Pretty good overall! - Server Contigo Catering Employee Review

Friendly staff, supportive, great opportunity to learn about the catering world

Sometimes you might feel like there’s not enough help if call outs occur

Rarely doing the same thing

Where to even start. The consistent route to promotion is boot-licking combined with a general lack of skill. You will always be expected to make up for the lesser performers despite getting paid the exact same wage while always getting assigned the harder tasks. The FOH runs the show, but don't understand how as their industry background is lacking. As a chef, you then are expected to do things in the dumbest/worst ways possible, because someone who couldn't carry a tray said so. The money is okay, but you will get to file your 1099k at the end of the year and it actually made my tax return negative when before entering it I was expected to get a couple grand from my other employment opportunities. Leadership relies of petty and passive aggressive behavior to corral staff, again pointing to a clear inability to understand how this professionally would be achieved. As a 23-year veteran of this industry, it was sad to watch this shift then drive away the grand majority of their talent in the last few years. Granted, even with their 3rd Executive chef in the last 2 years, sadly the guests rarely catch on to the failures, for several reasons. 1.) Alcohol 2.) The business model rarely has repeat customers, and the ones they had historically over the years have discontinued their patronage 3.) It's a really low bar to be the best catering company in central Texas - the only real competition they had was Revel, which is also based much further west of them 4.) A wedding/event is more a show-off affair allowing the person who hires them to wave their opulence in their guests faces, the quality becomes a secondary concern at best. When I first joined this company, I really loved it. The entire team had credentials, and it was chef driven - which is the only way this kind of organization can fucntion properly. We had professional, adult event managers who had actually earned their keep. They kept the FOH and temps in line and actually had them present the food properly. During the pandemic, unsurprisingly (explained later), they ALL chose new careers. Their positions were quickly backfilled with who was available, rather than qualified. To me, this was the beginning of the end. And lastly, speaking of the pandemic, Contigo ended up the shame on you list for taking a ginormous SBA loan. Rather than using it to pay their employees, everyone was laid off with the ability to collect unemployment, and still work. The pay would then be calculated and dispersed once they could 'rehire' them once there was enough work for full time employment. Lastly, the owner is completely out of touch with reality and makes all of these decisions. Any differing opinion is the enemy and then becomes a fixated target that becomes heckled by their inexperienced management. The problems cannot be remedied because of this.