server

line cook

host/hostess

sous chef

bartender

wagamama

I worked as a server in the midtown location in NYC for about 5 months. The positives of Wagamama is that you are likely to get hired by them because they will seemingly hire anyone, and the coworkers are nice people that are easy to get along with. Besides that, I don't have much good to say about Wagamama. 
Far too much is expected of the Servers and especially the Bartenders. They don't have bussers, nor expos, nor designated hosts, nor designated employees for to go orders, yet they are located in midtown Manhattan and often get a high volume of customers. All of those jobs fall on the servers so you are constantly stressed and the money you make does not reflect the amount of work you are required to put in at all. 
Management is disorganized and does not listen to their employees feedback.  While I worked there, there was a one or two week period where there were no managers in the restaurant because there was a scheduling mistake or something and the restaurant had to be run by the supervisor that they had left to fend for themself. One manager in particular treated the restaurant like their personal play house and would appear to do whatever they wanted. This manager would talk for so long to their friends that would come in to dine even if we were in desperate need of assistance, they would give free food or discounts to people but only when they felt like it, and they handled stress very poorly. This manager would talk down to you or even yell at you if you came to them with an issue while they were stressed. One time there was an issue with a to go order that had nothing to do with me, but I was the poor soul who discovered the issue and this manager basically kept yelling at me to fix it even though I had no idea how to fix it. Towards the end of my time at Wagamama I found it difficult to be in the same room as this manager and it made working there harder.
Any technology used at Wagamama simply did not work. We had tablets for taking orders that you could not sign into. In my time there, the managers claimed that they had the tablets fixed but I was never able to use them except for maybe 3 of my shifts. We had a separate device used for customers to pay their bills. This device was incredibly frustrating. It would always print 3 copies of the bill which you simply do not need. It was a waste of paper and it required you to change the paper in the device way too often. The devices couldn't hold a charge so you constantly have to put them back on the chargers. They would jam or break constantly, and they would disconnect from the network randomly and you couldn't use them. Also the elevator worked for maybe a grand total of a month in the 5 months that I worked there. This is a huge issue when your bathroom is located down a huge flight of stairs and not all of your customers are capable of walking up and down that.
The Wagamama brand was extremely frustrating to deal with and held the restaurant back from functioning. Wagamama gives every customer a paper placemat that immediately gets thrown out when the customer leaves and is then replaced by a new one. This is yet another huge waste of paper, is so unnecessary, and makes turning over a table even longer than it already was due to not having a busser and the poor layout of the restaurant. Wagamama also has big long communal tables that nobody likes. Strangers don't want to sit elbow to elbow with one another. Customers would constantly push to get one of the 6 booths in the restaurant. Wagamama has no timing system for the kitchen to send out appetizers before entrees. The brand cleverly sweeps this issue under the rug by calling them "shareables" instead of appetizers and then the managers stress to the servers before every shift to explain this to every customer.  I don't know how accepting of this people are in Europe but this does not work in the U.S. People expect appetizers to come first. It does not matter what you call them. Servers would constantly have to hear people complain about this, even if you warned them how the restaurant operates.  Entrees wouldn't ever come out all at the same time either which lead to more customer complaints that the Servers have to deal with. Wagamama also gives each menu item a seemingly random  number. Servers are required to memorize all of these numbers in order to put orders into the computer. This is an unnecessary extra step and it wastes everyone's time and confuses customers because they think the numbers are the prices of the menu items. Servers were also required to write these numbers down on customers' placemats. I had a huge issue with this because you had to reach across customers to do this and it felt very rude. The point of writing these numbers down on the placemats was so that someone running the food to the table could see exactly what each individual guest ordered so they could simply place the food down in front of them. That's a fine plan except for the fact that customers often covered these numbers and you would have to auction off the food to them anyway just like in literally every other restaurant ever. It takes much longer to write those numbers down than it takes to ask who got what, so I simply never wrote the numbers down and took the heat for it instead.
All in all working at Wagamama was a miserable and frustrating experience to say the least. I tell friends and current coworkers all the time about Wagamama and how poorly it was ran. I have to imagine that it will be the worst job I will ever have. Oh and the food isn't even good.


So, wagamama. Probably the simplest way to explain the issues would be to call it waga drama. In front of customers, most everyone was smiles and professional enough in a "the show must go on" kind of way. But behind the scenes it was one of the most dysfunctional work environments I've ever been in. I was absolutely shocked by how frequently a workplace struggled just to pay its own workers. In the time I was there, pay issues were the number one reason people would quit of their own accord, with mismanagement and just general chaos near every day being a close second.

When everything ran smoothly the pay potential could be good, but when it didn't it was a mess. A certain amount of it was probably the workers' fault, but a major mass quitting event happened when pay was a week late and some workers got late fees on paying their rent. Some people could claim well they should have budgeted or saved better yadda yadda, but to me the more clear mismanagement comes into play where a month on, practically NONE of those positions were filled. It was a really common theme that by some internal metrics, they'd claim we were either appropriately staffed or overstaffed despite woeful understaffing some days and just outright nonsensical scheduling other days. Scheduling and pay were CONSTANT issues that didn't get fixed for months, and when workers would raise issues to managers they'd mostly just get shrugs in return, or promises to be better without any actual follow-through. 

By the time I left at the end of my two weeks' notice, 85% of combined front of house staff and managers had either left in just about four months, or were planning to leave as soon as they could find alternative work. It's difficult to even list and explain all 300 things that were consistently dysfunctional. It was rare (but not unheard of) for there to be major unsolved problems, but just day in day out there were bad inefficiencies that burnt out most of the staff. Things got so absurd that when managers were leaving I'd want to bluntly ask "so why should we workers lower in the hierarchy stay?" and we got no answers or just sympathy about also wanting to leave. While I didn't know all the details I was also privy to constant in-fighting and frustration among all the management staff. While some issues were from the bottom up of just not particularly good workers (some who quit and some who were fired), it was mostly top down dysfunction and things persistently being let slide when they really shouldn't have been. My location ended up needing to bring in an entirely different general manager from out of state for crisis management and hired 10+ front of house employees all at once in like a week to make up for woeful understaffing / others intending to quit.

The only positive I can really say is that the food quality was quite good, and the job initially wasn't bad when I didn't yet know how things would end up. For the most part the customers were alright and there weren't too many issues, most were reasonable with few horror stories. But outside of that there were basically constant horror stories about front of house issues and behind the scenes operations. In all the jobs I've ever worked I've never seen a place so dysfunctional and it's a borderline miracle it wasn't shut down by the health inspector or something like that.

I worked for wagamama for a few months and trust me that's all it took for me to decide it wasn't the job for me. Firstly they begin with all these promises, for example it's easy to climb the ladder and become a line chef, that's true if they like you, if they don't you're stuck being a kitchen Porter and just a kitchen Porter. 

My jobs included washing the dishes, taking them on to the line, taking out the bins, washing and placing the rice in the oven, bagging noodles and brushing the line floor, so as you can imagine on a busy day it was not fun at all especially if you were on your own. 

As I mentioned before there was a lot of favoritism, it wasn't a case of if you could prove yourself you could move up, no not in the slightest. 

They're were a few managers that were a bit unprofessional and would give you tasks on the clean down while they sat in the office and then complain certain things hadn't been done properly or they would just boss you around and tell you to get things because they were too lazy and this was on the close down. one manager even came up to me and smashed a bowl infront of me because it had a hole in it and of course I had to clean it up. I was also threatened to be fired for bumping into somebody while taking out some plates.


The hours are very unsocialble and if you've got an inspection coming up, be prepared to stay till 2 in the morning. 

Eventually I handed in my notice as I had found another job. To then receive a letter 3 days after I had already finished saying that I had been fired.

I'm not saying every restaurant is going to be like this, this was just my experience.

I worked for Wagamama for like 3 years. I made a bunch of money because the tips were always really good. That’s because I worked in a rich and busy area. Careful which location you choose! I worked at Prudential center in Boston. 
Shifts were usually long and grueling. I would be tired, smelly and in a bad mood when each shift was over but the money made it worth it to me. I was in college and needed it. 
Just like with any restaurant, there was a lot of petty drama and most the managers were not good at handling it. There were only 2 good managers at my location and the rest were either useless or played favorites. Also some managers had inappropriate relationships with staff. Again.. most restaurants you’ll have this stuff. Yikes!
Good news is if you’re a person who likes working extra shifts/ over time they are not stingy with it at the busy locations cause they need as many workers on as possible. It gets SLAMMED and as long as you can quickly get through tables while providing amazing service you’ll make FAT tips. 
For example: my last summer there I was able to save up like $10,000 for my move to california. 

Also! No worries if you have tattoos, piercings or crazy hair! They actually love that stuff and I respect them for it. 

Started off great but realised that the work load is more stressful than the pay. Foh would push certain dishes to be done quicker and do other dishes at the same time and expect the dishes to be a high standard when your under alot of stress Staffing is such an issue always under staff both boh and foh. They also push you to hurry up with cleaning at the end of the night because they're cutting hours and expect everything to be in top shop clean. BOH managers are so rude when they're under stress or busy and will shout at employees every now and then. When training on new sections in the kitchen you get trained 2 or 3 days then suddenly puts you there in the busiest time is honestly the weirdest thing cause on someday being under staff you get pushed to the bring of just walking out. I just feel like boh and foh have different agendas and there's no such thing as one team it's feels very divided and I've worked in 2 different branch.

There's so much issues not enough time. But some of the people you work with make it bearable especially when some of them have the passion for being there and honestly they don't get paid and recognise enough for they're hard work. Food is good you can have what ever you like or cook your own meal.

From the start, Wagamama was really unorganized. The training for the new opening was a mess, I worked for almost a month at Wagamama under 'training' but was a actually serving tables for about 2 weeks of that month, meaning I didn't get tips for the whole first month I started. After finally being 'signed off' to serve, I was given obnoxiously large sections that were not seat according to rotation, aka I had sometimes 8 tables at a time while someone else's section was completely empty. After all that work, tips were pooled so those who had barely been sat got to reap the benefits of my constantly full section. 

Management was a mess, primarily the cause of everything in the restaurant becoming an ordeal. Often times, my hours weren't reported correctly because of them, I wasn't given my tips in the tip pool because they skipped my name, or they just straight up ignored request for time off, or even ignored the availability you were hired with. They had lots of tiny rules and ways of micromanaging us, while spending time chatting up the other managers and doing other unhelpful stuff. 

I really enjoyed my coworkers, that's why I stayed. But through that time, I was put through a lot of stressed and demand. If your looking for a well paid serving job, don't choose Wagamama.

I previously worked at the Seaport location ( now closed ) ,and made some awesome money there in the beginning. This is a great place to start serving without experience since they really work with you in training . I believe it takes a few weeks for you to be thrown onto the tip pool , and then you split your tips evenly with the other servers. The money can be good if you're at a very busy location , like prudential . The seaport location really tried to promote and market to the best of their ability , so spending your mornings walking around outside giving out free samples and coupons was a regular occurrence . The best part of the job is the training . They train you to host , serve , bartend , and food run . If you spend enough time here you really leave with a pretty good grasp on how restaurants run .  

Here's a brutally honest review based on your experience:

---

This job was, without a doubt, the worst experience I've ever had. From the very beginning, it was clear that the organization had no intention of providing a functional or clean work environment. The place was filthy when I arrived, and it became painfully evident that nothing was ever going to be fixed or improved. 

The lack of support from upper management is staggering. They swoop in, point fingers, and seem more interested in assigning blame than actually addressing the issues at hand. It’s incredibly stressful to be held accountable for problems that you simply don't have the resources to solve. The atmosphere is toxic, with an overwhelming sense of being set up to fail rather than supported to succeed.

If you're considering this job, think twice. The lack of maintenance, the absence of support, and the blame game culture make it a nightmare. Save yourself the hassle and look elsewhere.


I always looked forward to go to work as a typical day of work is filled of so much fun and things to achieve.
This was my first job as a manager and I learned every single detail of being a good manager from here. One of the main things I learnt and will always remember is MBWA( Management by Walking Around). A great concept to have in a restaurant.
Management wwas pretty supportive and always giving you chance to proceed further.
Co-workers were excellent, we all wored as a team and it never felt that we are actually at work because the team berries, the games and argets that we used to acheive each shift were so much involving and energising, and it was all happening amidst of lovely customers.
Hardest part of the job was the timings and double shifts that we sometimes had to work, but it was all part of job and we learned to be more responsible.
Th emost enjoyable part of the job was interacting with people and having conversations with them and involving customers in your daily activities sometimes.

Wouldn't start work too early around midday usually where there is a lunch rush. Sometimes wouldn't start at rostered time but later only depending on flow of customers. Inconsistent rosters days/times. Head office management are reliable and so helpful. The hardest part of the job is staying on your feet constantly for long hours, having to keep smiling and give great customer services at the same time but break times can also be up to 3 hours long in between shifts. The workplace environment without a doubt is fun! If you like and can handle a fast paced work environment you'll love it!

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Server 5 salaries reported	$16.40 per hour
Line cook 13 salaries reported	$18.17 per hour
Host/hostess 14 salaries reported	$16.75 per hour
Sous chef 6 salaries reported	$58,633 per year
Bartender 3 salaries reported	$15.33 per hour

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