Pros
If you want to work here forever YOULL WORK EVER FOREVER but ain’t nothin gone change. Pretty much they’ll only fire you if you do something that you are unable to come back from They work with your schedule second job, horrible main job (as a host) Friendly Coworkers and environment (obviously varies upon location) Super easy, can do it in your sleep but doesn’t mean it doesn’t get stressful Days can go by super productively and easy with the RIGHT management
Cons
Pay can be sooo cruddy and hours may vary. Very hard to get raises They promise for you to move up and be trained for promotion but never follow through We went through 6 managers while working there for less than a year. I don’t mind doing things outside of my job description but it then became expected to do things EXTREMELY outside the job description such as doing servers side duties for them (dishes, taking their food out, refilling their guests drinks, bussing their tables keep in mind my duty is to just seat customers) They are over staffed yet somehow during shifts are always understaffed management try’s to spend as less on employees as they can which in turns brings horrible customer servers because three servers are serving the whole restaurant and one of those servers is also the bartender who has to make all specialty and alcoholic drinks for the whole restaurant. I found myself being a newbie training other newbies and doing it darn well but I had not been trained to train others or is it my duty that’s why they have designated trainers who are suppose to teach and observe them which they don’t cause they just said you do it. Management is a crucial part for things to go by smoothly and hiring good management needs to be done if not there are many scenarios where you can get push overs where the employees will do whatever the heck they want and you can get one where you get a straight up dictator who try’s restructure the whole psychology of the darn place and the employees and way things work and go and are which in turn creates a hot mess with employees to angry to do what you say. Servers or bartenders who have worked there for too long can get away with too much and seniority means something there and they know it so they take mean advantage and can easily steal tip money SPEAKING ON TIPS..... Hosts only get 1 percent of all the servers tips who worked during your shift which normally I wouldn’t care because if my job went how it should have my job only entailed seating customers and maintaining cleanliness for the bathrooms and hosting area but they turned me and the word hosting into a fancy then they call “doing everything everyone else doesn’t want to do” i.e. train other employees, assist the servers in taking orders when they get too busy refilling their guests drinks, bussing their tables (which is their jobs or the buss boy which they refused to hire) refilling the ice chest, having me taken off the floor to do loads of dishes and rolling silverware in the back leaving a server to seat people at the door “if they have a chance”. My butt found my self having to direct a new hired and first time bartender how to do her job SHE AINT NEVER BARTENDED BEFORE AND THEY PUT HER AS A BARTENDER SOMEONE ASKED FOR A FIREBALL WHISKEY LEMONADE (an Applebee’s specialty alcoholic drink) AND SHE POURED A SHOT OF FIREBALL AND PUT A LEMON ON TOP OF IT ARE YOU KIDDING ME? But back to the original point 1 percent of tips when you do EVERYTHING THE SERVER JOBS ENTAILS EVERYTHING THEY HAD ME TAKING ORDERS. My tips would come out to 7 dollars, 10 dollars on nights I worked my BUTT OFF BUTT OFFFFFFFFFFF meanwhile they’re pocketing 300 and I’m confused because I may not be exceptional at math but that crap don’t add up cause the servers have potential to make some money but that goes back to what I said earlier is that bartenders can get away with a little too much and too slyly especially ones who’ve been there a long time, at the end of every servers shifts they divide the percentage that is to be split between the bartender and the host and give it to the bartender to distribute to the host but I feel that the bartender was skimping the hostesses tip money.. ..... okay rant done. Keep in mind that that in mind this was just my experience. While that experience was a hot ask mess every any Applebee’s you get hired at is situational our situations can be vastly different so don’t get your hopes down but keep in mind that they can be triflin.