Applebee's reviews

Downsides: management. In my time at Applebee's, I had 6 different managers (they liked to shuffle managers from one successful location to another failing one). If you get bored easily, this is not the job for you. Most of the time, my coworkers were texting or hanging out in the back room (kitchen). Hosts were overworked, and servers were underworked. As a host, I cleaned the bathrooms, kid seats/chairs, tables, trashcans and trash, restocked mints/crayons/jiob apps, swept the floor, bleached toilets, you name it, I did it.

The cons outweigh even a big paycheck, sorry to say. The culture is toxic. Almost no one enjoys working here, which is tough to face day in and day out. The work force has been cut back so badly that we are all doing more than one job. (Proportionally, we're underpaid.) But it's not the long hours and lack of work-life balance that gets most people. It's the culture. It's very hierarchal, with random decisions being made from the parent company, DineEquity. Dine does an incredibly poor job of communicating anything to Applebee's. As a result, roles are not clearly defined. Allegiances shift constantly because the entire workforce is always unsure what the direction is on any given day. A lot of wasted work happens at the parent company and Applebee's. Very, very frustrating.