dishwasher

host/hostess

line cook

cook/dishwasher

prep cook

The Friendly Toast

I started working at Friendly Toast in their new location, Chestnut Hill in Mass. I want to just summarize in a short sentence my experience. The managers will make you want to leave, but the severs, bartenders, host and food runners (rest of the staff) will make you want to stay.

 I only worked there for a short week during the very beginning of their open, but yet, I feel like I have a very good feel for their work environment. 
The managers, more so, the general manager, has a high school mentality. He seems to love gossip and belittle the servers. I caught him more than once calling myself and a few other servers insulting names. 
All the managers love to eat their meals sitting down in the dining room. While the servers have to eat in the back (no legit breakroom) while standing, stuffing as much as we can because no one gets breaks. I repeat, NO ONE can take a break. The shifts are normally between 7am until the last customer leaves. Usually 11 hours on our feet. 
I have so much love for the rest of the stuff, even if I only worked there for a week. I hope some things change in the environment or I can see more people leaving or getting let go for voicing their opining about questionable business practices. 

I started working at the Friendly Toast in 2007 a few days a week for pocket money following graduating college.  I soon fell in love with the place, my coworkers, management and ownership.  It was owned by a husband and wife team that treated their employees like family, always there to listen or help with anything. Soon I was promoted to full time.  Next, they decided to open up a new location and I was asked to help open it up and become the back of the house manager. What followed was years of gratifying lessons of how to run the ship properly and thoroughly. I increasingly took on more and more responsibilities.  However, a large corporation came in with an offer the owners couldn't refuse and the restaurant was sold.  What occurred under the new ownership wasn't too my liking, the place no longer felt like the home it once was and my hours were cut drastically in order to bring in highly under paid new workers.  I made the decision to leave for less money to work at Veggie Galaxy with many of my former Friendly Toast coworkers that had left for the same reasons as I had.

I was a food runner and was treated very poorly by managers and staff. They always want to make sure you know you know you're the lowest level employee they have. It would often take two hours to close the expo line because the managers would make you do inane cleaning tasks over and over again. One time I was sweeping up the kitchen and a manager threw something on the ground and then told me to sweep it up and all the others managers just laughed. No matter how busy the kitchen is and how much you're running back and forth no one will help the food runners run food, even when they have nothing else to do. You are on your feet from 6am to 4pm and will get in trouble if you go to the bathroom without asking, etc. There is no form of breaks and you get repremanded every single second you're not doing something productive. In the grand scheme of "server assistant" jobs I made a good amount of money here, but it was absolutely not worth it.

Hostess there for 6 months. Put under a lot of pressure by management. Worked 6-7 hours a day without a break - or sitting down, wasn't told whenever I was allowed to leave. Managers expected me to out perform myself - basically put the weight of the restaurant on my shoulders. Managers saw me having ADHD and trauma as me using an excuse. Wasn't allowed to call out sometimes. Managers told me to keep bring better and never informed me of what "perfect" actually was. Was told to better and better numerous times.  Customers who are hangry (especially parents and older people) can be aggressive. I had menus and silverware thrown at me, and many customers told me to wipe down tables because they insisted on having a booth when we were on a 45-60 minute wait. Put too much pressure on for no reason. Only work there if you can handle all the stress. 

I spent two weeks training to open their location in Nashua. In that time I received nothing but positive feedback. During my two live shifts I had positive guest interactions with every table and had a strong rapport with the team. I received a phone call days after my last shift to tell me that due to feedback they’ve received that they’re parting ways with me. I asked for an explanation and they told me it was confidential. For a company whose core values include coaching their employees to improve, I find it extremely hypocritical to consider feedback confidential. This company also asked me to stop entertaining my guests by performing magic for them, something I thought incredibly odd to be offended by.

If you want to work for a company that is the opposite of everything they say they are, the friendly toast is for you. 

The pay was decent and I got the shifts that I wanted but the management was not very good. Frequent scheduling issues and cost cutting. It was nice being able to listen to music while working and the management was not overly critical of employees work. There wasn't any micromanaging at least. Frequently being understaffed was annoying. High rate of turnover for management. I had to train managers several times and I was just a line cook. Lack of communication was a problem.

When I worked there I fell in love at first but then the managers started acting cliquey, singling me out and doing small intentional things that was essentially harassment that couldn’t be reported because the managers are all friends. It’s annoying because I would’ve stayed and given them my all as a worker but they proved they didn’t deserve it because they didn’t respect me or my work. You start to feel like you’re being ganged up on and gossiped about. It all takes on a very high school vibe quite quickly. Way too much corporate influence and interference as well, the company has lost its authenticity and is basically a corporate facade now. 

What is the best part of working at the company?
The colleages
Friendly enviroment

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
Fast paced, so it needs care and attention

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
It is great... the kitchen and the front has the best crew and the managers work along everybody

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
Happy to go to work. A morning coffe, preps, asking the managers for anything extra and the customers arrive... during the day more preps to keep everything fresh. Closing after cleaning.

I loved working at the Friendly Toast. I made good money, got good hours and had a great time at work. Some of the managers are a little too high maintenance and stressed out, and there's a female manager who is lazy and doesn't do anything. Aside from that, it was a fantastic place to work.

Your schedule is performance based, so if you're not a good employee, you won't get scheduled. They will also schedule you less if you don't tip out other employees, but they will not tell you that that is the reason you're being scheduled less.

I would absolutely work there again, given the opportunity to do so.

What is the best part of working at the company?
The crew there was great and all worked together very well and hard. 

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
Incompetent or missing management. 

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
Fast paced. I spent too much time following cooks out the back door to talk people out of walking out and I wasn’t even management!

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
Very busy, understaffed, and unrealistic expectations.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Dishwasher 1 salary reported	$16.00 per hour
Host/hostess 1 salary reported	$11.00 per hour
Line cook 2 salaries reported	$20.25 per hour
Cook/dishwasher 2 salaries reported	$17.75 per hour
Prep cook 1 salary reported	$16.00 per hour

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