Noodles & Company Reviews

Current Employee – been working at Noodles & Company full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – upbeat atmosphere, good clients for the most part, clean and comfortable work environment

Cons – too many hours for salary workers, 50 plus is expected, bonuses are hard to get, constant criticism from upper management, lack of communication from gm to regular managers, promises aren't kept, disorganization in training.

Advice to Senior Management – your opinions don't matter and you have to wait your turn for advancement.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Noodles & Company part-time for less than a year

Pros – -Very friendly environment
-Offered a free drink
-Easy interview
-Paid $.75 over minimum wage
-Team members are close and feel like family
-Many opportunites to step up in jobs
-Workers are always there to help you learn and encourage you every step of the way

Cons – -Inconsistent schedules
-Getting called not to come in when it's a slow night

Advice to Senior Management – Try to have all of your team member fill the entirety of their scheduled work hours instead of releasing them early or telling them not to come in when it's slow.

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

Former Employee – worked at Noodles & Company

Pros – Most of the workers were respectful.
An okay learning experience.

Cons – One of the major cons of working at Noodles & Company were the hours. During the weekdays I would only be scheduled for 2 and a half hours, and most of the time they'd let me off early after 1 and a half. I expected to be there for at least the amount of time scheduled or more. It's a waste of gas to be going to and from there for that short amount of time unless you lived down the street, which I did not. On saturdays I was there for a longer amount of time, but there were two hours between that time that I would have to go and then come back. I would rather be at home on Saturday relaxing with the rest of my family on that day than driving to and from work all day. I told the assistant manager that the one and a half hour thing was not working, and she responded "well, you are not a valuable team member, because you do not do spices or the salads yet (on top of everything else I was trying to handle?) but I was improving and speeding up with certain things. Everytime I would try to learn how to make a salad or try to make one, I would get coworkers who told me they would do it or told me to go clean something and totally took over MY job. I was scheduled as "ambassador salad/server"

Another con would be having to do a ton of things at once. Sure, it's chill when it's a slow day, but when business is booming, you're expected to juggle everything at once. It's a bit frustrating when you're bussing a table, and a customer wants you to wipe down that table immediately after and then you have a line forming at your register. You can't just sit at the register and wait for people, your expected to do other things too like help clean, serve the customers their food, wash windows, etc.

You got to know everything that goes into each dish, and learn all the names. You are also expected to taste everything on the menu so you can describe it to customers, and write down what you think it tastes like on a worksheet, sure the first few meals are free, but you have to pay a little bit afterwards, and your coworkers encourage you to try something each day. I can't handle noodles each day.

Expect workers calling you all the time (usually were very inconvenient times for me, since I was scheduled off and made plans with family or friends...) to see if you can fill in. If you do not like this, this job may not be for you.

Closing the restaurant at night is long and hectic. You're tired and all you want to do is go home, and you have even more responsibilities to take care of once the last few people finally decide to leave, they stay a bit past closing time talking, and the workers cannot mop or do certain things while the customers are still lounging around. I usually would not get home until midnight or 1 in the morning.

Noodles may be a good job for those used to restaurant work, just not for me.

Advice to Senior Management – Be more organized, and don't keep hiring people when you have plenty! It really makes the hours stupid on all the other part timers! Especially if they live further away than the others.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Noodles & Company

Pros – Great atmosphere...great food...great customers all is well except management.

Cons – management issues...not very friendly or reward driven.

Advice to Senior Management – listen to your employees...promote from within...take the time to say thanks and job well done!

Current Employee – been working at Noodles & Company

Pros – Great co-workers, great (fast) food, great time flexibility.

Cons – Terrible, greedy corporate tactics, poor training, generally poor management, lack of sincere passion and understanding of the product by employees.

Advice to Senior Management – Place much more value into training/education to build a genuine understanding of the product and company, which helps also instill a passion for the product. Actually, meet the goals set (six minute standards, food quality even during rush) by solving problems not just talking about them. For one, rather than try to make a quick buck by opening a new store down the street, hire 1 or two people at a current store to ensure the goals and standards of the company can be met because currently they are not being met. Value employees and encourage them to better understand the product rather than try to dictate scenarios from a book. Employees will then actually become actively thinking and problem solving allowing them to have a better passion for their job and thus better productivity. Finally (and this should have been done long ago), corporate needs to decide a given direction for the company and stick with it! The stores can not be so radically different to where it confuses costumers and employees. This company has a great idea but it's turning into a "McDonald's" rather than a "Starbucks" if you will. Stop trying to make quick cash and actually build a foundation first.

Current Employee – been working at Noodles & Company

Pros – Everyone in the company works as a strong team to create great guest experiences, from the cashiers and cooks, to the regional managers and accounting departments at the corporate office. Everyone is treated respectfully, and people are recognized for their good qualities and rewarded with promotions, mentions in our weekly company communications, among a million other ways. It's also nice to work for a company that makes everyone (seriously everyone), regardless of what position they will hold in the company when they are hired (from shift manager, to finance manager, to regional manager, to distributing center representative) work in the restaurant and learn how to ring up dishes on the registers, serve dishes, cook all the food, bus tables, and wash dishes. After all, we're all helping produce food for customers, everyone should know what goes into that in order to perform their role to the best degree possible.

Cons – The only downside that I've found in the years I've worked for Noodles & Company is the pay. Compared to other companies the pay is significantly lower, but the company makes up for it in requiring less hours to work every week, and a great working environment. It's not hard to forgive the company for the lower pay when they make you really want to come to work everyday.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Noodles & Company

Pros – Three years ago I could of listed a million, now...
 team members
 resume builder
 medical benefits

Cons – No quality of life- 65+ hours a week
POOR training program
Horrible upper management/professionalism
Pay well below scale
Unsupportive HR

Advice to Senior Management – Change the training program!!! It takes entirely way too long to train managers and the pay scale is well below what it should be for unrealistic expectations. Corporate attention needed in operational management on an Area Manager level. Look into your HR practices more carefully-too much favoritism and lack of trust between management and HR leaders. Build back the old Culture of Noodles! The culture is almost non existent now, which will continue to lead to more turnover of management teams that remember how great it WAS to work for this company . Better organization as growth continues is necessary to success and if the lack of communication between departments continues, you will continue to see high turnover rates in all areas, most importantly, in restaurant operations. New rollouts are highly unorganized and unrealistic- take more feedback from your General Managers that are actually in operations- Don't just say that they are being negative if they dissagree with something- this could save you a TON of money in the end! This company use to believe in "quality of life" - obviously utilizing managers to work over 70 hours a week to cushion your restaurant contribution is not only unethical but also can be unproductive- everyone is getting burnt out, on All levels! I have a great appreciation for Kevin Reddy as CEO but he really needs to start looking at the way his AM's are managing some of his most productive areas.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Noodles & Company

Pros – Decent pay
Great hours
Very cool team-members
Easy to move up if you follow company standards
and many more

Cons – Bad hours for the staff
Sometimes the best crew members get unnoticed
Many gms are very lazy and out of touch
Stndards change all the time

Advice to Senior Management – Have gms inform everyone when standards change.
Go to the shiftmanagers when you want to review gms and agms

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Noodles & Company

Pros – The ability to grow and learn new skills from the ground up with no previous management experience. The food is fresh and healthy.

Cons – Accounting doesn't know how to do payroll and implement the correct exemptions and filing status. 6ou have to check your paycheck every time to make sure everything is correct. Managments timelines for promotions differ from what they communicate to the employee ranging from 3 to 9 months behind what is promised. Low pay for non managment workers which makes is hard to keep and develop quality employees for advancement. Desperately needed repairs to the restaurant for both the guests and employees safety are ignored by upper managment to save their bottom line.

Advice to Senior Management – They know what needs to change and the apparent deficiences in how corporate chooses to run their restaurants is ridiculous.

Former Employee – worked at Noodles & Company

Pros – -Good discount on food. Seriously, the only plus of my time there.

Cons – -Horrible hours
-Nonexistent opportunities to advance in position or pay
-Clueless management
-A no-tipping policy? Thanks a bunch...

If you give more than a year of your life to this place, you are a chump. The worst job I have ever had.

Advice to Senior Management – Replace managers with people who actually know what they're doing.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend