commis de cuisine

responsable de magasin

line cook/prep cook

serveur au comptoir

plongeur

VIA CIBO

You'll learn about speed, cleanliness, multitasking and how to work under time frames. That's really about it though. There's not much room for advancement as company is trying to save as much as possible. So don't expect a raise unless you do something to save the company some $$$. 

The pay is not amazing. During the interview I was told that with the more responsibility i took I would get paid more. I haven't seen any of that and I've been crosstrained on every single station. The owner and GM take most of the tips, as this is not an "actual restaurant". They give tips based off of hours, it can range from $0.50 to $2.00 an hour depending on how well they thought you did that month. 

Work/life balance? Nope. None of that. Some of my coworkers were working full day shifts (11:00-22:00), with a 1-3 hour break. *With no OT*. For 6 days straight! WHAT! They are always so understaffed, it's almost impossible to call in sick because everyone who can cover your shift is already working or they can't because they've already worked or are going to be working 6 days already. 

Kitchen was very unorganized, at least the one I worked at. The GM had his own system that everyone had to follow, the hard part was that it was all in his head and he would tell you verbally or had to remind you. There was no organization there at all. I had to keep a notebook to write down all the procedures. 

Learning to multitask will help you a lot here, as they don't give you any time to prep or back up. I found a lot of the times that I had to cook my food, prep, and make sure I had back up's for the next rush all at the same time. It's crazy but I got used to it. Tip: keep a pen and paper on you at all times. You might get lost in the chaos. 

Shifts are the entire day, 11am - 10pm. Breaks were 3 hours long in the middle of the day. So that wasnt all bad. 

A lot of the cooks were taught recipes through some sort of telephone game, the people teaching the dishes only half understood what they were doing. If you want to work here make sure to read the recipe book! Note: I wasn't shown a recipe book, I had to dig through a bunch shelves to find them. I found out that many of the cooks were cooking the food not according to the recipe. 

If you are a self learner then this might be the place for you to get your toes wet in the restaurant industry, as you will be working with a bunch of "fresh" ingredients. Orders must be out within about a 10 minute frame, as this is more of a quality fast food joint, so finding a way to be the most efficient without compromising quality will be your hardest challenge.

This is definitely not a bad place to work. If you want to become a chef, as soon as you learn all the stations, you should probably move on. This place is quite recognized by other employers.

Good luck

If you want an abusive boss, unlikable coworkers, illegal underpay, and your spirit to break, this place is for you! Working here destroyed my life for almost a year. These places are franchised so this is not for every Via Cibo but it's one that is notoriously the worst rated one in Calgary.

I was a server here and would work almost everyday of the week. The worst days were the ones when the part-owner would come in and verbally abuse all his employees. I'm talking literal insults and yelling. We were always understaffed so there would be only one server and two cooks working at a time. It would get crazy busy and your life would be over if you made one small mistake. I've developed a fear of making mistakes in the workplace along with a fear of asking for help from my coworkers because of this place. Even if you were 100% right about something like spelling, the boss will decide he's right no matter how much proof you show him. If there was a single crumb on a shelf you'd be yelled at.

That's not the worst part though. I was allowed to keep tips maybe four times total, and 3/4 times it was only $5. This isn't like a normal restaurant, but you're still serving and working hard enough to deserve the tips you make. My boss would also make us clock-out early while we kept working. Literally getting less than minimum wage for extra stress. My boss, a single childless man, told me, a struggling female student, that I don't deserve full pay because I don't have a husband and kids yet. WHAT?

I don't fully blame my unlikable co-workers because I know a lot of them felt the same way as me but the boss would pin us against each other. He openly gossiped with his favourites, but his favourites were not immune to his gossip either. If you defended a co-worker you'd be equally guilty even if neither of you did anything wrong. My boss would quote: "protecting them will get you nowhere in life." There were a few loyal brown-nosers that would do their best to get others in trouble to build themselves up. They were not exempt from the abuse and would often get the verbal abuse worse because they earned higher expectations for themselves. Honesty and selflessness would get you punished in that place. I felt isolated and was gas lighted every single day that I worked.

If you have an interview coming up, be very wary of the process. If you feel like the interviewer is getting too personal and the questions are uncomfortable; RUN. It's probably the man I'm talking about. A job is important but not when you’re underpaid, emotionally abused, and feel alone. I wish you all the best in your job search and strongly encourage you to avoid this place.



Job Work/Life Balance:
-Hours are terrible. Sometimes you'll come in on a slow day, work for 2 hrs, get a 2-3 hr break, then have to work again  for maybe 2 hrs. 
-Managers are under qualified. Usually slack off and pretend to walk around, or get frustrated and panic easily during a rush or a problem.
-Managers will lie and make false promises to get you to do things.

Salary/Benefits:
-Servers can't keep their own individual tips. BOH receives a good portion compared to other jobs (its an even pool that is distributed based on hours).
-Servers are paid less (which is weird with the way tips are done).
-They think $14/hr is way too much for a BOH worker.

Job Security/Advancement:
-Never going to get a real promotion. They may train you multiple stations, but don't think you're going to get a good promotion or pay raise.
-If you have any problems with management your hours will be dropped to 0 (has happened to myself and multiple past employees) yet they wont fire you.
-If you try to take anytime off, or anything to change the schedule, they will try to "punish" you by making your next schedule have almost no hours.
-They don't know how to make a schedule at all. Takes them about 4 days to do it, and yet they still will schedule people on multiple days where they're not available. Additionally they'll still expect you to work it even though it's their fault for messing up the schedule.

Management:
-Absolutely terrible. Inexperienced, and terrible work ethic.
-Will slack off constantly yet pretend to be doing work.
-Will set unrealistically high expectations for others but never meet such expectations for themselves.
-Will lie and manipulate others to get things done how they want.
-Extremely cheap. Everything better be perfect portion - unless they're the ones making the food, then its okay.

Job Culture:
-Coworkers were really cool and pretty funny.
-Closing is relatively fast unless given unrealistic cleaning duties.
-Rushes are pretty easy and not that long except on rare occasions.

CONS

many split shifts for Front of House and Back of House. entire days taken up for perhaps 6 hours work total. Shifts often cut early, so you can work for 1 hour and wait all day to work 3 more. 

Upper management expects employees to attend mandatory free meetings.

benefits are none unless you're management, and wages are extremely low, but there are tips

 advancement is almost nothing. they promote females much more than males

 managers and chefs are good but overworked by upper management, which does not like to staff the restaurant adequately because of the cost of labour.

 upper management does not regard any input or ideas from non-management staff.

PROS


the chef makes very good menus, cares about customers and is professional. 

back of house gets tips as well as front of house



OVERALL

employees have low morale and not many opportunities to advance

hours are unpredictable 

all in all, a good place to learn the basics of italian cooking for back of house and learn serving and customer service for front of house. it's alright if the person is promoted but expect to be overworked as a salaried manager

I am a former employee, this place is the worst place to work at....
It's very slow and you give the owners your tips every time you work and they split it up with out making it mandatory for you to track them and they pool everyone's tips so even if you track yours there is no information on everyone's tips so you could and are getting ripped off.
 Took them a month and a half to give me my first tips and it was devistatling under 100.00. 
They are dishonest and will waste your time they given you kitchen side duties and janitor duties make you work for minimum wage and screw up your tips. 
Management was very disorganized and a lot of people were emotionally unstable crying during shifts because of managers miss treating them.
Not very professional. -1/5  review . 
Don't waste your time.

Coordinated optimal guest relations from initial contact through final check-out to boost satisfaction and brand loyalty.
* Coordinated preparation of customer meals and monitored food handling for safety purposes.
* Maintained operations in full compliance with alcohol service standards and legal requirements to prevent incidents of overserving or underage drinking. * Completed regular line checks to maximize quality assurance. * Kept kitchen clean, neat and sanitized by implementing surface and equipment schedules and standards.
* Reconciled daily transactions, balanced cash registers and deposited the restaurant's earnings at bank.
* Revamped and motivated kitchen staff to be highly efficient and produce consistent quality.

I worked there for about 3 weeks , and I was hired with at least 6 other dishwashers. The management didnt communicate with anyone or with each other, somedays there were 5 dishwashers working together at the same time. I was called about 3 weeks into my job that they didnt have any hours left and I wasnt capable of working there anymore. This was terrible because of the management. They didnt even give out free food like normal restaurants.

My time at Via Cibo was a bit ago admittedly but during my employment, it was a very enjoyable place to work. It was a pretty tight ship with a solid menu. My only real complaints would be that the management at the time was actively allergic to recommendations and that some of my coworkers weren't that easy to work with, but that isn't unique to the job. Made me pay for an apron that said "Via Cibo" which I was a bit too naive to understand isn't allowed. Regardless, a good place to start.

- Clean and organize work space at all time
- Team work and communication is very key in a successful work  place
- Ask for help when needed
- Management was professional and respectful 
- Co-workers always helped when needed
- Hardest part of the job is standing and running around for 14 hours a day
- Most enjoyable part of the job is being able to casually talk with co-workers

The manager was often slacking and untrustworthy. The manager often took advantage of their employees by putting their responsibilities on the employees under them without a justified raise or promotions. Other than the manager, it was lovely working there.

Top Job Titles	Average salary
Commis de cuisine 2 salaries reported	$15.50 per hour
Responsable de magasin 3 salaries reported	$36.95 per hour
Line cook/prep cook 1 salary reported	$18.75 per hour
Serveur au comptoir 2 salaries reported	$15.50 per hour
Plongeur 2 salaries reported	$15.50 per hour

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