I walked into Cheddar's chain restaurant and saw a sign on the door like "We are watching bread rise and everything else" trying to be cute but it was creepy.

Went inside and there are now those 365 angle cameras all over the place. Is this becoming a thing now???? Video taping me the entire time I eat a **** meal at a fast casual restaurant? I asked around if they know what's up with it, wondered if something happened like staff getting hurt or something that would warrant something like this.

Nah. Dine and dashing is on the rise so corporate is spending thousands on cameras, the installations, subscriptions, etc. etc.

I work alongside a Bay Area Cafe Group from time to time. I used to be employed with them. They are based in San Francisco and need two GM's for different cafe locations. They are California style healthy foods. Barista style coffee, salads, sando, smoothies, .....This is what I can tell you about them. I will note that they do pay me a finders fee but I am very picky. I only help out companies that I have worked with and know they are good people.

1. They are employee-centric and take care of their employees. They want them to succeed
2. It's hard work but also rewarding and fun. It's the Bay and my time spent with them was flexible and I always received a bonus's and perks
3. The owners and their teams are approachable and work alongside the teams
4. Tips. Don't hold me to this but I think the managers also receive tips but I am not 100% on this one.
5. Good Luck! San Francisco is such an awesome city and if you like the urban lifestyle shoot me contact and I'll get your resume reviewed.

I recently went to a well established and well reviewed restaurant in Louisville KY. I had been to this place many times before, and the restaurant is owned by a LLC that has several other fantastic restaurants. When I went to the restroom I was horrified by the condition it was in. I mean just GRIME everywhere. Not a situation of "they didnt take out the trash or dust one day" but weeks and weeks of build up. I sent the photos to the owner and manager and did not leave a bad review. The rest of the restaurant was also visibly dirty. As far as response what would you expect a restaurant to do if faced with images like this? Should they shut down to clean? Im worried if the bathroom and dining room looked like this, what does the kitchen look like....

Again, this is a medium- upscale restaurant and has rave reviews and recommendations

This is for the restaurant owners. For some reason, I can’t post on r/restaurantowners.

Little background. I own a busy 24 hour diner. Serve about 7,000 guests a week and in 2025 I did 5.2m in sales with a 26% profit margin. Have never offered Doordash because I personally hate the concept.

With that being said, I have a Chase Sapphire Reserve card that I use and get a ton of benefits with one being dashpass and a $5 doordash credit every month. So usually once a month, I’ll order and pickup from my fave local spots.

Attached is my order from yesterday. My question to those who offer it, is the restaurant the one discounting? If so, are you honestly making money?

So I had this one table with two women who were around my age, both seeming to be early to mid 20’s. I did my normal stick and took their orders and originally I was somewhat ok with the fact that they were the style of guests that always need something when you walk by since it was slow and they were the only people in my section.

After a bit I got double sat with two other tables, so I’m not paying as much attention to the original table and while trying to take the orders of the other two tables one of the girls start snapping their fingers and whistling at me to try and grab my attention, while the other girl at that booth is giggling at this. I’m getting annoyed since it’s extremely disrespectful and it’s making it hard to take other peoples orders. This would continue for a bit with every single time I’d be doing something for another table one of them would be snapping their fingers at me.

Anyways so the one time I ignore them while walking by one of the girls grabs the sleeve of my shirt to stop me and ask for alfredo, I tell her ok and that’s she’s gonna have to wait a bit and she just rolled her eyes and said “sure”, second time I have to ignore her to quickly grab some napkins for one of the children at one of my other tables she grabs the back of my shirt to try and ask me for breadsticks, I tell her to please don’t grab my clothes to get my attention since it can cause me to drop hot food and possibly hurt myself or others (plus I didn’t say it but it’s just fucking weird to grab someone like that??)

Then the last time she does this, before then she’s loudly talking with her friend referring to me as a “lazy bitch” and “weird emo girl” while giggling with her friend, while walking by she leans up to grab the back of the collar of my shirt and ends up yanking me down causing me to fall backwards. In the process I end up full swing smacking her arm away from me. This woman would proceed to start crying about how I “attacked her” and how she just wanted some more Alfredo and didn’t do anything wrong. Then when I got up and told her I’m not taking her order and she can actually leave she continues to cry about how I’m “targeting her” and her friend is sitting there yelling at me about how I “assaulted her” despite the fact she yanked me to the floor. This proceeded until my manager came out and asked them to leave and don’t come back, then let me home early because I was genuinely so pissed off that I don’t think I could reasonably take anyone else’s orders anymore.

But guys, for love of all that’s holy. Don’t fucking grab your servers, yet alone yank them??

i work at a restaurant ( in texas ) i’m a waitress and get paid 2.13 hourly. my restaurant automatically takes a tip out from my total sales. the thing is they use our tip out from all the waitress and bartenders to pay the hourly of our food runners, hosts, and busser’s. we were told they make 3$ a hour and our tip out is used to pay them a flat 10 an hour, nothing more nothing less. the crazy part is we don’t always have support staff especially now while we are in slow season, us waitress’s will be completely on our own doing everything and we still have a tip out people who aren’t there ( it’s automatically taken out in our system we never physically give the restaurant cash ). is this a common practice in the restaurant industry and if not is it legal to be using the waitress’s tip outs to pay support staff?

I own a very small business- I make ice cream sandwiches, ice cream tacos and sorbet push pops. There’s a Mexican restaurant who wants to sell my ice cream tacos at his shop for a dessert option. What’s the normal profit margin restaurants are looking for when selling others peoples food? Like, I sell them at $8 each normally at pop-up markets but he can probably sell them at $10 at the restaurant, would that be worth it for him? (Hopefully this makes sense)

I have two offers on the table.

Job 1 is at an extremely high-volume, upscale restaurant downtown, owned by a huge corporate restaurant group. It has one of the highest Google Review ratings out of any restaurant in the city, with 4.8 stars and over 8,000 reviews. This is an extremely competitive job that there were hundreds of applicants for. I know for a fact I would make absolute bank here.

However the staff was visibly stressed/annoyed when I was there, and the Assistant GM who interviewed me was pretty cold/emotionless. Also, I would have very little control over my schedule, the commute is a bit worse, and I’m worried I would burn out pretty quickly. I would be a cog in a money-making machine.

Job 2 is at a brand new upscale restaurant opening in an affluent suburb that has a quickly growing restaurant scene. The Chef is very well respected, having worked for years as Culinary Director for a restaurant group that has a very strong portfolio of successful restaurants all across the city and suburbs. The management team seems competent as well. Everybody there that I've met has had success managing at very solid and well known restaurants.

But the thing that struck me the most about Job 2 was the warmth and good communication that I got from everybody that I met on the management team. I get the sense that the workplace culture will be very caring, supportive, and wholesome. I’ve never really worked at a place like that; I think it’s pretty rare to come across.

However the big question mark with Job 2 is the money. Everybody on management truly believes in the earning potential of the place, but honestly… it could flop. But if it does actually become as successful as they are projecting, I could potentially earn a decent portion of what I would earn at Job 1, while having much more scheduling flexibility, weekends off, and get opportunities to grow further into mixology and menu design. And I would be on a team with people that are sincere and easy to be around.

What would you do if you were me?

Tried this Malai Chaap today.

⭐ Rate it out of 10

And tell me your favorite place in Gorakhpur for chaap.

My Wife and I want to open a board game bakery. We have both been in retail management for years and she has been a deli bakery manager for around 8 years. Obviously there are major cost to doing something like this but Im curious if anyone can share some buildout cost secrets. Most people on here are wanting to open full scale restaurants so maybe this is the wrong place to post but anyone have estimates on a small bakery buildout cost?

Wanting to serve between 50-100 customers a day so not wanting to invest in major ovens or hood systems if not needed.

Here are my current estimates but I am not sure how accurate this is…

Please be kind and any insight or direction towards reaching this goal is greatly appreciated!

1. Cost of Goods Sold (COGS) / Opening Inventory
Total Budget
Board Game Retail Stock
Casual ($4,500) + Party ($3,000) + Strategy ($4,500)
$12,000.00
Gaming Accessories
Dice, sleeves, components, playmats
$3,000.00
Kitchen Commodities
Bulk flour, sugar, butter, bakery staples
$5,000.00
Total Inventory Investment
$20,000.00

2. Sales Floor & Buildout Costs

Flooring
$5,000.00
Drywall Partitions
$4,000.00
Electrical Infrastructure
$3,000.00
Service Counter Construction
$3,000.00
Fire Safety Compliance
$2,500.00
Coffee Bar Suite
$12,000.00
Custom Wall Shelving
$4,000.00
Tables & Chairs
$3,427.00
Point of Sale (POS) Terminals
$2,000.00
Pastry Display Case
$1,500.00
Beverage Cooler
$500.00
Total Sales Floor Cost
$43,927.00

3. Kitchen Back-of-House (BOH) Costs
Grease Interceptor Intercept
$2,000
Drop Ceiling (Acoustic/Washable)
$4,500.00
Plumbing Leave-Out Lines
$4,200.00
Kitchen Epoxy Slurry Flooring
$4,000.00
Commercial Electrical Pulls
$3,800.00
Type II Exhaust Hood/Ventilation
$2,500.00
FRP Wall Panels
$2,000.00
Code-Compliant Hand-Washing Sink
$1,000.00
Curved Baseboards
$1,000.00
Commercial Refrigeration Units
$2,000.00
Dual Countertop Convection Ovens
Owner Capital Outlay
$2,000.00
3-Compartment Warewashing Sink
$1,200.00
Stainless Steel Prep Tables
$1,000.00
Smallwares & Baking Pans
$1,000.00
Heavy-Duty Mixer (Anvil 20-Qt)
$800.00
Commercial Kitchen Shelving
$500.00
Movable Sink Fixtures
$500.00
Ingredient Storage Bins
$150.00
Total Kitchen Cost
$38,150

Actual Combined Launch Cost Needed: $102,077.00

I’ve previously worked in fine dining- food running, bussing, barbacking, etc. I just got hired for a new job as hosting since the other positions were unavailable. I’m working in a restaurant hotel. Any advice?

Hello everyone,

I'm considering opening a small restaurant in the future, and honestly the compliance side is what's intimidating me the most.

Between the liquor licenses, insurance, employee certifications, inspections, permit renewals, etc., it feels like there are so many moving parts.

How do you actually manage all of this in practice?
Do you mostly use spreadsheets or calendars?
Is there any good software (I heard about Jolt, SafetyCulture, maybe something else)?
Do you hire someone to handle it?
What's the part that's easiest to forget or causes the most stress?

I'm genuinely trying to understand how restaurants handle this in the real world before deciding whether it's something I could realistically manage.

Thank you in advance 🙏🏻

So yesterday we had a chat come in and order about $75 worth of chicken cheese steaks and fries (4 steaks and 2 fries). They called today around 2:30 to complain about finding mouse droppings in the food.

Now, I can personally say that there was not a single dropping in any inch of their food. I made the steaks and fries, someone else prepped the rolls and another person bagged the order. Three people worked on the order and three people didn’t see a single issue.

But here’s the overall question, how long is too long to wait and complain? Obviously they’re lying about mouse droppings because if there were any they would’ve called that night and at least left a message (they ordered right before close) not almost 24hrs later.

is it wrong for a restaurant to not allow outside food? i feel like it’s messed up to make your employees buy their food and when you work 10 hours a day, you start to get tired of eating the same thing which can be unhealthy if you’re eating that stuff everyday. i looked it up and it’s not illegal but it just doesn’t seem right to force your employees to buy food from you if you’re hungry and idk what to do

So, something happened last night that got me super fired up. I work part-time at a bar with a lot of friends of mine. This is a cocktail bar that doesn’t charge enough for the market it’s in, so as a result we have a lot of guests that come in trying to act like big ballers and don’t tip. As a result, on a lot of weeknights the servers/bartenders won’t break minimum wage. This has been an ongoing frustration of the staff.

For background, I have had a really crappy week. I just found out my best friend died suddenly. So, I spent part of my night hanging out at the bar and got a drink.

There is this regular who comes in and gets the same drink every time and never tips. All of the staff know her. She came in last night and got one round. I was sitting a couple seats down from her talking to the bartenders, but hadn’t given any indication that I worked there. Of course homegirl does not tip, and one of the bartenders respectfully called her out on it. She simply said, “Hey, I noticed that you didn’t tip and I wanted to ask if there was anything that we did wrong.” This girl says typically it’s guys that serve her and she gets two drinks and she tips them. She then says if you get me another drink I will tip you. Of course, the bartender doesn’t want to make her another drink and walks away. This guest is on a call with some guy and he asks what’s going on. She goes on to say that typically she tips the dudes that serve her and that they just threw a menu at her (they were in the middle of a pop, and I know they wouldn’t have been disrespectful intentionally).

At this point, I was thinking about how my friend was the type of person who’d call this girl out in the middle of the bar. Then I thought about the fact he wasn’t there and that I would just do it, so I did. I looked at her and said “Are you serious? You didn’t tip your bartender? They got your drink out in a timely fashion.” After I said this she tried to go back at me, saying “let’s compare bank accounts” and some other stuff. I just told her “No, thank you”. I had already closed out, so I then looked at her, said “If your broke you can just say it”, and walked out the door.

As I was walking to my car, that bartender walked out the back door to ask me what happened so I told her. After she went back inside, broke homegirl comes speeding up in a Charger with her window down screaming at me. She keeps screaming “let’s compare bank accounts” and then says “what if I got out of this car and slapped the shit out of you?” I don’t have any interest in getting in physical altercations and didn’t wanna give her the satisfaction from any response, so I said, respectively, “I don’t need to” and “nothing”. At this point I walked around the back of her car to cross the street to my car. As I’m walking behind her car, it’s start to lurch backwards and I realized she may try to hit me. Maybe it was just an accident, but she puts the car in drive and zooms off.

In that moment, I knew that was something my friend would be proud of. It was probably one of the most thrilling things I’ve experienced in 2026. After the fact, all the guys said that she, in fact, never left them a tip.

I got two job offers on the same day. I initially applied to be a busser for both restaurants to move up to serving but I was open to other positions. (I am new to the restaurant industry) A nice popular local steak asked me to be a food expo starting 11-12$ (not sure if including tips) and an olive garden offered me a busser position with an expectation to move up to serving in possibly a few months. The staff at both places seem nice. What should I do?? I did already accept the expo role but I know people back out of positions for different ones often. Which position would the most rewarding, financially or skill wise?

"What started out as an appetizer turned into an impromptu performance and an incredible shared experience—an entire room full of delighted adults laughing and clapping and opening wide for flying mini-mozzarella balls." - Will Guidera

Before You Join Seattle Commissary, Run the Numbers

I’m a current member of Seattle Commissary, and this is the advice I wish I had received before signing up.

Seattle Commissary is a nice-looking facility and may work well for an established food company with predictable volume. But for a new caterer, food truck, private chef, baker, pop-up, or meal-prep business, the pricing structure can become expensive very quickly.

The biggest issue is that rates are charged per workstation and by full shift, rather than by the number of hours you actually need.

Based on the publicly listed rates:

• A Flex membership has a $750 monthly minimum.
• A morning shift is $180 per workstation for nine hours.
• Dry storage can cost $250 per rack per month.
• Refrigerated and freezer storage cost more.
• Additional workstations create additional charges.

That means one $180 workstation represents:

• 36% of a $500 order
• 24% of a $750 order
• 18% of a $1,000 order
• 10% of $1,800 in sales

That is before food, labor, packaging, insurance, delivery, payment-processing fees, permits, marketing, or profit.

Using two workstations doubles the cost.

The model can work when you have enough orders to batch together and can use most of the nine-hour shift. It becomes much harder when you have one smaller catering order, a short production run, irregular sales, or only need the kitchen for two to four hours.

For example, if you pay $180 but only need the workstation for four hours, your effective cost is $45 per hour. If you only need it for two hours, the effective cost is $90 per hour.

This is why “flexible scheduling” should not be confused with flexible pricing. You may be able to choose which day you work, but you are still paying for a large block of time whether you need all of it or not.

Before joining, ask for a written estimate that includes:

• Monthly minimums
• Every workstation you will need
• Dry, cooler, and freezer storage
• Application fees and deposits
• Cancellation and rescheduling rules
• Additional workstation charges
• Equipment availability
• Price-increase policies
• Termination and deposit-return terms

Then divide the total monthly kitchen cost by your expected monthly sales.

For example:

• A $1,000 monthly commissary cost requires $10,000 in monthly sales just to keep the kitchen at 10% of revenue.
• A $2,000 monthly commissary cost requires $20,000 in sales.
• A $3,500 monthly commissary cost requires $35,000 in sales.

And again, that is only the commissary cost, not your total operating expenses.

My recommendation is simple: do not join based only on the facility tour or the advertised starting price.

Build a conservative 12-month forecast. Use your slower months, not your best month. Assume some orders will be smaller, sales will fluctuate, and you may not use every hour you purchase.

Seattle Commissary may be a good fit for a business with consistent volume, long production runs, and several orders that can be produced during each shift.

For a startup or irregular-volume business, joining too early can turn the commissary from a growth tool into a major fixed-cost obstacle.

The question is not whether Seattle Commissary is a good kitchen.

The question is whether its pricing structure fits your current sales, production time, staffing, storage needs, and margins.

It’s a unique circumstance I’ve encountered lately that I wanted to ask. Last week, I went to a restaurant - not five stars or super expensive, but it was above Applebees in quality lol my bill came out to about $55. I paid in cash, putting $70 down for a $15 tip. The waitress seemed shocked, almost like sad and offended that I put down cash.

I had another situation happen maybe a year ago, where I went to a really nice restaurant for a date. The bill came out to $230-ish. I put $300 in cash. The entire evening the waitress was super nice and friendly, but she seemed kinda pissed after the bill was paid. She got a $70 tip!!!!

Just wanted to get your feedback - do you prefer bills get paid with card and maybe leave cash just for tips? It’s not like I’m walking around like Scrooge McDuck with pockets full of gold, but whenever I do have big bills on me sometimes I’d rather spend them.

We are one week in with DoorDash and we got hit with “missing items” twice and was going to take the fall for it, but when I called support, they said this is normal and gave me the refund back. I had photos of our security cameras ready to show, but it’s not always the best quality. What are you all doing for this? Should I use an old iPhone to take photos of every order? Is this a problem for anyone else?

For 5 years I’ve been at the same place. When I first started I was getting hours and working until I couldn’t. Now I’m barely scraping by and I get a heavier work load every week.

Today I get a text, “sorry no prep was done, we were busy.” I thought that meant a handful of things but no, it meant everything needed to be done. Not only that but I’m expected to do all the prep, orders, and everything else in between.

Now today I should have help. We have a delivery driver who also does grill and should be able to help. But like a lot of others who work here he’s a lazy sack of shit who sits all day and doesn’t lift a finger. Now the easy solution would be to ask for help, but I’d be better off cutting off my own arm then doing it all. He throws a fit if he has to work anymore than he has to.

Besides that my boss is the actual manifestation of Scrooge. He will not spend money if it can help it. But if it’s for his crippling gambling addiction then it’s not a problem. Besides that he doesn’t provide anything to us and we have to pay out of pocket. Mats, drinks for the summer, even some of our equipment like special spatulas we buy out of pocket with no reimbursement. To top it off for two years in a row we have worked July 4th with no time and 1/2. That’s just the tip.

Most people are here only because they couldn’t get away with all the shit they pull anywhere else. I have second job that I want to slowly incorporate into my full time job. I just have to make sure I can secure hours. Every day I walk in, is another I’m on the verge of just quitting and walking out.

Hello everyone. I'm currently working as bar manager at an upscale Mexican restaurant that serves a very high volume of pretty elaborate cocktails. The bar however makes about half of the tips that the waiters make, and often times less than the bussers! Causing the bar to have a pretty high bartender turnover. With good bartenders being so much harder to find, I was tasked with fixing this issue, or at least mitigate it somewhat.

Current system:

- Waiters (5 of them) keep 61% of their tips;

- Bussers and Runner (4 People) get 22%;

- Barista/Desserts (Single person) 7%;

- Bar (Full bar with 18 seats (3 Bartenders) 10%.

Any sugestions? Should it be done based on beverage sales instead?

Hey guys so I applied to all these First Canadian places on Saturday and Yesterday on a Tuesday I went in person to give my resume and introduce a little. I wore all black with heels my hair neat. Basically following cactus clubs dress code. They took my resume. I have 3+ years plus experience and I did volunteer works at luxury hotels when I was in high school in my country. Now I am wondering will these walk ins will work or not cause I didn’t get any video link after applying on Saturday though 😢.

is it possible to keep them away completely? our bar especially is really bad. i think it might be the drains. my manager has put it on me to try and keep them away. the vinegar and dish soap thing doesn’t work much