Darden Reviews

Former Employee – worked at Darden part-time for more than a year

Pros – Decent starting pay. Hours aren't awful.

Cons – I wasn't scheduled for a whole month because the service manager "forgot" to schedule me after being an employee for a year. When I finally called to complain, the GM was told by the service manager that I already quit.
Terrible management. Childish employees. Rude Customers. Hard to advance. Cliques.

Advice to Senior Management – Pay attention to your staff and don't yell at employees in front of customers.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Darden full-time for more than 10 years

Pros – The people you work with. Upper management seems to have some common sense and changes with the times. Promote from within consistently.

Cons – Compensation has become an issue recently. Bonus money has been cut to almost nothing. Benefits are not what they used to be. Constant pressure to meet unrealistic expectations.

Advice to Senior Management – You talk about work/life balance, but don't allow for one. Live up to what you talk about!

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Darden part-time for more than 7 years

Pros – Good atmosphere, rewards longevity, training opportunities

Cons – long hours, bad pay, hard schedules, too structured

Advice to Senior Management – loosen up some of the restrictive rules

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Darden

Pros – Great place to be if you want to have a career

Cons – bad hours, no time for family

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at Darden full-time for more than a year

Pros – Fortune Top 100 Company to work for, they do treat their employees well as long as you work hard, decent money, flexible scheduling, praise for hard work, a great experience in learning to relate to authority, coworkers, and guests, a fun place to work, fastpaced work environment, ability to positively contribute into the lives of both strangers and coworkers, 50% working shift discount, 25% nonworking discount, as well as a discount at other Darden restaurants, health insurance available, anniversary pay after 2 years, discounts on phone service, time off allowed (management tries to cater as much as possible to your scheduling preferences), feeling of productivity, excellent management staff that balanced each other out,

Cons – Opening shifts with a lot of sidework for the poor amount of pay you receive, endless sidework on some nights, small sections during certain shifts, sometimes shifts will be very long (would not recommend this job unless you are high energy), WHITE uniforms, sometimes I feel the company overstaffs on the number of servers for slow shifts and you make no money, money is somewhat unpredictable (on Saturday morning shifts sometimes $12 could be made, or potentially $100+), owing money in taxes due to the low hourly rate ($2.13 an hour), wouldn't allow overtime despite our already low hourly pay and sometimes it would have been beneficial if an employee could cover for someone calling out)

Advice to Senior Management – Stop harassing us about the GSS Survey, most guests won't fill it out anyways, your standards for employees are very high as they should be, sometimes employees are allowed to get away with unacceptable behavior and are only lectured instead of being punished with a writeup to learn not to repeat their poor behavior

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at Darden part-time for more than 3 years

Pros – I have great managers who are willing to work around my school schedule. I make better money than most of my friends who serve at other restaurants and they have to do a lot more sidework. They also train you to build a rapport with your guests instead of "turn & burn" like many restaurants.

They also actually listen to their employees and are willing to compromise/make changes.

Cons – I don't really have any cons.

Advice to Senior Management – Keep up the good work.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at Darden part-time for more than a year

Pros – Good tips
Good team
Good experience in working with people

Cons – Poor hourly wages in Indiana

Advice to Senior Management – Promote more team work and less complaining with employees

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Darden

Pros – it is a good place to work

Cons – Working on the weekends yeah

Former Employee – worked at Darden full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – -decent hourly rate as a host
-thorough training program
-looks good on resume for other food service jobs
-i liked the food, not gonna lie
-decent opportunities for promotion if you do well, which isn't terribly difficult

Cons – -corporate expectations and rules are ridiculous. IE: your not allowed to have your cell phone on the property and are subject to punishment if it is seen, even if it is turned off. this to me seems like a major safety risk in the case of certain types of emergencies.
-3 table max limit for servers = no money.
-you get fired by accumulating warnings for simple rule violations like forgetting to bring a tie or being 5 minutes late, yet you cannot be fired for being stupid or being horrible at your job. thusly, stupid under-performing employees accumulate while the good ones come and go on to better jobs quickly.
-same applies to the managers. a sexist, condescending, and generally insulting GM with a bad attitude towards his employees worked there for years despite numerous complaints to corporate darden from the hourly employees while a good natured GM who inspired his employees to perform well on their job was let go because he didn't always stick to rigid corporate standards within the restaurant.
-practicality and common sense is constantly tossed aside for the sake of doing things by the book
-these characteristics are probably typical for many corporate owned restaurant chains but I challenge you to find them worse elsewhere than darden.

Advice to Senior Management – find a way to improve the connection and feedback between corporate level darden and their frontline employees

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Darden part-time for more than a year

Pros – umm I love my co workers

Cons – tips! way to much work for what you make! soup and salad refills! bread refills! drink refills! hardest restaurant to work for by far!

Advice to Senior Management – get along with the employees and we wont all find a way to quite! stop trying to weed people out!

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend