cook

server

restaurant manager

restaurant operations manager

maintenance technician

Waffle-House

Waffle House asks a lot of it's unit managers, and up until recently when the pay plan changed to a less lucrative one, I was willing to give what they asked.

You have a 55-65+ hour 6 day straight work week, with 2 days off.  Often times you are called and bothered by at least a few of your employees on your day off - they don't call the store for emergencies and things, they use your phone number.  If there is a holiday, expect only 1 day off.  If there is a natural disaster, don't worry - you'll be working.  I lost my days off to snowstorms more than once.  I volunteered for the disaster "Jump Team" - a response unit of managers willing to be shipped out to other states for emergencies - because I don't have kids and don't mind it too much.  Up until recently, I felt that the compensation I was receiving made up for the time I spent in the business.

A typical day you come it at 6:30, do paperwork til about 7:45, and then cook on the line until 1-2 pm.  Then change the drawer and pull food on the floor following the prep sheet that you did somewhere while you were cooking and leave the unit between 3-5 pm depending on how much food you had to pull and whether your food truck was late, etc.  Then on the weekends or the day before your day off, you come back in between 8:30 pm and 9:30 pm at least for drawer change.  There is no manager to handle night drawer changes, you assign a trusted hourly to handle this other days of the week.  But that hourly won't cover shifts if someone on 3rd doesn't show up - that's all on you.

WAFFLE HOUSE IS 24 HOURS.  YOU AS A MANAGER ARE ON CALL 24 HOURS.  I guarantee someone will call you at 3 am at least once telling you they are out of soap or something else dumb.  If there is an emergency on night shift, you have to wake up and handle it - there is no night manager, and no assistant manager to take any of the burden off of you.  Your store is completely yours, answering only to your bosses and you.

I will say I enjoyed working with most of my bosses.  Waffle House ONLY promotes from within, so at least you know your boss had to spend SOME time doing what you are doing, which isn't something you can say everywhere.  That being said, there are bad managers everywhere - when I first started, I worked 3 triples in a row - yes, 72 hours straight - and my district was working 3rds in other units as well.  Our division, instead of helping us or handling or EVEN REPORTING TO HIS UPLINE about the situation went to a wedding.  In fact, the division instructed me as a new manager to give the guy that stood me up on 3rd the first two days another chance.  So the guy didn't show up a 3rd day (big surprise), and my district was working thirds elsewhere, and I caught pneumonia.  And our division was drinking with his friends.  I got an extra day off that week, and a call from our Area Vice President apologizing that the situation hadn't been uplined and handled properly.  Still had to work while recovering from being dead sick for the next two months.

Back then the pay plans for managers were decent, our actual salary isn't much - it's supposed to be supplemented by bonuses that we work to hit based on the unit's numbers.  Once upon a time, you could still make decent profits by running good food cost/payroll/etc. and get bonuses that way.  Now, the biggest bonus is sales being up or down.  So if you are in a high daily average unit that is a hundred dollars below the target number... you don't get a large chunk of your check.  No matter if the unit is run well.  No matter if the rest of the numbers are good.  Now that's all fine and dandy, but when the pay plan changed, and multiple managers were making $800 or less checks every two weeks nothing was done.  Upper management's reaction to this was basically "tough."  This is less than some of our cooks and salespeople who work 40 hours a week.  I decided to look for other employment after the first such paycheck was shrugged off.  Maybe they'll adjust the pay plan or something before I find something and all will be fine again.  But if I work 60+ hours, I expect to be paid like it.

I was immediately taken by the chance to avoid an office setting, where you are constantly sitting and your back begins to ache. If you  are looking for a management position and cannot stand being in the same building for eight hours a day, this could be your way to go. My particular position required constant movement; I began visiting six stores throughout the week for the the first four months then was granted seven additional stores. In the end, I had fourteen stores under my wing after acquiring an additional one in my final month. You get to meet a wide variety of personalities, not just in the stores but also in the surrounding communities, a large essence of the job. I still remember most of my co-workers names and their particular stores and the unity and challenges that came with them. They encouraged a family environment, which worked most of the time but like in any company, not everyone got along. 

However, I put at least 40,000 miles on my car in one year and ultimately had to cart it to the junkyard despite the continuous maintenance. The company offers management positions a compensation package where they help pay for some of the maintenance bills acquired by the car. This sounds like a fair deal at the beginning but in reality, they reject the bigger bills. After 100,000 miles you are on your own. They pay for gas, oil, tires (not labor), and some minor changes to your car that they have to authorize. Unfortunately, my bigger bills started to pour in from the start, having already reached 140,000 miles and having a high maintenance car. Other co-workers mentioned having bought a brand new car and easily reaching 100,000 in two to three years. So, if purchasing a new car every few years is in your budget, then you should have no problem. Because once your car dies, your job can easily go with it. 

Please keep in mind though that the areas I visited had very few Waffle Houses close together. It could take an hour just to reach the closest Waffle House in my particular area. So the car issue is more prominent in more rural areas where Waffle Houses are a lot more scarce. Plus, they may have changed the system since I was last there.

Another topic that I would like to mention is the constant change of management and the lack of communication to the managers. I had three different direct bosses during my year, the first moving after I had been in the position for two months. I didn't require too much supervision since I was usually out and about but I sometimes wasn't aware of a manager's departure. One complaint I heard from veteran mangers was the lack of communication when upper management left. Many people were taken by surprise when I showed up and were under the impression that the former HRS was still employed. The lack of communication on not just this, but route changes, and other important areas caused some chaotic messes that could have been avoided. Hopefully, since this problem was noted during my tenure, it has lessened. 

Despite these issues, I have to attribute my growth and new-found knowledge to Waffle House and this particular position. I learned to tailor my personality to the people I met and to push myself to be better. I also had a small shy problem that I overcame quickly in order to be successful. I will also thank the big Waffle for making me the person that I am today and arming me with the biggest weapon in business today: knowledge. 

If you have an outgoing and persuasive personality, a problem staying in one place, and a reliable car, this could be the place for you. Me, well, I'm ready to sit in an office and stay in one place.

The fellow workers /other employees that have been there longer and have more training talk and gossip with the managers ALOT I have all together 10 years experience working for waffle house and what I love about my job are my customers I meet alot of different people that are awesome people and I learn from there conversations that we have about aot of things it's very interesting to me a d exciting. And I love to give them the best customer service always ! That is most important  to me as because now and days in different retail and other restaurants etc....I have experienced a severe lack of the employee not caring about the customer and even being rude and unhelpful and it just burns me up that society has allowed this type of environment to take place in businesses what happened to the customer is always right and what happened to the values and morals on the job being helpful and assisting the customer with all their needs in a good attitude.also remembering their fact that the customer is the reason they have a paycheck .that's what era of time I come from and I still have that built and established in me at every place I ever worked at but waffle house has changed among years fro. When I first started working with them back in 96' to now I have experienced alot of favoritism among employees and managers ..I have seen alot of drama on the job people fighting and talking cursing and even refusing to serve customers even tho a customer has not caused any reason for this .I have seen alot of gossiping about fellow employees behind their backs telling customers about their personal business and downing,them to other customers I have seen the people who are ahead in their positions that have to deal with others who are new or fairly new treat them like they are less important and are short tempered when dealing with them they bragg about there positions as tho they have always been in that position and never was a beginner to waffle house .these ones that are like this literally huddle around the managers offices just so they can gossip about other employees even ones at other locations that they have worked with ...this happens so much now I actually have made a little name for it I call it ...THE WAFFLE HOUSE CLICK HUDDLE ...well that's just what it is too u have ones that will have certain ones they,get with and are nice too and joke with and gossip to about others and u have ones like me that love everybody make more tips than most and even when,ppl,show up for work in bad mood or have attitude from personal life I put up with it and deal with their mean demeanor towards me and customers I keep a smile on my face and push past the bad vibes they give I just remember the good ol'days when people still had morals and values and appreciation for the  customers as well as fellow employees what has happened in waffle house idk but I myself refuse to join the crowd in that aspect and that's why I guess I dont have many friends on the job because I dont participate in drama and gossip and I refuse to let any of my customers suffer because of that or anything else ....guess that's why the customers pull up see if I'm working and if I'm not they will leave ...several has told me that ...and told me why they do that,..they say because all the other workers ain't as friendly,as I am and they mess up their orders and when they tell them that their order was wrong they get attitudes and even flat out just dont care and charge them,for the,mess up anyways and dont fix the problem,..
That is my experience in 36 years that I have been working,since I was 13 yrs old and the last 15 yrs it has been getting worse and worse with all I said well as for me ....I'm bucking the situation and refuse to change my way to suit them ...I care about the customer and that's the bottom,line. ....period.

For managers, we go in at 6:30am and get out around 3:30/4:00pm we have to work 6 consecutive days before we get 2 days off. Now, 3 days a week you are required to come back to work around 8:30pm until 9:30pm for shift change. If everything is going well and nobody calls off or decides not to show up you may be able to get out at the 9:30pm range however, If it's chaotic and or people don't show you could be stuck there all night. The shift supervisors can't do shift change so as I said 3 nights a week once your day shift is done you can't go home and wind down, you just wait because you know you have to go back. Not only does it keep you from doing certain things like if you wanted to take your spouse to dinner but it also uses twice as much gas 3 days a week. The order process is much more difficult than necessary.  There are no tickets or screens to tell you the orders. You have to memorize what multiple servers are calling out and to know what you have to cook they do something called marking the plates which is a waste of time and product. They use packets, cheese, and raw hash browns to indicate which plate is which. To call out an order is a lot less productive and more confusing than it should have to be. Instead of calling out " I need an all-star breakfast with sausage, hash browns scattered, and a blueberry waffle" you have to say " pull one sausage" then the grill operater once sausage is dropped will call out " drop" then the server would say " drop one hash brown scattered" then the cook will say " mark" and then the server can tell you what the plate is. When it's busy it's hectic and less efficient. " Pull one bacon 2 sausage " " drop 4 hash browns scattered" " mark order over light plate, hash browns scattered, smothered, covered, waffle on 2 like 1 make 1 pecan. On 2 like 1 means the person wants 2 waffles or 2 on the same plate. Instead of saying " I need an order over light, has browns scattered smothered covered sausage and 2 waffles make one pecan which would be more efficient and easier for the cook to remember. Tickets would be best and far more accurate. You can't hold ingredients either so if somebody orders a fiesta omelette no tomato, you can't call to the cook " I need a fiesta omelette no tomato " you have to say " I need an omelette ham, peppers, onion, cheese ' which again is against everything you do to make a kitchen efficient a kitchen needs to be as efficient and accurate as possible. It's also a bit dirtier than I'd imagined and the company trust no one. The dry storage, walk in cooler, and freezer stay locked when the manager leaves along with towels and aprons. Managers have to do a pull at 2 pm and hope you didn't miscalculate because if they happen to run out of grits or hash browns or use more of a product that predicted then they are just out until 6:30am the next morning. Managers have blackout days for holidays which is fine but every holiday is a blackout day even ones like labor day so you're not allowed to be off on those days. Why can't they keep staff.....

I will say I really liked this job. I made a couple of good work friends I will call family. I worked 3rd shift server role and sometimes 2nd. I will say if you're going to do this job, don't get tricked into doing 3rd shift as a server. You don't make as much money as you think you will. 1st or 2nd shift is where the money is at. Most 1st shift workers are the ones who earned that spot. They are the vets of waffle house. Been there for years. So good luck getting 1st as a server. 2nd shift is amazing money as well. You are better luck at getting that shift. As a server you will have to understand, 1. Dont be late 2. Dress the code 3. You can't have nails (false nails) 4. Your hair is going to be up (doesn't matter who you are). Shift times are 1st : 7am-2pm 2nd: 2:00pm-9:00pm, 5:00pm- 9pm 3rd: 9:00pm- 2am, 9:00pm-7:00am. Don't come in thinking you get to make your time say 11:00pm-6:00am. The times are right there and they don't accept anything else. It's a system and there is a reason the times are that way. Lateness is only 7 minutes after the set time. That's your grace period. They will tell you to show up 10 minutes before your shift. But never clock in 10 minutes before your shift. You will get flagged that way. You can work as many hours as you like being a server. Just talk to management first at the interview. Every waffle house is also different. Some go by the book and others are more relaxed. Drama is extremely present at every single waffle house. I don't care what anyone says. You will face drama. It's like high-school but worse. Don't date or do anything with management. It puts you in a deep rabbit hole. The horror stories I have heard (they will try). Try your best not to date in waffle house. It starts a lot of drama. Just keep to you, make a couple of friends you trust, don't speak on anyone, do your job, make your bag and leave. A lot of people need to know this before working here. Also, your food is already taken out of each check. You can't reverse this. It's $3 per day. So enjoy some waffle house food. Doesn't matter if you eat the food that day or not. Servers get paid $3.25 per hour + tips. Training is $12.25 an hour and no tips. Cooks get paid $15 per hour starting off, master cook is $15 to $16 per hour, master cook + supervisor is $15 to $17 per hour, Rockstar cook is $17 per hour, management (know how to cook at rockstar level, they do train managers how to cook) $19+ per hour starting off. You also don't get breaks. You will hardly sit down. The tips are amazing if you know what you are doing. Keep the restaurant clean, that helps your tips. When customers are present be up cleaning and being attentive. It helps your tips. Don't be the person that leaves a mess for the next shift. It will cause problems. That hotline for complaints takes you cery seriously. Dont be afraid to use it if youre ever uncomfortable or put in a bad situation. Overall, if you want to work here.. good luck! It's good but awful. 

Working for Waffle House is all about team work, with your crew and the crews that come before and after you. It is a small work environment with less than 20 in house employees, so people must get along in order to run the restaurant the way the customers deserve it to be ran.Our manager was only on the first shift of the day from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. leaving the other two shifts to manage themselves. The way Waffle House is ran is based on performance. If everyone is doing what they are supposed to do (being on time, passing inspection, keeping things stocked, watching food cost, making sure we are staffed, and making sales) then the manager and cooks receive bonuses. So everyone staying on top of there game is very important because we care about one another and we all want to make money.
I worked the third shift from 9 at night to 7 in the morning. I would typically come in 15 minutes before my shift started to assist 2nd shift in changing out their register, dropping their sales in the safe, and finishing any end of shift duties while they closed out their last tables. Then I would get started on getting the store the way I liked it to be: checking the restrooms for cleanliness, changing out all of the cleaning buckets, setting up the dish sink, wiping down the counters and tables, and helping the cook stock her station.
There are only 3 employees on my shift: the cook, myself, and another salesperson that would leave after 4 to 5 hours. My shift workers and I always had a great time, even if the night was slow we would clean and laugh till we cried several times a night. This is and the regular customers are what I enjoyed most about my job. 
The hardest part about my job was the time that it kept me from my son. At the time I chose to work 3rd shift I was a full time student, full time employee, and single mother. It was really convenient to work at night, go to school or sleep during the day and have my evenings with my son but he would have to sleep at my mothers in order for this to work. 3rd shift was also the money shift and you worked 10 hours a night, meaning u only needed to work four nights to get your hours. Now that i have finished my degree i would really enjoy a day time job so that my son can have a more stable lifestyle.
My time at waffle house taught me amazing customer service skills, time management, responsibility, leadership, independence, and team work. Not to mention the trust, loyalty, and honesty that goes into running a 24 hour restaurant that depends so much on the employees with very little management involvement.

What is the best part of working at the company?
I know this asks for a singular answer, but I'll give it in two-parts -

The best parts of working at Waffle House, for me personally, were

a.) Employee's individual levels of motivation, determination, punctuality and even independent struggles and problems in their lives were always appreciated and considered

and

b.) All of the staff/management/co-workers that I worked alongside were authentic, genuine, and diverse

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
For myself, the most stressful part of working at Waffle House was that I struggle with social-anxiety, so in a high-volume restaurant with a fast-paced turn-around, I was constantly having to engage with new faces. I did my best, however, and got more comfortable at it.

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
In my personal experiences, the environment was metaphorically and literally a night-and-day difference - where the morning and day shifts were typically a variation of the weekday crowd being your people on their way to work/older folks/people on lunch-break, and Saturdays/Sundays typically being your families out enjoying weekend R&R/church-goers

Whereas night-shifts, with no limitations on the day of the week, could be expected to be a much more lively bunch. You would want to have a good mixture of thick-skin and humility for late-night shifts haha

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
It has been about two-and-a-half years since I worked for Waffle House, but I'll do my best to give a close representation of my shifts. I would usually arrive anywhere from 30-45 mins early so I could cook my own employee meal and enjoy it without having to stop another employee from their task-at-hand (although they were almost always happy to help and cook it for me). Once I'd finished eating and catching up with everybody (genuinely checking up on my co-workers but also getting an idea of which tasks needed the most immediate attention), I would clock in, wash-up and jump into the aforementioned tasks (in that order, because I could assume another employee's hands had just come in contact with the time-punch). These tasks could be anything from cutting onions/tomatoes/veggies etc. to making tea, cleaning up the dish-pit, cashing-out customers, seating tables, brewing coffee, sweeping/mopping the dining-room or kitchen, running trash, making waffle-batter (which does sometimes include making myself a waffle), cleaning bathrooms and a few other things I'm certain I'm forgetting, all the way down to just hanging out until my first customer walked in.

As a grill operator you are expected to prep, clean, organize, stock, manage, and all while cooking multiple orders.
You do not get a timed break unless you smoke, to which you can say you're going to smoke. You are allowed to eat whatever you'd like as long as it is not a Major Meat (Steak, porkchop, chicken) to which you will pay at an employer's discounted price. 
The pay raises for Grill ops is a nice incentive to learn quickly and get better at your craft. But it ultimately depends on if management believes you are improving. 
1st shift does not do much prep unless they need something made for their shift like chili, gravy, grits. They really only cook the morning rush and go home. Since the start of my career, I have been left with a dirty kitchen more times than I have a clean one. As soon as I get to work I put an apron on, get my glove size, clock in, and immediately begin to clean up 1st shifts mess while trying to restock the cold bar they do not refill, cook my own shifts orders for customers, make chili and gravy because I do not have any for my orders and then after an hour or two of doing that I can finally begin to do my own work. 
2nd shift does all of the prep besides grits and onions. They cook lunch & dinner rushes, clean the backroom (I did but not all do), kitchen, rotate, and restock produce. I've heard horror stories of 2nd shift cooks not completing their work and 3rd shift walks into a mess to which they have to do what I did daily to clean after 1st. 
3rd shift preps Gritz and onions and deals with a majority of the rowdy customers. They cook bar rushes, people who have left the bar and go out to eat, and in the early morning hours, they cook the Early Bird rush which is mostly workers who come in to get their breakfast and coffee before work. I have heard that the 3rd shift can be just as busy as the 1st and sometimes everything will not be done when the 1st shift comes in. 
When I began working there it was a fairly rewarding job and I had a nice sense of community among my coworkers, we felt like a family and teamwork was a big part of our day. But the company did not handle the pandemic as well as I believed they could and we lost a lot of great workers due to that. The people who have stayed have lost their spirit for the work, including me. I do not blame them nor anybody who has quit. All locations are very understaffed and management will do anything to keep the stores open even if it is a mess. 



I started working at the Waffle House in March 2014. While the order calling is outdated, I caught on quickly. However the job is harder than it seems, and poor management, lazy coworkers, and drunken, unruly customers made it worse.
The promise of wage compensation when tips did not meet minimum wage and the benefits stated would have been a good thing, had those promises been met. My tips rarely matched minimum wage, and never was I reimbursed for this, nor was anyone I knew. It is hard enough to live off of minimum wage when you want more than anything to go to college, let alone less than minimum wage. 
As for co workers, most of the time I enjoyed working with them. There were a few individuals employed that did not know what they were doing, did not want to learn, and slowed everyone down. There was even an employee that had been caught stealing tips on camera and sleeping a lot, but she was kept on for whatever reason. 
Customers would come in on night shift drunk and loud, and would be allowed to come in despite policy. They were rude and never satisfied, and some very obscene. 
Management had a habit of treating employees like dogs, and one example is why I quit. Upon needing a sick day (stomach virus) I called in 9 hours before my shift which was more than most people did. I was informed by the manager that if I called in he would "hate to be a headhunter but would have to let me go" and that he had "fired a girl for calling in that morning." I told him I was unable to go to the doctor since I could not afford another huge bill when all they could do is send me home and tell me to rest. I did not have insurance since he informed the new people on day shift about filling out  their insurance but not the people on night shift. I did not appreciate the subtle threat nor the subtle insult to my immaculate work ethic, so I quit. He then continued texting me after I told him my decision trying to scare me into staying (saying I could never work at a Waffle House again etc) The little amount of money is not worth the constant stress nor the lack of respect.

A typical work day would start with me being the only one in my store knowing how to be on time and then the other first shift servers either not showing up at all or hours late to their shift. I learned a lot on how not to run a restaurant . Management is a mess there. they do not communicate at all with each other.  They make you feel like you need to pick up slack for the other servers that are not quite as good at their jobs. Management also expects you to work double shifts and gets mad when you tell them you have a family life. your family life make no difference to them as long as they have a body in the store. you do not get great tips there unless you sit and talk to the customers. and that isn't always a comfortable experience. The regulars there seem to prefer the servers that know them and know their order by heart and would get annoyed when a new employee tried to take their order. The calling an order system gets confusing without an expediter and you really only had one when things got busy on Saturday and sundays. you are forced to recall an order if the cook cannot follow directions and even if you call anorder just right you cannot ever rely on cooks to drop your waffles. When it was slow the cooks felt no need to actually drop waffles instead we were forced to. I am not a fan of waiting tables abusing them and doing dishes, again this comes down to picking up someone else's slack. there were multiple occasions where girls would go out for smoke breaks  and lave piles of dishes not caring wether they were done or not.  Non smokers were not given such leancy with breaks. a non smoker could go take a break in the back and check their phones and would get yelled at for being on the phone not even on the floor. As a non smoker my breaks were cut short because I had been seated in my section but a smoker was free to sit out side and smoke while someone else took care of their table and they came back in and collected the tip. management does absolutely nothing to control sitiuations like this. Hardest part of the job was having to deal with the people that worked there that seemed completely ok with the dysfunction they have been handed. There really wasn't an enjoyable part of the job except getting to go home at the end of a very long and frustrating shift.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Cook 25 salaries reported	$14.34 per hour
Server 29 salaries reported	$14.84 per hour
Restaurant manager 11 salaries reported	$59,349 per year
Restaurant operations manager 3195 salaries reported	$75,293 per year
Maintenance technician 350 salaries reported	$31.72 per hour

Working at Waffle House: Company Overview and Reviews

Waffle House

Waffle House Ratings

Popular jobs at Waffle House

Salary Satisfaction

Job Seeker Tools

Employer Tools

Browse

Stay Connected