line cook

cuisinier

sous chef

line cook/prep cook

bartender

Browns

The food is great, the peers are great, the atmosphere is great. Would have loved to get my schedule more than 3 days in advance,or be provided accommodating 35-45 full-time hours to fit my family lifestyle after 10 months and 9 other staff members turning over. they would expect you to make it within half hour of calling you in on your only day off, and always expected you to start a full 15 minutes early without pay. you can expect to be scheduled with no posted end time ( Violating Alberta Labor Laws) 6 days a week and work a 9-11 hour long shift, but still only be considered part-time so they don't need to provide you anything resembling benefits. Alternatively on slow weeks you can expect only getting 8 purely On-call hours ( not guaranteed and you have to call them) or a majority of the staff to be sent home at the 3 hour mark regardless of completion of duties, being a full time employee or projected sales, causing night staff to bear the burden.You will be consistently required to close the kitchen and open it back to back, giving a non-driver exactly 8 hours to eat, sleep and return. Even with an adequate number of staff on hand, you will be moved from station to station but still expected to complete you initial position responsibilities single handed. other staff were a dream to work with including the front of house team and the sous chef but upper-management was more concerned with only working 30 hours a week ( never the high volume hours)  and avoiding responsibilities or communication of hours to go on back to back vacations, or tailor the schedule to accommodate Their own Pokemon-Go obsession to the neglect of the restaurant. It's a shame that the staff uphold such a strong Culture, while management preach to uphold the same culture, yet actively sabotage and neglect the mental health of their employees in this location. some managers will try to pursue and act like your friend outside of work ( even bribe you with empty promises from free food to raises, or tip out increases, even if you desire none of those 4 things) to leverage you into doing things for them, then forget to honor their promises intentionally. If this location didn't put such a bad taste in my mouth i would consider working for another location. I think with a management restructure this could be one of the best restaurant chains to work for in Canada. Just NOT Clearview in Red Deer!

After working at Browns for several years, I have mixed feelings about it. Management staff is very friendly and helpful, willing to get their hands dirty if you find yourself overwhelmed by tables while on shift, I don't find they are particularly good at communicating when off the clock (don't respond to staff concerns and we often don't have our schedule more than 2 days in advance for the following week which makes it difficult to plan the rest of your life). Furthermore, the tip-out is incredibly high for a casual dining restaurant (7.5%), and we tip-out 6.5% to kitchen even on bills with numerous complaints about mistakes made by them. The kitchen staff are very friendly and work hard, but I do not think they are well set up for success as the large majority are high school students without experience being asked to perform tasks while beyond their skill level with minimal assistance by more experienced cooks. If browns was willing to pay more experienced staff what they were worth, I believe stronger cooks would stay on longer and this situation would be remedied. 

All in all, I do really enjoy the team and it is typically a good experience once you've shown up to a shift, it is the backround things could change in order to improve staff experience. Overall, I believe Browns would be an excellent restaurant for new servers to develop their skills in a supportive environment. Unfortunately, I don't think many servers with a wealth of experience would find themselves happy here for very long due to high-tip out, many slow days (location dependent), lack of advanced notice on shifts, and a general lack of shifts to go around.

My time working at Browns Socialhouse started off being part time as a hostess. After moving my way up after 8 months I started to serve and work full time and that’s where most of the problems started. Management had changed and the whole environment had gone with it. The new manager had a very negative outlook on the employees and spoke down to them all while sitting in the back or at the expo line doing absolutely nothing but shouting at BOH/FOH staff. When we were busy and very understaffed the new manger would find all the time in the world to tell us how we were doing our jobs wrong instead of lifting a finger to help. When it came to scheduling she would change the schedules last minute or guilt employees into taking shifts because she had approved previous time off for them. When time came to let go of some employees instead of having a plan to get their shifts covered she would expect whoever was working that day to come back in and work the shifts she needed covered. All said and done the work environment was mentally and physically draining and the staff felt unmotivated working for a manger who continuously degraded them. I’m sure other Browns restaurants function much better but this has definitely left a sour taste in my mouth about the company.

Have never experienced this kind of work environment; Management feels very uninspiring and rude, referring to staff “like running a daycare”; 
Complete disorganization and low communication - several instances where multiple servers were not made of changes in menu leading to confusion between guests and staff. 
Chef felt inappropriate towards staff; Displayed extremely inappropriate behaviour towards me. Reported it to Browns HR, their discipline was to give him a “write up”.  Servers are called “babe/hun” and it’s normalized as “being friendly” 
Complete favouritism and inconsistencies in management;  One manager received a 1 star review for her attitude without write up; another was fired without just cause. 
Absolute inconsistencies within standards, zero integrity and disappointing level of professionalism. Weirdly different from other companies - Not an environment that ever felt supportive or motivating to be in. As another review said: “drama replaces striving” - this is not the only 1 star review about this location. 


To management - Hold higher standards. Create guidelines.  Basic professionalism & respect of staff. Place responsible individuals in leadership positions. Be less degrading and more encouraging. Less blatant favouritism

From working at browns you see that the average day is very busy, you have to be on your feet and moving as soon as you walk through the door. While it's stressful to start, the staff will help you ease in and help with scheduling your break. 

Being in the kitchen for the first time was very new for me but i learned how to keep up with tougher shifts without getting overwhelmed and i learned how to help in multiple areas of the kitchen.

The management team is fantastic, from the start they check in on you each shift and make it easy to communicate with them, when a kitchen manager isn't present you have kitchen leaders and ways of contacting management so you're never stuck.

In the workplace we have a lot of fun, especially with closing shifts. People are very welcoming and often play music when wiping things down, its common to hear some goofy jokes around each corner and its fantastic.

The hardest part is definitely the first couple months, things will seem foreign and difficult and most definitely stressful but once you catch on you'll be soaring.

The most enjoyable part of the job is the people, everyone who enters gets welcomed and immediately treated like a part of the crew, everyone becomes friends and has a good time even during tough shifts.

The work is either agonizingly slow, or incredibly stressful. The Head Chef is a perfectionist, criticizing the work of staff members that have been working there for years, while they have only been present for less than one.

Ever since the Head Chef started working there, the Maple Ridge Browns Socialhouse location has gone from the job with the lowest turnover rate in the lower mainland to one of the highest. 

When things get busy during the dinner shifts, the Head Chef leaves early, when they are on contract for nine hour days on salary. They always have a reason to be on vacation, meaning that they are often not around. The Head Chef is also argumentative with other managers.

The promises of an increase to wage are empty, as many staff who have been promised these increases never get them. Scheduling is "performance based" which basically just means that if the Head Chef doesn't like you, you're down to two days a week.

TL;DR, do not work at Browns Socialhouse as a Line Cook. The Head Chef is arrogant, impulsive, and often times rude, and completely unapologetic about it. Their polite and kind attitude thinly veils the jealous, conceited person they are underneath. 

Hopefully this will help anyone considering a position here. The environment is toxic and extremely stressful.You are belittled daily. Everything is taken very personally. You are not treated fairly as nothing is good enough and the rules change minute to minute without notice. You are expected to know a laundry list of facts and petty , insignificant details, yet never receive raises. The cleaning is never ending and sometimes on the verge of being ridiculous. Employees are used until they are not useful to them, until they either quit from exhaustion and self pride, or they are fired for speaking their minds. Staff does not stay very long so there is a revolving door of employees. You are not paid for your cash outs, which can take anywhere from 15-30 minutes depending on how long the food/drink focus is for the week, which is mandatory to fill out. As well as how many receipts you have for each transaction, you must put in order of 1st to last. Just another brunt to bear with this position. Again, an overall horrible experience and if you are reading this you should avoid this place all together.

I can genuinely say that I LOVE working at Brown's! The management is incredibly friendly and approachable, and the rest of the staff are so, so fun and sweet to work with. I've worked as both a host and a server here. A host shift will typically last around 3-4 hours, and will require you to be able to handle customers, figure out where is best to seat them, and make an accurate guess as to how long people may have to wait for a table to become available. You will also be expected to help bus tables, run dish, and maintain the restaurant, as all FOH staff are. A server shift can last anywhere from 3-8 hours, and you will be expected to clear your tables as they leave, keep track of all tables in your section, have a good amount of menu knowledge, run dish, and maintain the restaurant. Hardest part of the job, in my opinion is dealing with frustrated customers when we're too busy to seat any more. Most enjoyable part is probably just getting to know so many people, and catching up with the regulars.

Responsibilities and daily tasks keep increasing while your pay stays the same. Need managers with management degrees or hospitality degrees, at least a trade certificate would suffice i.e cooking diploma.  

These people don’t know what a good workplace is because they have never worked for one. This is why this place is run through sheer ignorance. If you never know what the gold standard is, the place doesn’t seem like the sh*thole it is. Ignorance is bliss.

The staff are mostly unskilled workers as the pay isn’t attractive at all to actual skilled tradesmen(journeyman cooks).
The first ever restaurant that does not provide staff meals, thats a new low by industry standards.

Poor work and life balance, good luck with management taking that into consideration.  This is a job where you mostly have to flip burgers and reheat stuff that is partially cooked. Stop asking people for full devotion to a greasy spoon dive bar for middle aged alcoholics.

I loved working at Browns, the first thing I noticed right away was how welcoming everyone was. Everyone went out of their way to say hi to me when I was new, many of the staff have worked there a long time so I thought that it was going to be cliquey, but it wasn't like that at all. They welcomed me to the family right away. The best management team out of an restaurant I have ever worked at, they understand that you have a life outside of work, very understanding about your scheduling needs. If there was ever an issue they did their best to nip it in the butt right away. There are multiple locations near the Browns I worked at, and we are all like one big happy family. The money was great, food is actually amazing. I was actually happy going into work every day. The location I worked at was extremely busy, long days, and long nights but very worth it. I left because I went away traveling, they were very understanding and offered me my job back when I get home. Overall a great experience at Browns!

Top Job Titles	Average salary
Line cook 75 salaries reported	$18.76 per hour
Cuisinier 140 salaries reported	$20.28 per hour
Sous chef 35 salaries reported	$51,536 per year
Line cook/prep cook 47 salaries reported	$18.04 per hour
Bartender 28 salaries reported	$16.89 per hour

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