My problem with lifetimes cafe is Everything from the layout to the floors (who puts 4 inch tiles with grout in a kitchen??) to the way they conduct business makes NO SENSE. Whoever designed the cafe, the menu, etc could not have ever worked in a restaurant or kitchen. Coming from someone who has worked in restaurants for a decade, the way they set this place up operationally is so frustrating.
The computer systems are slow, outdated and completely unintuitive, shutting down every 29 minutes. Corporate warehouse will randomly send you insane amounts of product and expect you to just find a place for it. Everything is rushed and on the fly, there is absolutely no order or structure. Not only that, but the person in charge of your cafe is the manager of the entire gym and has may not ever worked in a restaurant in their life. 95% of your time is spent restocking around 400 retail and drink and food items that are in a space that is too small for how quick some of it goes. They have so much unnecessary product and random crap that doesnt sell. And as a manager, doing the orders are damn near impossible with how much is on every order sheet.
Because theyre charging $15 for a nasty processed burger, thrown in, essentially, an easy bake oven, the people who pay $300 for a membership dont really want to pay for it. But because most locations cant run with just 1 person because of the way its set up, it is destined for failure from labor being so high even though they only really pay minimum wage. The tiny sad pathetic excuse for a cafe gets so much thrown onto it, events and parties thrown onto a two person staff at the drop of a hat along with every other task. As a manager; the only manager usually too btw, you have at least 6-9 orders to place every week from different vendors and because youre the only one on salary, to keep labor down, you also have to work as a regular employee making shakes and flipping burgers. You begin to resent every person who walks through the door because every step of every process is so excruciatingly thoughtless.
If you like any semblance of sense in your every day life, stay away!!!
Also the membership isnt all that great, the workout floor is really crammed together in every location ive been to, and if youre thinking you get free Pilates with a $400 free membership or being a manager, yeah, you dont. Oh and if you have kids; they probably cant be in the daycare the whole time youre working or even any longer than 3 hours.
