely get a break, usually you will just have to eat in between tasks in the cramped back hallway. You will also work almost every single day, employees rarely ever get a day off. 

When i began the company, had high ambitions to learn & grow. All about the food, taking care of the guest, a team of managers that actually care. If you work hard and you will prosper. If you’re with the right people, You will be praised, they get your hopes so high, you feel nothing could happen to you…. Until the company culture changed. 
 
At some point you’ll be paired with the wrong management, you will fail, one small infraction turns into a big thing and demoralizes your character overtime. 

You start to work longer hours, and don’t get any back, you lose time with the ones you love. they hire people just to hire, and bring in toxic employees, that make your job twice as hard because of the entitlement.
The worse thing is they allow it. 

Nothing wrong with the company making money, but they forget about the people that got them to that point. As soon as you mess up, there’s no redemption, managers will throw you under the bus, no follow through to fix things. 

For over 20 years you think this company will give back to its people. Be vigilant of the people around you, everyone is out for themselves. 

I'll sum it up like this:
They just wave a bone @ you hoping you catch it. Good boy, back in your cage. 


I was excited about working here but that soon changed after the first week. Management will write you up after an honest unharmful mistake instead of giving constructive criticism, even as a new employee. Quick turnover rate for servers. The amount of work compared to pay isn’t worth it. You have to tip out 3.5% to the bar, 3.5% to the good runners and 1% to the bussers. You are only allowed 4 tables per shift, sometimes 3 and that’s with 12-15 servers on per night. Never once made over 150$ even on a Fri or Saturday. Sections are not rotated so you can be stuck with the same section for a week at a time including no booths. The coworkers overall were nice but cliquey but most were helpful when questions were asked. The food was pretty good. Drinks not worth the prices. Overall I’ve worked at lots of places but this was one of the more unprofessional concerning management. Don’t give a notice of resignation because they will fire you on the spot instead of allowing you to work the remainder of your scheduled shifts. 

As a server who opened this restaurant, I witnessed way too much drama for the first two years, all of which really affected the morale of the team. There was also an extremely high turnover rate and the rules and expectations seemed to constantly change. On a a positive note, I worked there for three years and learned a lot about how to be a good server and make more money, how to treat guests, be efficient, etc. Just had to wade through a lot of muck in the mean time. The company definitely has downsides (mainly the turnover rate- 20+ FOH managers in 2 years or something ridiculous). However, I think it is doing better now and management has improved immensely thanks to Joe Gimmell (just speculation, though, not sure because I'm not there anymore). Also very unimpressed with the owners of this company and their behavior. If you're outgoing enough and fit in with the team, however, you will certainly make some good friends. 
Overall, I would only work here part time for extra cash, I would never make this a full time job again.

The managers at tavern are horrible. All of them play favorites and they have a total of zero trust in servers. Everything is a punishment by them. They also choose terrible people to train so that new people have no clue what they are doing. Managers here will also yell at you if you ask to sit during your 10 hour shift. They over staff severs making us only have three table sections but won’t hire anyone else for positions that are needed such as runners. Servers are basically expected to do everyone in the restaurants job and then receive no support in return. If you help in one area because they ask you to and say you leave a dirty table for one second they yell at you even though they just asked you to help do someone else’s job. This taverns managers have never supported their servers. 

Great organization to work for, pays well and it’s growing rapidly.
However support specific to BOH Operations should be more dedicated, in 3 years with them I barely had a relationship with the person in charge of me, a dedicated amount of hours should be focused on each location to ensure the leadership chain is well established and to support Chefs overall, career development was spoken of once in a 3 year period with no follow up even after making the point of the desire to grow,  support on a weekly basis even if a couple of hours a week is not constant, at times months went by without a face to face to touch base on development , growth , areas of focus and support in general whether on a busy evening or a calm morning. Definitely more attention is needed to avoid losing talent and burning Chefs out. 

One thing about this place for sure is too much rules! For the amount paid, the workplace is for sure have so much rules and demands to meet. I know we get tip but for whatever reason it is tips should just a bonus for our great service and this company should still pay us (hour) a decent amount like if they really ask for so much from us like this.

Scheduling system is bad especially the on-calls! I never know the on-call were supposed to be scheduled for every server just as the food runner was supposed to be mandatory. Well at least food run, you get paid. But on-call no you waste your time for a “not-sure-if-you’re-working-or-not” that is a no for me already.

And a bunch more of other assigned task systems and closing shift especially. Your hours might be cut if you are not needed at the near closing time so it’s definitely not beautiful. 



the money is makable but I don't love the culture, maybe i've outgrown the industry but the managers are immature and use their power for personal vendettas and personality clashes with their employees. they often punish people with scheduling and section placement if they have gotten into a disagreement with you as of recent. they also do not communicate amongst themselves enough so if one should have communicated something to another they find a way to blame staff. For every location there is usually one manager who pulls it together for all the hourly staff and thats usually the lowest paid of them all. very backwards way of building a profitable company the retention rate is low while the turnover is high.

I'm not sure if my training was typical or not but they used a binder to track everything I was supposed to do then didn't follow it at all. Left me alone on my first live shift and when I obviously didn't excel they gave me a bunch of grief like it was somehow my fault that they didn't train me correctly. All of the managers have terrible attitudes and personal skills.

It's actually embarrassing how inconsistent they are. Horrible double standards. The regional managers/chefs are useless (and also liars). They're a big fan of the rules being very strict when they help management but really loose on the rules when it's against management. I was stonewalled at every single turn no matter what I did. 

This restaurant that had a seriously toxic environment. It was like walking into a battlefield every day. The managers were constantly belittling and micromanaging the staff, creating this tense and hostile atmosphere. The money isn’t worth it. 3%  of food sales to the food runner. 3% of bar sales to the bar. & 1.5% overall sales to the busser. It feels like a robbery. Oh yeah and you DO NOT have a say how much you tip out. The managers do it for you. You tip out even when the bussers don’t buss your tables. It was mentally and emotionally exhausting, and it started affecting my overall well-being. I finally made the easy decision to quit and prioritize my happiness and mental health. It was the best decision I ever made.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Sous chef 416 salaries reported	$86,579 per year
Line cook 109 salaries reported	$22.14 per hour
Bar manager 120 salaries reported	$78,963 per year
Server 143 salaries reported	$26.86 per hour
Bartender 82 salaries reported	$30.43 per hour

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