server

shift manager

chef manager

cook

chef

The Pancake Parlour

The management are weird and owners are all involved in Scientology.

The pancake parlour would have to be one of the worst places to work, especially for naive children and young adults.  

The company is involved in Scientology and is designed to take advantage of both its employees and customers.  It’s all about the money....

The venues aren’t as clean as they should be, the food handling process is unsanitary and the whole concept of the business is to make money and save money by taking advantage of their staff.  They continually cut corners by sending staff home early, instead of finishing the jobs they should get done, like detail cleaning the venue at the end of the day.  Instead they leave the venue to fester and stinking of off dairy products which haven’t been cleaned properly.  

They charge a ridiculous amount for the food and beverages they sell.  Considering the majority of their food stuffs is made from the basic ingredients like flour, water, sugar, milk, cream, fat, meats and potatoes.  The products actually have a tremendous profit margin and markup on them which make them extremely overpriced.

The company also takes advantage of using young and naive employees to save money.  Many of which are promised promotions and roles of authority as an incentive to work hard, however in most cases they are just selling them a dream.  I found most of the employees were expecting promotions to management and several were actually hired or responded to advertisements for management, yet once they begin employment they are convinced they would have to work in each area of the business for many months on end, several years in fact before they are considered and paid as a manager, yet the pay, responsibilities and title never come.  They are geniuses by advertising for management, yet once the employee begins, they are actually placed in as a normal floor member, and paid as a floor member, whether it be in the kitchen, bar or dining area.

The company strategy is to employ hard working, overvexperinced employees with a hope to reach management, yet pay them minimum wages and have them what they call “master each area of the business” before they are considered and paid for what they were initially hired to do “manage” the store, venue.

Overall it was a terrible experience.  

Oh, not to mention watching the old greasy male manager/s sleeze all over young girls.

Pancake parlour is a good place to start your journey in the FnB industry if you are willing to learn. Unfortunately, like a lot of companies, head office or upper management is very toxic. The senior managers will verbally abuse staff members. They show a lot of favouritism toward staff who knows how to sweet talk (and would get a promotion). A lot of staff members that work their hardest is seen as replacements. If something goes wrong, well we all blame it on the hardworking staff. Unfortunately, thats the culture head office has created. Staff training is always bad at pancake parlour, they don't have a set standard and pass individuals when they are pressured to pass them by head office. Head office has a quota of having individuals trained but they focused on quantity instead of quality. 

I was thankful enough to have worked with some of the best team members. Head office may have created a toxic culture but a lot of the employees made it worth while working together with them. The company doesn't protect its employees from abuse from customers. Instead they let the abuse happen on a daily. Don't get me wrong, there are some good managers but most if not all are burnt out. I have created precious memories with a lot of my colleagues and appreciated each of them dearly. From the deep bond forged when we are under pressure during a busy rush and to the quirt shifts where we just chill. 

The whole company is just walking backwards. If ever possible everyone working in head office requires replacing. The mindset they always created will forever and always be toxic. 
Casual pay is great but at the cost of unstable hours. Part time pay is bad but at least there is A/L

The company has great food and beverage items. When it comes to managing a restaurant, things get a bit full on. You are placed on a weird (less than 50 but not more than 45hr minimum contract) which increases your salary from a normal 38hr working week. In saying this, you're working an additional 364hrs per year more than any other normal working week to obtain the higher salary. 

Upper Management is under pressure by the managing director to achieve wage targets and sales targets. This can make shifts impossible to run on such short staffing levels. It also means the upper management micro-manages you to achieve these targets. 

You have no freedom as a restaurant manager, your staff roster is always changed by 'more experienced' senior leaders and when problems arise which you didn't create the accountability is 'hand-balled' to you. 

You will work EVERY SINGLE public holiday. You will work unusual shifts on the weekend, finishing at 3am and coming back in at 11am. Doing this  on a weekly basis, creates burnt out managers who can't deal with day to day operations due to the un-stable working environment and working conditions. 

In this business, unreasonable performance management and 'writing up staff' is one way they like to motivate their team. I've worked in many large companies and I've never witnessed such a derire to write staff up This creates an environment with NO job security. 

Career progression doesn't exist. If you're performing well, they will move you to a 24hr restaurant without an increase in pay as they believe "it's the same job"

Employee, beware.

Truly a terrible place to work, and I would only ever recommend working here if you are in need for quick cash or a short period job.
Due to the abysmal conditions, there is an incredibly high staff turnover rate, meaning that you will never really get to know your coworkers, and there will constantly be new people training. I'm regards to training there is no quality control, so people will be taught the wrong things, and there is no consistency. That being said all of the floor, drinks and kitchen staff are very nice, and the only problem are the people higher up.
It's very obvious that management only cares about profits. There will be times where you are rostered on for a 5-6 hour shift and be sent home after 2 hours, which is the legal minimum, because you are "not needed", and "need to keep wages down". Similarly, sometimes they will message you an hour before you are meant to start working, and tell you that your shift has been cut entirely and you do not need to come in. 
The treatment from managers and higher up is absolutely awful. They will yell at you for tiny mistakes, and treat you like garbage. Management appears to be very cliquey so trying to discuss any issues with anyone higher up does absolutely nothing and they do not appear to care.
It additionally is very obvious that they do not care about career progression, and they are very unwilling to make staff part time or full time/permanent. They also make casual staff get medical certificates or statutory declarations if you call in sick - and they say you have to do it within 48 hours or you will be reported to HR.
Truly one of the worst businesses I've ever worked for.

Initially, I was hired as a floor staff over the summer holiday. It started out really good with all the hours and high pay. However, following school holidays floor staffs sometimes only get 2 hours a shift and get sent home.

Then when I got promoted into drinks, more problems started showing up. They expect the best out of you while treating you like you're expandable. Supervisors often never work with one another and they all have their own different rules of management. This means that you keep getting into trouble with different supervisors. Also, some supervisor would reprimand you for making really bad coffee while they themselves make bad coffees. There is no standard of service as well, we often serve really bad coffees and for orange juice we often just add water to the juice if it is busy (no time to squeeze orange juices apparently cause speed is way more important than quality).

On top of that, on weekends you don't get the privilege of ordering food for your break. It's better now as they have the perks program (free food) but some supervisors would get mad at you if you order food. Even the area manager encourages all the supervisors to only put staff food when their break starts meaning that staff might not get their food on time. Thus, discouraging staff from ordering. Furthermore, the only reason the perks program was introduced in the first place was because an old staff member complained to fireworks about the harsh working conditions. 

Pros
- Good pay

Cons
- Toxic work culture
- Management 
- Working hours

After working at a few hospitality venues, this was the first workplace environment in which I wasn’t exposed to blatantly obvious outcasting, bullying or gossip. They hire very friendly staff who all respect each other and everyone works together as a team. 

There were a couple of things that concerned me, however. The management of the roster was quite inconsistent and I had worked many shifts that were cut short to only 2 hours because they had too many staff on and had to send people home. So your set times/shifts on the roster were never very reliable. 
Other times, there wasn’t enough staff at all and there was a lot of pressure put on their employees because of this and most of the time, people would be asked to stay back longer. 

Also, there is a lot to learn and there were instances where myself and other relatively new staff had to complete tasks which we’d never done before, without any prior training or demonstrations. We were just asked to do it and left alone to complete it, which resulted in us having to ask a heap of questions about said task, to other employees who were really under the pump at the time and weren’t able to provide proper demonstration. 

It would have been great to have someone available to teach in detail so there wasn’t any confusion and everything ran more smoothly. I did mention this to management before I left this job. 

The work itself is not hard, it's a regular hospitality job; but there is insane pressure on shift supervisors to meet wage targets (even to the detriment of the shift). Late night finishes were never appreciated, even if we were there until 4am cleaning up. The late night finishes were awful, and when I expressed I was getting burnt out and exhausted, the response was essentially "deal with it". There was never a shift that was adequately staffed, and I had to deal with so many casual workers crying about how stressful shifts were. 
At my location (northern suburbs), there was a never ending cycle of toxic gossip that would constantly target new people every few months, which was never addressed by management. 
The pressure on supervisors, especially more experienced ones, to do extra work was also crazy. Casual shifts were expected to be cut after only 2 hours, and the supervisor was expected to work Front-Of-House solo. 
Would not recommend this place. In my time working here, I witnessed over 4 managers get fired. Higher-ups do not know what they are doing and place way too much pressure on their teams with their constant promotions, an issue which will never be addressed as promotions (winter parlour and summer parlour, for example) brings the company so much money. 

Great place to work while you're young and confident. I find the best waiters at this place aren't lazy, juggle seating customers, running food, drinks and serving customers within the minute they sit down. It can be fast paced and stressful, but that's like any job in hospitality you just have to learn along the way and take note. 

Lovely restaurant manager at this place, always helped me out and he taught me how to handle stress at peak times and do everything the best way. His smile makes the work environment so much better. 

Casual pay for an adult is AMAZING! Especially weekends. The only downside is the hours. Some weeks you can get 3 shifts or work max hours, but the truth is it all depends on how good you are, your availabilities and peak times. This is a 24hr restaurant too so you can work some randoms hours. 

Learning the iPad can be a bit difficult. But study the abbreviations and layout, and you'll be acing it. 

Most enjoyable part of the job, is the people. Unfortunately if you don't get along with the people, it will never be enjoyable. Kitchen staff and waiters were super friendly and funny. If you're confident, have a positive attitude, you're social, fast and efficient. 
This job is perfect for you!

The company has lost track of the concept of a good management system, choosing unskilled, uneducated (in terms of management) people to lead the restaurant. This often results in many shifts that are severely undertstaffed (3-4 cooks on a very busy Friday night) causing severe pressure on the entire restaurant, or grotesquely over staffed (7 cooks on a Wednesday day). The latter often involving employees being told to go home after only 2 hours work. 

They also seem to have forgotten a golden rule of business. If you antagonise the senior workers (I.e. The workers who basically train your entire work staff) by being ludicrously unfair (yes I do understand the concept of entry level jobs and can without a doubt say this) you set the company up to fail in the long run by having a gradual exponential decay in quality of workers due to the original workers leaving.

The only plus I can say for this company is: if you're a Univeristy student with a flexible timetable, then by all means it's good for the money if you don't mind not sleeping. And they always somehow manage to hire the nicest people. 

If you need the job, take it. If not, it's not worth the headache it brings.  Glad not to be working here anymore.

Multi-tasking and ensuring high standards of food and food health and safety are met
How to work fast paced and how to communicate well with other team members when in full service
Delegating tasks to other team members
Learning new recipes and how to serve up dishes perfectly everytime
Management can often struggle to get everything to run smoothly and  perfectly as restaurants are very hectic places
Staff can get very stressed out
Co-workers are the most friendly and fun team members I have ever worked with in any job (I have worked 3 other jobs before this), they really get you through the hard days
The best part of the job is serving up good food and working with fun people who often become your friends outside of work
The hardest part of the job is the heat in the kitchen, the physical and mental stresses of time management in the kitchen, and also the monotony of the job (in other words doing the same thing many many times such as cooking the same recipes everyday, cleaning lots of dishes every shift and cleaning the kitchen itself)

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Server 6 salaries reported	$26.67 per hour
Shift manager 3 salaries reported	$28.54 per hour
Chef manager 1 salary reported	$76,515 per year
Cook 1 salary reported	$35.00 per hour
Chef 5 salaries reported	$70,500 per year

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