cook

dishwasher

sous chef

prep cook

dietitian

Thomas Cuisine

Thomas Cuisine recently took over the food service account at my location. Since it's a hospital you can expect it to be a huge transition and would expect things to be organized and efficient as possible coming in. This was not the case. Nothing is organized and efficient. Coming in they said they would see how things are done and see what needs to be improved before making changes, this did no happen. The first 3 hours on their first day the retail manager had made so many changes that it set us back for the entire first two days. There was no training or new job descriptions or anything to prepare us for the changes. I have never worked for a company so unorganized. There is so much more that would take forever to describe. 

One of the major things is that people who were hired after us are making more than us as their starting wage and they are inexperienced. If we are all new hires we should of started at their minimum starting wage when we were hired on. Especially because we are responsible for the new hire training and clean up after them because they are inexperienced and lazy. It is so not a fair company. Even the managers told us they were going to fix the wage discrepancies and all of a sudden they decided that wasn't going to happen. Not to mention the benefits are beyond ridiculous. They are so expenisive I can't even afford them and I am not alone. 

The recipes are beyond ridiculous too. We never have the millions of ingredients we need to make what could be a simple dish. The managers have a tendency to "get back to you", anytime you have a question or concern. Our managers want us to speak to them but doesn't seem to get anywhere. In one ear and out the other. Maybe its our management team and not the company itself but had I known this before I would of moved on instead of moving forward with Thomas. My location is also male dominated. We have noticed a pattern. Our retail manager doesn't seem to like women's ideas and input very much. He is very bad with people and retail is a very "people" oriented. I could go on and on but if you have read this far Thanks for that. Good luck if you move forward with this company. I hope that not all locations are like ours.

Working for Thomas Cuisine was a study in contrasts. They spent a lot of time drilling lofty concepts into the minds of their staff, but in practice, those concepts were often overridden by the realities of working at individual accounts and the actual client expectations.

They liked to say they value input and change, but in reality, input was often ignored in favor of the "we've been doing this for a long time" attitude and change was sliw to non existent.

They liked to tout things like profit sharing, but in reality, they chose to suspend that, putting your profit shares back into the corporate pool. Not for executives mind you. They do very well for themselves. For chefs and directors, the bonus program was also quite fickle.

They liked to talk about how exceptional their employee insurance was, but in reality, it wasn't affordable if you have a family and weren't at least at a Director's salary.

Speaking of pay, it was unacceptable. Always on the low end of an areas average pay for the job, always the lowest offers being made, raises were like grinding teeth to attain, and definitely barely a living wage for chefs and definitely not one for hourlies. Additionally, while a selling point is often the quality of life discussion (M-F, no weekends or evenings), in practice, that is decidedly false unless you're the one writing the schedule, and how dare you question it if you're asked to work evenings and weekends.

Because of the pay issue, there are always staffing issues at the individual accounts. Which means that in addition to not honoring QoL standards, not providing the advertised profit sharing, and the low pay, you're slso expected to do the work of several people. But, if you get overtime as a result, it's you being a terrible employee and you'll often be reprimanded. 

That's not even addressing budgets that don't match client expectations and quite a lot of other issues. 

I left Thomas Cuisine several years ago and it was unquestionably the best decision I could have made. 

Pay is decent and there are some good perks to the job, but they allow some very toxic behavior even when reported multiple times. Most of the management and coworkers are good people. However some members of management and staff will constantly find reasons to harass others even if they have to make them up the reasons. Did my clearly outlined job to completion, plus the jobs of others (also clearly defined) added on top of mine every single day. Sometimes up to 4 peoples tasks added on to my own in a day. Was praised in reviews as a model employee. Despite all this some team members and management went out of their way to create untrue reasons to harass for seemingly no good reason. When presented with foolproof evidence their harassment is unfounded, they would simply shut down all communication and continue to harass. Happened over and over even after reporting it to multiple different higher ups. I was not the only one who I witnessed this happen to.

The scheduling / work life balance can be horrendous at times. There were months when I was asked to come into work on every single day off I had. When I did not, I would simply be scheduled to work non stop even seven days in a row usually at obscene hours.

There were a few perks, such as free food and decent pay, friendly customers, you can find a sense of purpose in your work, constant room to learn, and some good coworkers and managers.

Overall, I would say it can be a decent opportunity if you are willing to put aside the negatives listed. I was not willing to based on principle.

After the COVID pandamic started the staff with Thomas cuisine at CRMC were overworked, we were promised it would be temporary and would get back to our routines and be given as much support as possible. This was a lie. My coworkers and myself have been completely overworked through the pandemic with hardly any support when working on our floors at the hospital. Our schedules are all over the place, you are constantly stressed, getting headaches, anxiety and anxiety from the thought of going to work witch i didnt have before.  I know most likely it will be a bad day for my coworkers and I evry shift i work it is very rare that we have the support we need and have good days. We have put on the duties of 3 different positions that had been eliminated and were promised these positions would be coming back, they never did a year later and no one was compensated the extra wages for the extra positions they've taken on. The only thing keeping most of the people with thomas cuisine at CRMC is having a job through the pandemic. Many have said they feel stuck here and people constantly call out just because they dread coming here for work, cooks, unit hosts, and dishwashers included. I used to enjoy coming to work and seeing my coworkers but through these hard times management has shown us time and time again they dont care about us, our well-being, or the balance of work and family like we were told and shown in the begining before the new manager came in. 

Here's the thing about Thomas Cuisine; they have an extremely radical view as to what it takes to run a company.

On a day-to-day basis, it seemed like most of their employees were "excited" to have a day off, or not have to come in to work, because the thought of having to show up was utterly draining.

The people running the company have little to no understanding of what is *actually* needed to improve their operations. They have a "lane" they are stuck in, with no signs of making any progress towards breaking free from that rut.

Mention an improvement? Nah, it's too expensive. Have ideas for how to streamline things? Never mind, everyone is too stressed out and busy to actually act on any of it.

This wasn't just at my location either. I heard stories from employees working any role from HR and Payroll to Sous Chef and Maintenance. When a majority of your employees are stressed out, over worked, under paid and constantly leaving... that's a sign you're doing it the WRONG way.

I worked under Thomas Management for 5 years prior to becoming an employee for Thomas.  I have been a Thomas employee for almost 4 years.  I fully believe in the ideals of the company and its goal to make real food.  Scratch cooking, ingredients without additives, preservatives, or other artificial chemicals.  
I enjoy educating our customers and staff about food and healthier ways to eat.  I like being in an environment that treats food and nutrition as part of the healing process.
No workplace is without its faults.  There is stress, personality, and communication issues that take place.  Sometimes this creates periods of difficulty and it can be compounded by being understaffed.  
The culture of the workplace is one that promotes understanding and accommodation for employees, patients, and staff working for and with Thomas Cuisine.   It has been the commitment to Real food and its workplace culture that has kept me with the company.

This started out as a very good job.  Good people good management.  Mostly good customers you get to know and like for the most park.  Graveyard is slow but laid back.  Supervision and Management is all but non-existent on this shift.   Started out seing management about every other week, after change in management it switched to 6 times in 1 year.   When i resigned my position i hadn't spoken to or seen a manager in just under 3 months.
Hiring a lot of young kids at my location who were there to stand around and collect a paycheck.   I was doing the work of 3 or 4 people on a regular basis with little help or response from those i worked with.Thomas is actually a pretty good place to work assuming you are in the right place and under good people.  Their HR department is unbeatable.   They have many good managers but my location became an exception.

What is the best part of working at the company?
The atmosphere in the facilities was warm and friendly while being professional.
The education while working with the staff was great!

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
Getting all of the prep work done in a timely manner when first starting.

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
That depends on the facility. Some were great and one was definitely much more difficult. The different persons and their ability to accept new people with conservative  attitudes was interesting.

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
Go in get washed, gather ingredients for the days specials, prep them and get all of the sauces made from scratch. Make pizzas per order of customers as quickly as possible. Stage the eight different toppings. Tear down, sanitize the area, put away all left over product, prep sauces and pizza dough for the next day.

I have been at this job for about six months now. My manager has been very accommodating and so have my supervisors, working with me to the best of their ability. The pay is decent and the benefits are good for sure. But when it comes to the scheduling where I work, which is a rotational schedule, for those like me it can create issues because there are no guarantees. I also feel there is not much room for advancement in the job and that a good work ethic comes and goes like the wind with fellow employees. That is not to say that my fellow co-workers are necessarily bad or anything, only that the myth that our management calls a "team" does not really exist.


Job is easy but there is too much drama that happens everyday and the people in charge doesnt bother to fix it, they will talk to people but after that it goes back to normal. They have favoritism so if you are on their team you can get away with tardiness and call outs, and people just not working and they just chat or be on their phones. This happens even if people in charge see them. Sometimes they are in it too. They dont try to correct things that are done wrong especially with food. As long as they can put something out to serve they dont care at all. Most of the time they serve rice thats half cooked and half raw and they still serve it. Food that has too much oil/grease. Too salty food. Even if doctors and nurses complain about it, they never try to fix it. People talk behind your back and snitch on you. Alot of gossiping and snitching in this place. 

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Cook 257 salaries reported	$20.46 per hour
Dishwasher 135 salaries reported	$18.10 per hour
Sous chef 51 salaries reported	$28.00 per hour
Prep cook 23 salaries reported	$20.16 per hour
Dietitian 51 salaries reported	$39.39 per hour

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