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As writer Andrew Knowlton found out when starting a 24-hour shift at the Waffle House, the chain is pretty serious about this policy. Unless applying for a management position, you will need to go in to get a direct application from your nearest restaurant. When asking for an application, make sure you have come prepared by bringing a pen, your resume, and a list of personal references that include the names, addresses and phone numbers. Fill out the application there so you don’t have to come back and turn it in as this may allow for you to have an interview on-the-spot.
Workers enjoy free food on the job
That explains why a Waffle House manager on Reddit exercises caution when staffing the nighttime crew. "I personally will only put people on the night shift who I know I can trust and who I am fully confident can execute the job the way we showed them," they wrote, adding that "it's the only way I can sleep at night." In a piece on working at the famed late-night dining establishment, The Wall Street Journal noted an especially revealing Glassdoor review from a worker who had survived the Waffle House trenches. Former waffle slinger Yehong Zhu noted in an essay for Slate that she was typically exhausted at the end of her shifts, which included duties besides simply taking orders and serving customers. Server Bambi Morgan on Quora said that while some days were slow, she often made $20 an hour.
Restaurant Operations Manager
Most employees stressed that it was really all about getting a busy shift. Afternoon shifts are rather crummy with mostly just coffee drinkers, but breakfast shifts are generally pretty solid. As one Waffle House employee who spent five years with the restaurant explained, "Third shift (9pm-6am) is the best." These shifts over the weekend can be especially lucrative. "The bar crowd comes in and it's nothing to walk out with $200 to $300 in your pocket in the morning," they said. As waitresses read out the orders to cooks, the grill operators arrange the plates in certain ways to let them know what each order entails. For example, a face-up mustard packet signifies a pork chop, and face down is country ham.
Working the night shift is not for the faint-hearted
If the thought of this worker flipping eggs and being on dish duty simultaneously has your heart racing, this horror tale thankfully gets a happy ending. Instead of letting the overworked individual drown in disarray, customers actually stood up and started helping them run the restaurant. One patron got to work washing dishes, and another wearing a party dress and heels operated the coffee machine and took orders (via The Washington Post). Former employee Yehong Zhu puts the notion of free up for debate, as they allege the restaurant lowered employee wages to cover expenses for meals (via Slate).
It's the time of night when bar-hoppers and party-goers need to recharge with a cup of coffee or heck, a full breakfast spread, and no other restaurant is open except, of course, Waffle House. Employees certainly experience challenges at any time of day, but it's no coincidence that working the graveyard shift puts their job in a whole new light. Quite possibly the trickiest aspect of learning the ropes of Waffle House employment is learning the Waffle House order language. The menu at Waffle House isn't exactly complex, but since servers and grill cooks do things old school and don't use any sort of computer to file customer orders, keeping track of it all can be complicated. In order to ensure that those scattered, smothered, and covered hash browns come out just as the customer ordered, the staff use a shorthand code (via The Wall Street Journal).
Employees said that shifts — often down to just one or two people — grew more labor intensive, too. It was effectively more work for less pay, said Kayla, the server in Florence. Like so many serving jobs, Waffle House servers have a rather small hourly wage that starts at around $2.13 an hour (via Eater).
Watch Lana Del Rey work a shift at Waffle House - NME
Watch Lana Del Rey work a shift at Waffle House.
Posted: Fri, 21 Jul 2023 07:00:00 GMT [source]
Adapting to speedy demands and meeting Waffle House's goal of getting food out to every customer in eight minutes or less can be tough, especially when one considers that Waffle House doesn't hold orders. "Sometimes I can get into some kind of rhythm that helps me a bit, but for the most part it is pretty overwhelming," a Waffle House grill cook said on Reddit. Food service can often be a tiring job with low pay and long hours, and in that regard, Waffle House is comparable to working at Wendy's or Taco Bell.
Waffle House grill cooks use a cheat sheet
This can encompass how you received the service, how the food looked, and how the food tasted, among other things. They wanted to combine this belief with the concept to combine table service with the speed of fast food and 24 hour availability. Here at Waffle House, we believe in “Homegrown Leadership,” which means every Manager in Operations begins their career as a single unit manager.
Waffle House Jobs in United States
This company is open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year including holidays. The person who is asking this question wants to make sure that you will not have a problem with working holidays as there is an excellent chance that you will. To gain an entry level position, such as being a server or grill operator, you must be at least 16 years of age. To obtain a management position within the company, the minimum age requirement is 21 years of age. Since all of our food is cooked to order, as a Cook (also known as a Grill Operator) you are taught to prepare the orders the “Waffle House Way”.
An employee in Auburn, Alabama told Eater they were only making around $5 or $6 in tips per shift. In internal messaging to employees, Ehmer has been effusive with praise for the workers who have suffered reduced hours, pay cuts, and exposure risks while keeping the business running from the ground up. “You all have been such a positive force through this crisis, and I appreciate each and every one of you for your incredible strength, kindness, and loyalty to the company and to each other. Thank you for everything you do for the yellow sign,” he said in an April 26 video sent across the company.
At Waffle House, workers can enjoy a wide array of menu items free of charge during their shifts. A small selection doesn't meet the restaurant's conditions, but honestly, it's hard to complain since the menu prices are already so low to begin with (per Fast Food Menu Prices). One could argue that Waffle House workers are more accustomed to working in dangerous conditions than other food service employees. The chain's restaurants often face natural disasters head-on and stay open during tornados and hurricanes. This defiance of mother nature has even led to the informal metric the "Waffle House Index" by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
The lucky ones that did stay open were doing takeout only, and for a place like Waffle House that depends on a steady stream of customers grabbing a quick bite, that meant trouble. Waffle House saw a 70% drop in its sales, and around 700 of its stores closed. Working at a job like Waffle House, which can be slammed with hungry patrons in a matter of mere seconds, can be incredibly tiring. A slow shift at the Waffle House typically means low tips, so while staying busy with hungry customers is certainly a good thing, it can understandably take a toll. Consider this little factoid when it comes to Waffle House's popularity. The quick service diner serves roughly 80,000 customers a day — and that's just in its Atlanta locations.
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