It's A Grind Reviews

Pros

Fun co-workers
Cool customers
Great atmosphere
Flexible scheduling
Can make great tips!

Cons

Usually work by yourself if not working during peak hours

Pros

-Pretty good quality products
-Interesting coworkers you can learn a lot from
-50% discounts on food and drinks
-Making friends with regular customers

Cons

It can be hard not to want to walk out if working alone and you get hit with a rush. It can go from dead silent to a huge rush at any given time, which always plays on the nerves a bit. May cause you to dislike the general public, which can be understandable.

Advice to Senior Management

Worked for a franchise so I can't say much regarding the corporate management, but in-store management worked well with employees.

Pros

Great co-workers
Fun atmosphere
Flexible Schedule
Easy to balance work life with school and family or friends

Cons

Poor Communication
No pay increase... ever
Management hardly ever around

Advice to Senior Management

Be more hands on, and try to actually reward employees for hard work.

Pros

It's a coffee shop, so there isn't really any room to move up. The store I worked at only offered part time jobs because we were a slow store. Best boss I've ever had, though.

Cons

Very slow and I had to work by myself most of the time. I think I would have loved my job if it hadn't been so slow all the time.

Advice to Senior Management

Get on the other employees about doing their job. It felt like I was always doing everything and I could never catch up on my work.

Pros

It's a nice atmosphere, the customers were much friendlier than at other coffee houses, the work environment allowed for a relaxed work shift, the coffee is the best of any of the chains around.

Cons

Sometimes the boss wouldn't have the schedule out until the day before the schedule was supposed to switch. Like many jobs with tight-knit crews, there's always some drama.

Advice to Senior Management

Please work on communicating the schedule on time as well as anything important be posted in a clear location for the staff.

Pros

It was the perfect way to learn how to handle bigger responsibilities while still in high school.

Cons

The pay was pretty bad especially in comparison to other coffee houses.

Pros

fast paced, energetic work environment since everyone is hopped up on caffeine. Free drinks!! Very friendly staff and regular customers. It has a very family oriented feel to it.

Cons

pay is minimum with no raises.

Advice to Senior Management

Get rid of the leftover pastries from the day before! Yuck!

Pros

Free drip coffee, 50% off merch and other drinks, great scheduling and very accomidating.

Cons

No real room for growth

Advice to Senior Management

Doing a good job.

Pros

It's a coffee shop - you get to talk to a lot of interesting people. Also, you practically eat and drink for free.

Cons

Coffee grounds get stuck in your fingers from the cracks caused by the bleach you use to clean everything. Management started off well, but started going down when raises and employee recognition stopped and made you feel dispensible.

Advice to Senior Management

The owner sold the business because of personal issues... Don't treat your employees like they're disposable, please. We worked hard for you but all you cared about what monetary gain.

Pros

You enjoy working with a company that has the potential of providing a world-class product in the food industry. It's A Grind was a rising star in the specialty food business as a franchise...one of perhaps a handful out of 100's that was worth consideration...strong business model, great product, but alas they lacked leadership and did not communicate at all with their directors and vice-presidents let alone manager levels...as the challenges of operating a nationwide business grew the Founder, CEO and CFO simply became more and more clandestine and unapproachable. When you hire into an organization the expertise you believe you need, those team members expect to be part of the process.

Cons

Poor to non-existent communication and feedback from senior management. Later on, lack of funding and management compentency created huge challenges in product distribution making it next to impossible for their franchise units that were more than 500 miles away to create a profitable business...if you can't get the products needed to fulfill the customers requirements, even in a market that isn't price sensitive you still have a formula for doom! In a franchise the one thing you can never do is expect to make up your financial losses by increasing franchise fee's and other internal fixed costs. It's A Grind ran frightened. They did all the classic things a sinking franchise ship would do. It was sad to watch.

Advice to Senior Management

There are many world class providers of retail services...look elsewhere