wagamama Employee Reviews

too many or too few hours good pay inc tips, managers can be rude and passive aggressive, harassment isn’t dealt with, payroll department is a mess, nice team, expected to clean toilets.

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Productive

Server (Current Employee) - Midtown New York, NY - September 27, 2023

work environment is good management needs more work. friendly staff, fast paced when busy. good starter for a restaurant experience. There's always room for growth.

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Jobs at wagamama

Restaurant General Manager

New York, NY

2 days ago

Nice friendly team, stressful environment

Junior Manager (Former Employee) - London - September 18, 2023

Very fast paced and a lot to remember. Often short staffed. The team we did have were a fun and diverse bunch. I was able to do a lot of training within the company ie, manager training, cash handling, first aid

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Challenging, Lots of Growth, Wasted Potential

FOH Manager (Current Employee) - New York, NY - August 28, 2023

The company has a lot of potential. Used to enjoy the work place a lot more, now with new ownership company seems to care less about their employeesLots of opportunities for growth. Would recommend for people newer to the industry.

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Server

Server (Current Employee) - Atlanta, GA - August 22, 2023

Was ok environment to work in , the pay can do better , but marketing and management needs reconstruction on their end big time. Nice facilities to work in .

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wagamama insights

Based on 50 survey responses

What people like

Supportive environment
Clear sense of purpose
Feeling of personal appreciation

Areas for improvement

Support from manager

Its fun to work and make life intresting

Sous Chef (Current Employee) - Denmark - July 20, 2023

I have been working and still love it i started as a Line chef now i becabe a soue chef and still learing somethings everydays so i am a good learned

Pros

Free lunch

Cons

Free din er

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Friendly and kind workplace with a good atmosphere

Server/Bartender (Current Employee) - Boston, MA - July 15, 2023

The team at Wagamama is very welcoming and prioritizes its workers and guests. I love being there because of it easy going environment. I love the management because of their willingness to change and adapt

Pros

50% off meals and good requesting off time

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Fun work place

Front of House Team Member (Former Employee) - Norfolk, VA - July 11, 2023

Fun place to work, very inclusive. Can be hard work in training but you get used to it and it becomes second nature. Staff were kind and friendly, good working environment. Although can be annoying doing split shifts.

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Enjoyable workplace sometimes however not always.

Front of House Team Member (Former Employee) - Cambridge city centre - June 4, 2023

Very easy to get along with most employees and managers. However, if mangers are not in a good mood that day, your shift will be very unpleasant and stressful.

Pros

Free meals up to a budget and 50% off when you go over and when you’re off shift.

Cons

Unpaid breaks, odd shifts, not knowing your shifts much in advance.

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Great potential, rough execution

Server/Front of House (Former Employee) - Tampa, FL - May 30, 2023

So, wagamama. Probably the simplest way to explain the issues would be to call it waga drama. In front of customers, most everyone was smiles and professional enough in a "the show must go on" kind of way. But behind the scenes it was one of the most dysfunctional work environments I've ever been in. I was absolutely shocked by how frequently a workplace struggled just to pay its own workers. In the time I was there, pay issues were the number one reason people would quit of their own accord, with mismanagement and just general chaos near every day being a close second.When everything ran smoothly the pay potential could be good, but when it didn't it was a mess. A certain amount of it was probably the workers' fault, but a major mass quitting event happened when pay was a week late and some workers got late fees on paying their rent. Some people could claim well they should have budgeted or saved better yadda yadda, but to me the more clear mismanagement comes into play where a month on, practically NONE of those positions were filled. It was a really common theme that by some internal metrics, they'd claim we were either appropriately staffed or overstaffed despite woeful understaffing some days and just outright nonsensical scheduling other days. Scheduling and pay were CONSTANT issues that didn't get fixed for months, and when workers would raise issues to managers they'd mostly just get shrugs in return, or promises to be better without any actual follow-through. By the time I left at the end of my two weeks' notice, 85% of combined front of house staff and managers -

Pros

High quality food (especially for the price), sometimes good teamwork, sometimes good management, most customers were reasonable

Cons

Awful scheduling, frequent employee pay issues, management infighting and just general mismanagement issues, general manager was fired for persistent negligence towards his responsibilities, sometimes sketchy food prep details, involuntary double shifts, concerns over wage theft, nearly everything nonstandard relative to industry standards was to detrimental effect

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Chaotic and yet slow

Server (Former Employee) - Tampa, FL - May 28, 2023

Pervy manager. All the managers tho are unorganized and all over the place always making rules up as they went when we first opened. Only good thing is they made your schedule consistent every week. Con is you pool tips and it’s crowded hard to maneuver in such a tight restaurant as a server

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Draining

Chef (Current Employee) - West midlands - April 21, 2023

Mentally & physically exhausting job role. Staff retention is low. Expected to work overtime, all the while dealing with senior mgmt. Definitely not a role for everybody.

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Good place to work

Head Chef (Current Employee) - Manchester airport - March 19, 2023

Good place to work Sometimes demanding and stressful Big teams what helps whit flexibility Long hours as the shifts for managers go from 9.5h to 12h or more sometimes

Pros

Staff food, quarterly bonus, salary

Cons

Stressful

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No Redeemable Qualities

Server/Waiter (Former Employee) - Manhattan, NY - December 28, 2022

I worked as a server in the midtown location in NYC for about 5 months. The positives of Wagamama is that you are likely to get hired by them because they will seemingly hire anyone, and the coworkers are nice people that are easy to get along with. Besides that, I don't have much good to say about Wagamama. Far too much is expected of the Servers and especially the Bartenders. They don't have bussers, nor expos, nor designated hosts, nor designated employees for to go orders, yet they are located in midtown Manhattan and often get a high volume of customers. All of those jobs fall on the servers so you are constantly stressed and the money you make does not reflect the amount of work you are required to put in at all. Management is disorganized and does not listen to their employees feedback. While I worked there, there was a one or two week period where there were no managers in the restaurant because there was a scheduling mistake or something and the restaurant had to be run by the supervisor that they had left to fend for themself. One manager in particular treated the restaurant like their personal play house and would appear to do whatever they wanted. This manager would talk for so long to their friends that would come in to dine even if we were in desperate need of assistance, they would give free food or discounts to people but only when they felt like it, and they handled stress very poorly. This manager would talk down to you or even yell at you if you came to them with an issue while they were stressed. One time there was an issue with a to go order that had -

Pros

Friendly coworkers, Likely to be hired

Cons

Management, Tech issues, Environment, Brand, Food, Lack of Discounts, Lack of Benefits

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I hated working here

Team Member (Former Employee) - Stoke-on-Trent - November 28, 2022

The hours are very long sometimes being up to 12 hours-13 hours, the pay is not enough for what you do, They treat underage works horribly and expect them to work past 10 o clock, the management are also horrible and it’s not a nice atmosphere to work in.

Pros

Free food on shift, lovely staff

Cons

Short breaks, not enough pay, horrible managers, and no support for under 18s

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Productive and fun place

Cook (Former Employee) - Bon roud - November 20, 2022

Productive and fun place. Healthy food and nice workers.nealy my home place in the work. Possible free lunches.good many for jobs ,J worked part time,4 day per week,from 10 to 4 o'clock,J prepared portioned packages by weight and cut vegetables

Pros

Free lunch

Cons

Short hours

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It's a good company to work for if you don't mind really long days

Full time waitress (Former Employee) - Norwich - November 15, 2022

The pay is good for a teenager but the hours you have to work were quite hard. I know it's a good place to work your way up to management, but you have to put in the hours and your home life does suffer. I will miss the people but was glad to have the experience.

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Pagan muy poco y mucho trabajo no hay cultura por parte de los trabajadores n

Cosinero de linea (Former Employee) - Boston, MA - October 3, 2022

Sería una compañía interesante si almenos pagarán de acuerdo ala inflación en la zona

Pros

No tienen

Cons

No hay servicio médico muy regular

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Bad

Bartender (Current Employee) - Atlanta, GA - September 20, 2022

Took months to open up, management is all over the place. Overstaffed so you cannot make any money. Drama drama drama. Not for experience bartenders.

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Okay

Payroll Specialist (Former Employee) - Englewood, CO - May 18, 2022

Started out good , but unorganized and overall under appreciated. Double standards amongt emoloyees and overall disinterest for the peiple that work the hardest.