Pros
The first 2 years that I worked at Caribou, I LOVED it! Very fun atmosphere, met a ton of great people (both co-workers and customers) from the community, and loved the work itself. Was promoted in less then a year, received yearly raises, and great benefits. Received great communication from management, was frequently praised and recognized for my contributions and hard work for the company. Additionally, Caribou is committed to now serving all Rainforest Alliance-certified coffee and has made consistent efforts to be more 'green' and give back to the community. I appreciate their efforts in this area.
Cons
Management within my district took a significant downturn in the last year that I worked there. Saw a number of excellent store managers, shift supervisors, and team members fired arbitrarily, and in an unethical manner (fired for silly, insignificant missteps as a cover-up for other illegitimate reasons; or generally - they tried to get people to quit/convince them that they were unhappy, so they wouldn't have to pay out unemployment benefits). Upper management not interested in being "challenged upward" by those at the store level. Employees not receiving proper reviews/raises as I'd seen in the past. Saw little to no response from HR, despite repeated efforts from both customers and employees to alert them to the poor & unethical management occurring within our district. They claim to be a company committed to "listening" to their employees - but I saw little to back this up. Company also claims to be about "making connections", treating their employees well, etc etc... but what they've consistently proven time and again that they're only about the bottom line. Upselling - If you don't like constantly upselling/forcing products on customers, this job probably isn't for you... I hate to say this about a Minnesota-based company, but the trends I've seen in this company lately are not positive. Until some things changes are made, I wouldn't recommend working here.