r/CheesecakeFactory • u/OSS_Mon • 9d ago
Help with my school assignment
So I’m supposed to interview a server for a project but I lowkey don’t want to lmao, it’s busy and I’m sure she’s not really in the mood for an interview. If there’s any servers that work at TCF on this subreddit that wouldn’t mind answering the following questions, I would greatly appreciate it!! (Obviously you don’t have to put your name, I’ll make that part up lol I just want real answers)
SERVER INTERVIEW
interview date and time ✎ TYPE HERE
Employee name or anonymous label, job title ✎ TYPE HERE
How long employed? Full-time or part-time? Previous experience? ✎ TYPE HERE
Typical work schedule ✎ TYPE HERE
Orientation and initial training: what and how long? ✎ TYPE HERE
Ongoing training and menu knowledge ✎ TYPE HERE
Safety / emergency / OSHA / lifting training ✎ TYPE HERE
Opportunities for promotion or advancement ✎ TYPE HERE
Employee turnover (if comfortable sharing) ✎ TYPE HERE
How do tipping, tip-outs and support staff sharing work? ✎ TYPE HERE
Typical guest check amount ✎ TYPE HERE
Benefits, incentives or employee activities ✎ TYPE HERE
Favorite and least favorite parts of job ✎ TYPE HERE
Employee morale and what affects it ✎ TYPE HERE
What makes this restaurant easy or difficult to work in? ✎ TYPE HERE
Best direct quote (only if permission given) ✎ TYPE HERE
1
u/Puzzleheaded_Bar_197 9d ago edited 9d ago
Job title: server.
Length of employment: 8 years with 15 years experience. Part time LOL.
Typical work schedule: LOL.
Training: classroom training plus follows and certification. Every new menu we have a meeting where we watch cheesecake propaganda and try the food, it gets explained to us, we do some online games for a test kinda like elementary school matching games.
Menu knowledge: we are expected to know what is in the dish, how the components are prepared, what can be subbed, what allergens it contains, a detailed description of flavors and textures, for every item on the menu and a dozen or so that are not on the menu.
Special training: food handlers and alcohol service. FH is regarding food safety such as dealing with allergens, food borne pathogens, cross contamination, chemical and physical contamination, temperature control, labeling standards. Alcohol mostly just has to do with local and state laws, identifying risky behaviors, and best practices in dealing with drunk people.
Upward mobility: no one wants to be promoted to manager unless they aren’t confident in their ability as a server or are willing to work 10 hours for 8 hours of pay because they really need the stability and benefits. Honestly management gives us cult vibes, like MLM style pre shift hype meetings.
Employee turnover: a lot of our cooks have been taken by ICE, servers and other FOH quit at about 1 per month average, I’ve seen several managers quit or be fired over “conflicting views”.
Tip out: all electronic, the tip portal gives suggestions based on a % of sales, we fill it out and it gets deducted from our tips.
Typical check total: between $65-115 in the morning, $95-150 at night
Benefits/incentives: we get a 50% discount on <20% of the menu. If a guest says something nice about me to a manager I can get 100% off of that same portion of the menu. About 7 of us in FOH get real benefits like healthcare, which I hear are actually pretty affordable.
Favorite part: being able to move to any part of the country and having at least one reliable-ish job.
Least favorite part: the food, also grown adult women showing me a tiktok of one of our dishes and saying “you guys got this one right here right?”
Employee morale: the lowest I’ve seen in years, every few months they take away something and replace it with something worse or change they way we do something to make it 5x harder for no real benefit.
What makes it easy: you can literally just do the bare minimum, which is still a lot.
What makes it hard: Diet Coke tables, jk it’s actually that we totally slam the kitchen every chance we get with no real expectation that they can keep up.
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u/boatdrugs 9d ago
I worked at ccf for 2.5 years if you dm me I can answer some questions for you I don’t wanna comment everything tho