Pluspunten
The pay is fairly competitive; I had an opportunity to leave for more money, and RT gave me even more to stay. The ability to move up is there, but as a dark secret that nobody really wants to talk about. The scheduling can be very flexible, but sometimes availability isn't always granted. The coworkers are the best part about working with RT, if it weren't for them; someone would've gone postal by now.
Minpunten
Management makes it abundantly clear that your opinion does not matter and is unwelcome. Senior management rarely asks the employees for input on how to improve things so they make uninformed decisions with consequences that they don't have to deal with. When senior management comes to visit, everybody runs around like there's a fire, and when the seniors do talk to the cooks, all they do is quiz us at the most inconvenient times, but don't ask us the right questions. Policies are not followed uniformly due to 1). rampant favoritism, and 2). constant cheating: very few servers actually know what each menu item includes (even though they've all passed their menu tests.) The menu changes are so drastic and made with such little notice that the cooks and servers struggle to keep up, not to mention that it upsets the guests. Menu changes are necessary to avoid stagnation, but it should be a shift or slight deviance from the previous menu, not a completely new one. I mean, come on, cheddar garlic biscuits?! Are we going to be like Red Lobster now? The kitchen is not balanced at all: pantry has roughly 70% of all menu items, and has some part in 95% of all menu items, and is given the most wild expectations for production times. The KDS system, while a good system in itself, is designed for optimal circumstances which is almost never the case. Interdepartmental communication is almost nonexistent: the kitchen is rarely given a clue as to what's happening in the dining room but is expected to cough up any and every little bit of info on command. We are also set to fail in most cases because the dining room is sat all at once, so all orders are taken at once, put in at once, and completely swamps the kitchen without a warning. The worst part is that we are expected to act like we enjoy doing this. This is one of the hardest jobs I've ever worked, and I've been in food service for 15 years plus a year of culinary school. The hours are long and demanding and completely suck away your social life: I work with my best friend and almost never get to see him. Even while working 2 jobs and going to school, I still got to go out more often than I do working for RT and going to school part-time online. Oh yeah, the benefits plan is such a joke that I would rather not have insurance than pay StarBridge.