ice cream maker

general manager

store manager

area manager

ice cream scooper

Van Leeuwen Ice Cream LLC

This company now has investors and regional managers and a lot more money in circulation. If you're lucky enough to end up in a shop outside of Brooklyn, you likely will have a better time. The systems in place are nice. Scheduling is flexible. You give your availability and you get slotted in based on availability provided.

The main problem is the owners. The people in the office, managers and long-time employees all speak ill of them. As soon as I was hired as a barista, the current manager already seemed emotionally exhausted and fed up with the owners. She quit soon after and management was thrust upon me. I did a fantastic job and trained wonderful employees, turned the shop around and if the owners walked in and couldn't find any problems to complain about, they would still give attitude and criticize over the dust they found under a table last time they visited. They're overbearing. If any shop has a coffee spill outside behind an endless sea of bodies during the busiest time, every shop gets a memo that must be signed about patrolling for spills every 20 minutes and there must be a signature every 20 minutes and the sheets must be submitted to the delivery guys every night forever. There's a new memo almost every day. 

I was ultimately fired because of an insane employee who was working 2 jobs, showing up to work and passing out and complaining about money. I'd get in trouble for giving her overtime (at her request and approved of by owners) and she would do nothing but complain about money. Apparently, she had been sending secret emails to the owners about me to try and get my job. I was fired. She got my job. She quit within 2 months. The owners never asked me my side. It's their company. They fired me. I got unemployment without contest. This is a professional review, so without giving personal details, I will just say that the more you are exposed to the owners (which is very often) the more employees and managers become tense and tortured by their presence. 

TLDR; Make some quick money and get out before you develop anxiety issues. Smile and nod and run away to scrub the toilets if the owners walk in.

I worked here for a little over two months, which was enough for me. There are many things you’re trained on in the beginning, but many important things that you are not taught and will have to figure out for yourself or from someone else. Out of my two months working here I only worked with a manger on shift a handful of times. They also schedule solo opening and closing shifts which seem like a liability, especially in the area of the shop closing late at night (12:30 am in Boston). Not to mention the sheer amount of things you have to be responsible for when running the store, especially if you get a rush. Scooping, packing online orders, making waffle cones, waffle bowls, making the whipped cream, making the hot chocolate, ringing out customers, cleaning counters and floors, really just too many things for one person to effectively handle, especially when there are customers in front of you. It’s not fair or safe to have only one person there at a time. On the contrary there will be random times where there are 5-7 people on at once when it is dead, the schedule never seemed to make sense. The shifts are very short, I was never scheduled more than 5 hours at a time even though I had full availability on multiple days and requested more hours than I was given. Sometimes the schedule will be released the night before for the following days, which is inconvenient. They will also make random unnecessary last minute changes to the schedule, such as adding, removing, or changing shifts with no notice or communication about it. I don’t live my life around my part time ice cream scooping job, but they acted like I did. They are bad about tips as well. Several of my paychecks had tips completely withheld that I did not receive. Management was very disappointing in my time here. I found the Boston area management dismissive towards employees. This is a big part of why I switched jobs, I’m sure this plays a part in the quick turnover of employees as well. The only real pros to working here was the free scoop every shift and the other college aged workers. Overall my experience working here was very disappointing and I would not recommend to anyone looking for a job to apply here, there are so many other better places to work!

Schedule generally consists of an opening shift, mid shift, and close shift, with more scoopers on duty during mid and closing shift during the busy summer season. Job is harder than it sounds - duties include cleaning the freezer, which means emptying the front freezers of heavy tubs and scraping it down before the ice cream melts, daily 2x inventory counting, and replacing tubs in front freezers from the back freezers. Most of the job is running back in forth within a confined space to greet customers, scoop, run to the register, and looping back for the next customer. Doing this for 4+ hours straight can strain your arm and tire your legs. There often isnt even enough time to take a break but the system automatically takes one for you. Coworkers can make or break a shift. Some are helpful while others are apathetic. I would say them and the free shift scoop are the most enjoyable parts. Management varies - my last manager would blame others' mistakes on me and didn't acknowledge his workers' effort. Current one is very chill and appreciative, and hired workers who make the environment pleasant. Learned a lot about emotional regulation to deal with customers who will yell at you for scooping the flavor they ordered because they simply don't believe you that its the correct flavor. Oh, also for not taking cash at locations where its legal to refuse.

I worked here from the summer of 2019 until early 2021, the pay is weekly which is pretty solid for an ice cream serving position, the hours can be long and often worked alone.. I rarely ever saw my manager, but she was always on deck as far as staying in touch via text which was nice when I needed her.. I often didn't because the work  itself isn't really hard it can just be a lot  of work for one person. Especially since I was a closer, I often had to do juggle closing duties while still taking mobile orders until the very last minute! Literally I'd be taking orders sometimes untill 11:58pm when I'm supposed to close at 12am.. Van leeuwen is very popular, especially during summer nights



My typical day as working here was good, my first location was East Village which was fast pace, love serving customers with what we sell which was ice cream, milkshakes, sundae's which I miss doing. I have worked with some good people that were friendly and good vibes. Learned from others. Good music 

 It’s a good place to work at but at the time then when I transferred to the new location Rockefeller Center they had a new store there. So at first it was all good then we had poor management where their wasn’t no manager on duty (we hold it down plus with the team leader we had) different managers every other week, damages on store while working it was a lot to deal with plus dealing with customers but the team and I had pulled through.. 

Ever since the pandemic hit, the company wanted me and others to rush back to work when it was risky with COVID-19 which I told them not now. Ever since that I haven’t got my job back which they lost a good team player 

Very fun job at the start, but the holes appeared quickly and just keep growing.
Upper/corporate management really doesn’t seem to care much about their employees, very phony with their niceness and care.

New issues keep popping up with seemingly no effort or interest to help on corporates end, leaving shift leads to pick up the pieces more than I can tell was in their job descriptions. We’re severely understaffed because of these problems and as good as that may be for tips, it’s horrible for worker’s stress and for business overall.

We’re already having problems with stockings and supplies. Communication from upper management is HORRIBLE and blame is put on shift leads without a second thought. Policies keep changing without being properly communicated.

Fine job for the summer if you don’t mind pushing through the storm and putting yourself above the b.s, but I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone until they fix a lot of upper/internal company issues.

It’s not fair to the staff that’s keeping these shops running.

I really enjoyed working at Van Leeuwen! My manager was very kind, flexible, attentive to our needs, and overall a joy to work with. Unfortunately, partway through the summer, our manager chose to work elsewhere and the person that replaced them was much more difficult to work with. 

Aside from management, working at Van Leeuwen was very relaxed and paid well with really good tips usually. The atmosphere was really colorful and fun. My coworkers were all very kind and the customers were all pretty happy usually. 

My biggest issue was having to open and close alone, which was difficult but not impossible. When I worked there, we were able to communicate our scheduling preferences to our manager, and she was would always take them into account when making schedules. The free ice cream was also a huge bonus! After working there, Van Leeuwen will forever be one of my favorite ice cream brands, it's just so tasty!!

They fired me for missing one day out of the entire four months I worked there. Mind you, I had just finished recovering from Covid and was still super tired so I slept through the whole day not knowing I had a shift. It was my mistake but out of everything you could be strict about you choose this? Don’t even get me started on management. Managers don’t know how to maintain confidentiality, that can result in an hostile work environment with coworkers. Extremely unprofessional. Employees are expected to run the store themselves. I worked hard to keep everything clean and to have customers love me. I even get to know their names and them mine. The day I got fired I tried calling and emailing them about the sudden termination letter email I received from them. They didn’t answer either time. My manager didn’t even bother to tell me I was fired, not even a text. 

The company does not care about its workers, and they make it very clear. If you’re in a busy store, they will overwork you. They don’t give managers a fully adequate means to support their workers, but the good ones really do what they can, and it shows. There is little, if any, room for growth: they provide optimism for people who want to grow in the company, saying they’ll get promoted, and then leave them hanging for months, even years, while still expecting them to go above and beyond, and even perform duties above their pay grade at times, all the while hiring people externally for the same position being pursued.
I seldom have problems with my coworkers and the tips used to be incredible, but they’ve been decreasing over time. If you want a job on the side to make a little extra cash, this isn’t a bad choice. If you want a job where there’s room for growth, apply elsewhere.

For most of my time, there was no manager and no manager was hired. Worked solo shifts for months leading into summer where there were lines out the door and you'd serve over a 100 customers by yourself in a 5 1/2 hour shift. Hand and wrist pain developed for me and co workers over time due to the ice cream and lots of customers. Had to lift and carry very heavy tubs of ice cream and shipment boxes a lot. 
 Constant complaints about no cash payments accepted. Rude and entitled customers.
 Co Workers were wonderful and friendly. Free ice cream was a plus. Pay was great and was given a raise plus tips so made decent money but it didn't make up for the stress.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Ice cream maker 498 salaries reported	$16.58 per hour
General manager 41 salaries reported	$67,927 per year
Store manager 1 salary reported	$80,000 per year
Area manager 1 salary reported	$105,000 per year
Ice cream scooper 1 salary reported	$22.00 per hour

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