Bob Evans Reviews

Pros

Extensive training for their managers in training. People know who and what Bob Evans is about. They are starting to use technology to provide better service and make things easier for their employees.

Cons

Too many different design concepts.Unrealistic goals. Starting to lose touch with their beginnings. Taking too many benefits away from all levels of employees. Seem to be more about the bottom line than their people. Too many new concepts coming out that and they aren't providing adequate training for proper implementation.

Advice to Senior Management

Get out of the office and take a look at your restaurants. Bob Evans is not a quick service restaurant and shouldn't be made to try to operate like one. You can't be everything to everyone so define who you are and concentrate on those areas.

Pros

50% off when working
20% off when not working and at mimi's cafe
hire young giving high school students employment
promote within the company

Cons

No respect from general managers.
Managers DO NOT know how to manage..ANYTHING!!!
Corporate is only concerned with making more money.
No respect for employees from corporate .
Constantly running out of everything, from food to silver wear to take home supplies.
Almost constantly under staffed! making the job extremely stressful and it really is not worth it!
Young employees, since still in high school, are immature and do not care about the job.
Higher ups and corporate scold general and assistant managers when having to delete items off guests bills, making managers hesitant to do so, thus guests are wrongfully charged.

Advice to Senior Management

If you respect your employees, they will respect you. Hire managers who know how to actually manage!! Put more emphasis on employees and guests, NOT MONEY!!

Pros

Generous meal policy for Managers, decent for employees. Willing to work with you for transfers if necessary or wanted. Good experience to grow with. A great base of loyal regular guests (a trend that's weakening rapidly)

Cons

Poor compensation and benefits compared to competitors: Bob Evans is on the lowest side of the pay scale in the casual dining industry. Meal benefit aside, all other benefits are shrinking or disappearing. Benefits that have ceased to exist in the past few years: 15% retail discount, Service award program (a free ~$100 gift for five years, then value increasing every five years thereafter), the option of selling vacation time in lieu of taking it...health plans have become exponentially expensive while simultaneously decreasing coverage and increasing deductables.

Incredible pressure to hit unrealistic sales and profit goals: The only motivation to strive for company goals is to alleviate some of the pressure from above. Coaching and discipline is quickly threatened. This increases the stress that the restaurant level Management is under, which in turn increase the employees' stress to meet company goals. Micro-management from superiors is rampant. Getting twenty five e-mails a day from an area coach is normal. Turnover of both employees and Management is vastly increasing. A quote taken from a Regional Vice President during a General Manager meeting: "This is the lowest the company has ever been on Managers." They truly do not see why that is the case. No thank yous. On your twenty year anniversary, should you want to make it that far, you will not so much get a phone call or an email.

Being set up to fail: They increase the difficulty of the position by setting the lofty goals, and then do things that purposely make it harder. Stores are rated on "scorecards" which consist of employee turnover, sales versus the "budget" as well as last year, profit versus the "budget" as well as last year, cost improvements, and survey scores. The budgets are set by the company, after getting the stores 'useless' input, to a unachievable level in order to save bonus money. Example: To achieve full bonus for last quarter, my store would have had to be up over 8% in sales! Yes, you can and will get disciplined for not meeting the scorecard requirements.

Corporate support is lacking: When we in "the field" need to call for something, we are treated as a bother, even if it is for the guest. Every one at corporate has to check with everyone else before something can be done. Even during a time of emergency. Turn around time for communication is not very good, with precious few exceptions. As stated by others, the Open Door Policy is an invitation for retaliation.

Antique technology: Even after the so called "upgrade" to the IRIS system, the computers are painfully slow. This slows down the staff, and the guest experience. Computer glitches are rampant: Orders completely disappearing, overcharging and undercharging, not charging guests credit cards properly leading to a shortage of cash which must be sent to the corporate office for review, just to name a few.

Corporate policy is wishy-washy: Things that you were told "don't do this or else" become company procedure, and vice-versa. The company is trying so different things and going in so many different directions; they have no focus or no sense of who they are. The company recently experimented in putting TVs into their restaurants and were astounded when the guests hated them. Did that really surprise you that much? They will throw their money into any idea without thinking about it, then complain and pressure the restaurants to perform when they have to make up for their reckless spending of idiotic decisions.

Milking the guest for everything they are worth: In order to compensate for lost guest count, they increase prices very often--multiple times this past year--and at the same time lower portions given for the increased price. This in turn angers guests to not return, so corporate sees what else they can get from the ones that remain. It is an unsustainable vicious cycle that will end in spectacularly catastrophic failure. It's very sad.

I was once proud to call myself a Bob Evans Manager, and felt great pride in my position. In the years that have passed since Mr. Evans passed, the company has become the lifeless corporate entity with no focus or feeling that it is today. It is all about the bottom line, AT ANY COST. I believe that the company is going through a "pump and dump." High level executives are gutting the company to get the bottom line higher, so that stock prices escalate. They are doing an excellent job of this. The next part is when there is nothing left to gut, the executives sell, they leave the company, and God help whomever is left with the train-wreck of a company.

Advice to Senior Management

People in the company have tried to give feedback to the leadership of Bob Evans, with no avail. You need to put PEOPLE first--and I'm talking about the guest, not the people who own the shares of the company. If you treat your Managers with respect, compensate them will, set aggressive BUT ATTAINABLE goals, and your Managers will have the drive and the desire to give satisfaction +1 to the guests. This will in turn spread to the staff, who directly impact the guests visit. If there are any major shareholders reading this....be warned of what is coming. This is becoming a non-people oriented company in a people-oriented industry!

Pros

The only real pro of working at Bob Evans was the meal discount. The food there is pretty tasty if you know what you're ordering.

Cons

There are way too many cons about this place to list. The management is clueless and the staff consists almost entirely of convicted felons.

Advice to Senior Management

Hire some decent workers, get out of the office, and make all your employees do their jobs, not just those who choose to.

Pros

its a fun atmosphere and the other employees are really fun to go out with after work and drink with

Cons

too many senior people trying to micro manage the few good employees that work and wind up running the place

Advice to Senior Management

get some managers that care about employees and want to see them succeed because together we can make a difference

Pros

1 three day off per month. Very stable company.

Cons

Trying to change too many things in the company. They are losing site of who we are.

Advice to Senior Management

Better pay for management and take care of your employees who are putting money in the bank for you.

Pros

Extra day off once a month.

Cons

You name it. Used to be fun, now it is nothing but sad. It makes me sad one mans life work could end like this.

Advice to Senior Management

Come live in my world for a week and see how we all feel. This is ridiculous. You expect wine when you dealing with water. Untrained employees expected to deliver top end customer service. I have been with you for 6 years and hope I won't be there for another 6 days. Awful place to work.

Pros

Set schedule
Some kind of bonus structure for all managers
Extra weekend day off once a month
Not closing down anytime soon

Cons

Upper management is disconnected
Extreme stress on managers to work for numbers to appease stockholders
terribly slow and clunky computer system
archaic scheduling system for the staff

Advice to Senior Management

Ease off of management
Improve computer system
Upper management needs to come and work several weeks at a restaurant to understand what they've done to staff and management

Pros

Good training in many areas such as legalities, food safety and product knowledge

Cons

The cheapest company on the planet. This company has gone from being a great place to work to stepping on the people who actually helped build it (employees and managers).

1. They have taken many benefits away from employees such as free gift certificates, good health insurance, sausage packs, christmas parties, you name it they have taken it away from us

2. The health insurance is a joke. I am better off going to my public hospital and getting rated because for what we pay it doesn't cover hardly anything. I mean really? As a manager I put in 60 hours a week and cant even get good health benefits?

3. Senior management's solution to solving the company's problems isn't to revamp current products or remodel stores, it's to just cut costs. This company is strictly bottom line driven so do not ever expect a raise no matter how well you do.

4. Your job and your area coach's job is threatened constantly, which adds to an already stressful situation

5. Bonus program is a joke and so is the open door policy. They pick and choose who they enforce the rules with. Some managers get away with anything they want and others don't. If you use the open door policy be prepared for retaliation. Even though they have a no retaliation policy your boss will find away around it

Advice to Senior Management

Give us more advertising to bring in more sales. Pay your management more money for their hard work. Provide better benefits. Don't treat your hourly employees like slaves. The corporate office is way too top heavy. Upper management hasn't a clue. You guys need to make sure the left hand knows what the right hand is doing. Also make sure you actually practice what you preach when it comes to your guidelines and rules.

Pros

It's a Job that allows me to have a place to live.
Free meals on the days that you work.

Cons

Schedules for Management Change Weekly & Do not follow the Corporate Guidelines.
Computer System Needs A Funeral, but they probably would not provide that either.
Too Many Favorites Get Special Favors Daily, Inconsistency, Like Bob Evans High, no one practices professionalism, or the corporate guidelines.
Too Many Corporate Guidelines are unreal & leads to most being ignored (of course it depends on who you are).
Corporate is Very Top Heavy, Get Emails every Month of new positions created in the Corporate Structure. All we ever hear is, our stockholders need this or that. Stocks have gone up, we have made profits, but it's never good enough.
They pay a company to come in & inspect all the restaurants, & if you don't pass the inspection it's your job, or at least your salary that suffers. One of the people doing the inspections told me they make over $100/hr, and it is a great company to work for... but no one ever leaves because it is such a great company! Look at BER's emp/mgmt turnover rates... They can't keep the people with good work ethics/brains. I'm stuck here because of the economy, I'm not a quitter, and I keep hoping my prayers will be answered. I mean how much worse can it get?
Your salary profile on here for Bob Evans Restaurants is not correct. Most Assistant Managers make less than 30K.
Used to be that Bob Evans really cared about their most valuable asset "The Employee", but they have taken so many things from their employees, even the 3 lbs of sausage we used to get for xmas with a card. No more sausage, & no card let alone a celebration. Employees feel no one cares anymore, so why should they.
Sloppy decision making, menu changes back & forth, removing many of our guests favorite items.
They come out with a new "Green Bag" that they want to charge guests 99 cents for to put their carry out in, and in the same month change all the carry out containers from heavy cardboard to STYROFOAM!!! DUH!
They start a catering program which is just large carry outs that the customers have to pick up, & even some of the items on the catering menu cost more than if you bought them individually.
It's really embarrassing to work for a company that has such a low opinion of their guests & employees intelligence.

Advice to Senior Management

Get with the program
trim the corp. FAT
have execs. work for a change
do Undercover Boss
Stop making employees feel that it's all about corporate & stockholders
Be realistic
Put the money where it should be, to help make everyone's job easier &more enjoyable so that they can make the dining experience more enjoyable also.
Our Health Department does a great job.
Get rid of the other inspectors who grade us 10 times as hard, just so they can find a reason for you to not give raises/bonuses.
GET A CLUE! or BOB's won't be around for long.