Great management and kind environment make it special - Barista Villani’s Bakery Employee Review

One of the best bakeries in Charlotte.

They are understaffed and I don't see that changing.

Great product, Grandma's family recipes.

I have worked in many fields including bluecollar trade work, sales, retail and customer service, and with that I must say I have never seen a more disorganized poorly ran business. I worked here for over a year and watched numerous coworkers leave or get fired over ridiculous nonsense. I once witnessed Amanda Villani fire a FOH coworker over missing a shift because she had to take her grandmother to the ER and she was fired over "texting instead of calling, and giving attitude" to which the rest of the staff found was a lie upon seeing the texts between said employee and Amanda. The owners will tell you a different story of how any conflict went down so as to make themselves seem in the right everytime. Paul and Amanda Villani will expect you to bend over backwards and make yourself available at any time to cover shifts, pick up shifts outside of your specified availability, and have absolutely no loyalty to you or other staff members while telling you "we take care of our people" with a lying smile plastered on Amanda's face. On multiple occasions I watched Paul verbally berate bakers to the point of tears, once he spent over an hour and a half screaming at 3 bakers out back over their overtime, mind you this was done during business hours and on the clock...make it make sense. After which two of said bakers quit and a 3rd attempted to leave but rescinded their 2 week notice due to unknown reasons. It's also important to note that Paul Villani almost exclusively berated the female bakers and staff, not once in my time did he raise his voice to me or other male staff members which led us all to believe he's sexist As for technical notes here, there was no employee training handbook or procedures book, everything was word of mouth passed from whatever long term employee was 6 months or less from quitting, and rules on things like how the owners wanted things prepped, boxed, or procedures and rules on taking special orders were NEVER agreed upon from employee to employee because we were all told differently, one thing from Amanda, another thing entirely from Paul. I'm just at a year of working here myself and one other staff member became the longest standing front of house employees that had. Let that sink in... Their turnover rate is about as bad as Amazon. I saw over 10 staff members quit or get fired in the course of one year, and this is a small bakery. It wasn't until they promoted the longest standing FOH employee to be a manager that an actual employee manual and training material was created and put in place. All that to say, I do not wish this business well and I am a huge supporter of small business. Avoid working here at all costs. The only 5 star rating