sous chef

head chef

assistant manager

general manager

chef

Lounges

Have worked in a fair few of sites across the business and been on a few new openings and generally dependent on existing structure and in my opinion,  wilingness provides great advancement and progressional opportunities. I was young when I first joined and progression from lower levels server/kitchen assistant positions to management/senior management in a number of years is not uncommon and I certainly hear of similar stories and have met great colleagues with similar stories.
We have a great structure of training tools and guidelines on day to day tasks, training tools as well as workshops that are a huge plus for the business and provide a great grounding tool to its supervisory/management teams on the front line.
Great effort into kitchen design and process that as a GM makes my life easier, easier for BOH to serve from, clean organise and a great structure to understand layouts which enevitably improves process and quick up take on new team member induction BOH.
In regards to relationships with others in the business, finance, systems and training team at HQ are a god send with reports, help and guidance in your inbox before you need them always ahead of the curve and always there to assist.
The push for intergration into community, fundraising and events is not only great for the business and community but gives the team a great opportunity to get involved and feel proud of their day to day work and place of work. 
With my team, I have great tools to provide help and training with them, inductions, appraisals, cocktails and service guidelines, even if the occasional team member chooses to ignore them, I have tools provided to me to guide them back to the company standard.
With my managers, helpful guidance, 1on1 time provided, what is perceived as 24 hour on call nature, issues with access to P&L’s has now been rectified as a company standard so GM’s can action and query financial data, however would like up to date week by week rather than 4 weekly P&L’s available, which are available 2 weeks after completion, this is something i’d like to have quicker access to - an unrealistic pipe dream I think.
Issues ive noticed in the 6 years I’ve been here;
OPS team, far overworked, there is a necessity for a role between Ops and GM’s in my area to provide support for management teams, training and OPS workload or even down to holiday cover and recruitment support for the more senior roles.
Used to be an aspiration of mine to work within operations, now I might take that opportunity with a kilo of salt thrown in for good measure. 
New openings a plenty, seen lots that are very successful, some that I would class as oversized restaurant spaces without adaquit storage facilities to facilitate that space. I would dictate that the recruitment for some I’ve seen/known/been involved in has been inadequate and too little too late which has had impact on hitting the ground running. However I would say I have also seen lots the other end of the scale also, slick successful and amazing ones too.
GM’s with far too much involvement on the front line of their kitchen teams - chefs that get paid more than the duty managers running their shifts and FOH managers that get paid significantly less that their equivalent chefs. To be open, FOH manage and get involved in BOH but BOH do not get involved in FOH and I believe this is fairly consistent. With GM’s controlling the financial success of the business, the base salary needs to reflect this in hierarchy - bonuses don’t pay my mortgage.
There is a tendency to be expected to complete work at home, after hours. Comes with the territory of being a GM in my opinion.
In summary
Personally I struggle to think of life working for anyone else, I have a genuine interest in helping the business to be the best it can be; for myself and my career, my team and my community. Yes it has its flaws I can attest to the fact the grass is not greener on the other side, an important lesson learnt.

job is easy for how much you are payed but so not worth it. 
get told all the good stuff (obviously) in the interview to reign you in but after a couple of weeks working there management will continually chew you up and spit you out, until you have a breakdown on shift then get deemed to be the bad person.
it doesn't help that the fact management is under constant pressure from Ops managers, but personally they just dont bother with their lounges, especially if its ‘too far to travel’ to get to them. seems ridiculous as they are the ones meant to be keeping everything in line and there for the support, not to make everyone at that lounge feel like s**t.
managers are constantly told to cut hours down but only want you when your needed. last min shifts planted on you on the day then made to feel bad if you dont work them. 
i went from doing 20 hour weeks when i was 17 to the week after turning 18 doing 50-60 hour weeks, draining me from such a drastic difference. 
they only care about their quarterly bonus so will do anything to make sure they get it, when in reality theyre just sat on a table for the whole shift so in my opinion its not really deserved. 
managers always sat down doing ‘admin’ but seem to do it most when theres a rush on leaving you with 1-2 people working the whole floor- up and down stairs. all management is clique and toxic and always chat bad about you behind your back and make you feel like s**t if you need a 5 min sit down or if you have 15 drink checks on as no one is helping when in reality they should be stepping up and taking the lead. they make you feel like you cant talk to them and take pride in the fact that your scared to talk to them as they fuel of having power over a bunch of 17-20 year olds.
no training whatsoever, i had to train myself on everything, thankfully already had experience so only had to teach myself table lay out and how to work the till which is fairly easy if your confident enough to do it yourself, but if your not and have no previous experience then your screwed. 
we’ve gone through 3 general managers and 3 assistant managers and about 4 head chefs since we have been open, which is just over a year. 
100% do not recommend if your a young girl too as managers and Ops managers do not care if you’re getting ‘creeped’ on by the chefs, as they ‘have no proof’ even though you have multiple screenshots of messages facebook requests instagram requests and calling your actual number to try and contact you. they just want to dismiss all the problems until it becomes something physical, which is disgusting. 
always left to do the disgusting jobs and always promised a promotion, but someone thats got no experience and been there for less time than you will get it with no issues. 
hardly any breaks even if you feel like s**t always forced to come in even if your extremely ill as you feel bad for not doing it from managers reactions.  
no work life balance, never see my family or my boyfriend or my friends. lost long term relationships with people over this job as i hardly get any time off, and when i do i need to rest as i never get it at any other time and am burnt out.
im left with issues with sleeping due to stress even when im not in work. a skin condition which has been induced from stress, extremely bad eating habits leaving me with blood sugar problems and serve mental health issues which i hadn’t suffered as badly from before working in the company.  
im left feeling disgusted in myself for letting it get this bad as i kept telling myself it’ll get better but it really doesn’t it just gets worse and worse every day as no one cares as long as you go above and beyond ( even when its not possible) for customers and as long as you make them look good to Ops managers. 
save yourself the hassle and go somewhere else, i feel sorry for anyone who’s worked in the company. 


I spent around 2 years at Loungers and for the most part i absolutely loved it, my review will largely reiterate what others have said, and likely be followed up by the obligitory copy paste message from the people director, but here goes.

Pick your Ops managers and Ops chefs well, they will ensure you're success or failure within the company, the best ones are the ones that actually know what they're doing because they worked at Lounges as a GM and worked their way up. The others come from pub companies, and really don't get how lounges actually work on the ground level nor how to instil the Loungers culture. Lounges has no HR department, the operations managers are a law unto themselves and will behave accordingly.  The only way to get anything overturned or checked by someone is by taking your greivance directly to the directors, it's a boys club below this, everyone knows everyone from somewhere else.

2 Operations managers allowed me to progress within the company, moving from the kitchen to management in just under 10 months through the trainee assistant manager program, i completed the BGT training program, and every course lounges offered, life was great.  4 Months later i resigned under duress to protect my record and reference with the company under a different operations manager. 

The 48hr thing really needs to stop being advertised, i worked on a new open in my time at Lounges, smashing my way through 60 hours on a number of weeks in a row and according to the operations manager this was expected, which was fine, but stop pushing this 48hr nonsense, your hours are rotad at 48, but you get 30 minutes to be done and out of the building after it closes, which is madness if it's even mildly busy, there is always more work to be done. I would say i averaged 53-55hrs per week on my 48hr contracts, which is fine i expect that, but it makes a mockery of the whole "48 hrs, no we really mean it" slogan.

This doesn't include the hours spent being harassed on Whatsapp, messages 24 hours a day 7 days a week.  It never stops, toxic group chats filled with completely unnecessary information will become the bane of your existence.

Operations will slash budgets and forecasts in the middle of a day and tell you to save labour, you will have young staff begging you for hours, but instead you have to send them home.  Lounges is plagued by one of the highest staff turnover rates in the country, it's a very different company than when i started in 2018, in the BGT recruiment you have the trainer saying the company is scratching it's head as to why they can't keep staff, you won the best hospitality employer in 2015, yet in 2020 you can't keep them.  The difference in the last 12 months should be able to explain that, impossible budgets, mostly labour to adhere to, these don't take into account the fact lounges are different and have different requirements, not just "you take this much money you get this many hours".  

I loved my time and Lounges and i will always miss it, but at the same time i am glad to be away from it.  What is taught at the BGT classes (Lounges management school), and spouted by the directors is miles away from what is being said and done on the ground, this is mostly because whats being taught isn't always the best for the operation staffs bonus which seems to be the only thing they care about.

The people you work with will make your time what it is, an amazing team builds loyalty to Lounges, but these are few and far between, pick your Lounge well.

This company was doing so much better before covid!! Before the pandemic, everyone who was employed was paid the minimum wage of a 23+ year old so everyone was on a good wage no matter what age. The company pushed everyone to be "loungey" which is what the job was all about, speaking to customers and going above and beyond for it to be a "home from home". I honestly enjoyed almost every shift during this time.
Since the pandemic and we came back from lock down the company has been more bothered with numbers and how much money they are making to save staff. This could just be the case for the Lounge I worked in however we were all made to feel like were never working hard enough, never get any praise, no breaks, and no hours. On multiple occasions we've been told by management that if they dont like you they wont give you any hours, which is what happened to me. I was a supervisor of a year and worked for the company a total of 4 all together on no contract or any kind of stability. I was put on 10-5 hours a week when other FOH members were on 30. 
Hardly any training is given and if you want to ask your manager something they are more than likely going to forward you some app to read which isnt officiant training at all. The only decent training that lounges did has now been stopped due to wanting to save money and not have physical training to move staff members to be managers which was a huge loss to the company.
On top of that the wages seem competitive, being told once you move up to management you have to wait so many months to get the full supervisor wage, which kept getting pushed back, when asked about it i got told i should just wait till April and get the general pay rise everyone else is getting. After about 9 months of waiting this "3-6 month probation" i obviously realised this wasnt true and the only reason I wasnt getting the extra 30p or whatever it was, was because i wasnt willing to do rolls outside of being a supervisor that i had not been trained on. Even now they expect you to be doing line cleans with no PPE or training ect. 
When training for my supervisor roll i was only trained how to open and close the building, counting the tills and banking but that was it. Even on my first offical open by myself nobody let me know, i thought i was training so another manager would be in the lounge but instead i was left locked outside and realised this was MY open.
I think the upper management can be very unprofessional by sitting and having manager meetings in the lounge especially when busy, they tend to grab other managers working to sit and chat whilst the rest of the staff are running around like headless chickens and take the blame for bad reviews.  
The company has gone massively downhill since i first started working in 2019 which is so sad considering it was an amazing place to work at the start. 


Coming into this job, I had never worked for lounges before, I had always worked in independent bars/restaurants. I was interested to learn about how they run on a day to day basis, and I quickly realised I didn’t agree with the companies structure as a whole. 

The interview process was odd to me. I had a sit down interview in a coffee shop, and it was just a load of waffle about how great the company is and their history. No detailed questions asked about my skills, what would be expected of me, considering I was coming in as management this really baffled me. I had to interject to get more info. 

Highlights for me were the free food on shift, I knew I’d eat and get a break without fail. The salary was the best I could find in my area. Cocktails I’ve got a passion for, so that was fun too (although the recipes baffled me on some). 

Another learning to make proper coffee, although this soon became intolerable as there was so much pressure to keep your wait times under 5 minutes. Which when you’ve got 20 coffees ordered at one time on your own, is just impossible. Yet you’re almost made to feel like you’re rubbish at your job for it and have to tell head office why people were waiting slightly longer. The kitchen have this even worse, they’ll get order after order all at once, and if their cheques hit over 30mins, they’ll be questioned. 

The hardest part for me was the FOH close downs. They were incredibly tedious, sometimes not leaving til 1/1:30 in the morning. The openers would have everything done for them while we were worked to the bone. If you didn’t start by 9pm you’d be there all night. 

Plenty of tasks could’ve been avoided, but the company are very nit picky.  Eg: Putting the candles in and out every night from all 30-40 tables. Why can’t they stay out all day to save the hassle? Flipping about 100 heavy wooden chairs every night for the cleaners as well seemed unreasonable, especially when you’re probably at your 12th/13th hour by that point. Whether all lounges do this I’m not sure.

The in-house management team for me were all actually quite pleasant, but I don’t believe any of them were truly happy. I’m not quite sure why some have been there so long. It all felt a little robotic, or we’d be under that much pressure you’d never have time to have a laugh or crack a joke. 

Overall, if you want constant high stress work, have a lot of energy to spare, give them a shot. But personally I wouldn’t work with lounges again. 

An absolute shocking company. I came here, which was well below my skill set, because I was sold the promise of career advancenent, and the whole "Loungers Dream", despite my concerns of my age (55 at the time)
My "training" consisted of working alongside other chefs in another busy Loungers outlet. THAT was an eye-opener to how the company operates, and I should have cut and run after my 3rd shift!
Along with me were two equally decent chefs in training who both gave me their opinions just how poor it was. One didn't finish his 2 week training and the other quit his role in the first week he took over his new role!
The unit I was placed in had a poor talent pool of chefs. There were two who WERE decent, but punching above their weight, whilst the rest of the kitchen brigade consisted of school leavers and uninterested cooks just there "for the laugh" with no intention of career development.
My first week I observed Food Safety Policy ignored when food was regularly re-labelled instead of being thrown and recorded as wastage. I was told this was the norm so the outlet would achieve its bonus targets!
The FOH team, apart from the GM were incompetent and had no idea how a team should be worked, it seemed one continual laugh all day, every day.
Whenever negative reviews came through on Tripadvisor, the assistant management team would joke about it.
The BOH team would be required to wash dishes, which I steadfastly refuses to do.
Whilst the salary did seem reasonable, I worked out the hours I did, which were a LOT more than the 48 they promise you, worked out at £9.40 per hour! For a Sous Chef!!! 
I did 4 weeks and decided my sanity was far more important and simply quit.
I felt relieved the same day.
Kudos to Loungers for paying me in full, and for contacting me as to why I quit, and subsequently, leading an investigation resulting in dismissals of certain members of staff.
But they didn't learn, my position is regularly advertised and with a high turnover of staff, nothing will ever change.
Such was my contempt for the place, I don't even include it on my CV.
A few chefs I have encountered in the industry since my leaving Loungers have told me of their own anecdotes of the company, all negative and unflattering.
It IS a brilliant concept, but poorly executed by management only intent on their bonuses!
I advised you to steer clear of this two-bob company.

Don’t be fooled by the promise of a fun loving family work environment. It will only take a week or two for the reality to hit you in the face. They encourage you to let your personality shine but once you hit the 50-60 hour weeks you will soon become a shell of a person.
OPS are AWFUL! They promise support and understanding but when it hits the fan they will throw you under the bus. If you don’t get on with your OPS expect to never progress or get help. They are super clicky and if they like you will let you get away with anything you like and be super lenient and if you don’t it’ll rain down on you from a great height for other people’s mistakes. They are all corrupt, it’s not just OPS it’s area OPS and even higher, and they use staff lower down the chain as scape goats.
They will make promises of pay rises and bonuses that will never appear, they won’t put the terms of the bonus in writing so that they can hold it over your head like a donkey with a carrot . 

This company has a real problem with bullying, I have seen many people quit over this and have experienced it myself , and if your unfortunate enough to have a bully in the midst who is good at there job then they will sweep it under the carpet no matter how many people put in official complaints. 
This company will honestly work you into the ground, as someone who is used to working long and busy hours they make it impossible. They will allow you the bare minimum of staff to cut costs and then will barrage you with abuse if any of your team make mistakes or if the lounge isn’t as tidy as there impossible standards. As a result the staff turn over is extremely high because people get burnt out fast. 
For a company as big as lounges there pay is awful, just look at other chains such as Marstons or Green King who will pay you to do the same thing for almost 10,000 more. 

If your still thinking of applying for a job here just know this, your ACTUAL job will be 50-60 hours a week, babysitting 10-15 people at all times of the day , getting abusive messages from management sometimes as early as 6am ,part time bouncer when kitchen staff start getting aggressive , full time events organiser all throughout the year without extra hours or pay to do so, and throughout all of this your supposed to be a happy bouncy loungey member of staff .

At the site level, this was a brilliant place to work. The staff and managers were supportive, hours were generally fair depending on availability, and the free food on shift with discounted drinks was a great bonus. Communication from site managers was strong, and they were quick to update you about available shifts. Training was minimal, but with prior hospitality experience it was easy to settle in.

The real issues came from Operations/Area Management. Staffing levels were consistently cut to the bare minimum, even during peak times, which put immense pressure on employees. It was common for staff to work excessively long shifts or manage busy nights with little to no support. Over time, this led to burnout and made it difficult to maintain a healthy work-life balance.

In terms of rewards, the company did host an annual “Lounge Fest,” which was a decent company-wide event. However, at a site level, recognition was lacking. While other lounges enjoyed staff nights out, our site never had one — in fact, we often ended up covering their venues while they celebrated, which only added to the sense of being undervalued.

Customer experience at late hours was also challenging. Unlike other venues that closed earlier, our site stayed open until midnight, attracting large numbers of heavily intoxicated and sometimes aggressive customers. Closing shifts frequently ran past 1am, and in some cases 2am. And while OPs had discouraged staff from starting bar breakdowns early, this was often the only way to leave anywhere near on time.

Progression was encouraged, but high turnover in management positions (often within four to five months) made advancement feel unstable and unsustainable.

In summary: the local team and managers created a positive environment, but poor decisions from Operations/Area Management led to burnout, high stress, and a culture where staff wellbeing was an afterthought. What could have been a consistently enjoyable workplace was undermined by systemic mismanagement.

To my old FOH/BOH Team, if you're somehow reading this, I hope you win the Thunderball - because you guys f*****g deserve it. 

What was once a great company to work for has been let down by poor running from the operations managers. The site has the Swinney procedure in place which is meant to provide you with help and guidance but it’s none existent.

Loungers offer no room for progression as the company focuses promotions based on a friendship base. Your hard work is not rewarded or appreciated and development and progression  is very difficult unless you are best friends with the Operations managers. 

Management spends most of the time on the laptop sat down and create unfair rotas putting themselves on quieter shifts and even then, they provide no help or support to their team during service. 

There is no work/life balance with the rotas as they are made at the last minute not two weeks in advance as they claim and you are always given shifts which are not flexible whatsoever. If you raise a concern about your shifts you are told to suck it up and be prepared to lose hours next week as it happens frequently with this company. 

Its a 0 hour contract but the company cuts shifts the minute someone has made it to work, not giving any notice whatsoever especially when staff have put plans aside.

Operations managers and general managers like to put all their workload onto the staff members below them whilst doing very little themselves and that is something that is constantly ignored by the company. 

You are entitled to 50% off and staff meal or drink on shifts but management always go against this banning staff from being entitled to what there contract offers. 

The company really need to review their hiring process with general managers and the promotion of operations managers as the most hard-working staff are always overlooked and the company seem to hire on the basis of, who they like rather than the skill set you bring. They have lost so many good staff members because of poor development and bias promotions. 

It's a real shame as the company could strive to be better than its competitors but it gets let down by very poor upper management.

Despite claiming that you receive full training, you’re lucky if you receive the bare minimum. Any errors in their training is reported as staff competence.

The management are incapable of doing their jobs, they don’t even know the company policies. They have no idea how to manage a team or sort issues out, if you raise a concern, that’s you out the door with your p45.

The rotas are unfair and unreliable, they claim to give you 7 days notice prior to commencing week. In reality you’re lucky if you get 24 hours notice. They only offer contracted hours to Assistant managers and above.

This means that the people that ensure that the business is running and operating smoothly are not guaranteed any hours one week you can be working 60 hours and the next 4.

They overstaff during off-peak times so there’s a lot of idle hands, then during peak times they don’t schedule enough staff, this leading to high stress levels with no support from the management, who are just sat on a table watching and picking fault.

During the short period that the site has been open there has already been a high level of stress turnover, 90% of the staff that are still there have low morale and high stress.

Oh and if you have a sickness (vomiting etc) they expect you to continue to work, despite going against food hygiene guidelines.

Despite claiming to be supportive of staff with mental health issues, they aren’t. You’re just another person that they don’t care about that they can easily replace, and they will… because they don’t want to deal with the modern day reality that people have mental health issues.

They hire a lot of 16-18 year olds, mainly because they don’t have to pay them as much. With that being said they get under 18s to serve and dispense on the bar (including alcohol), with no supervision, which itself is illegal and goes against alcohol licensing. As well as getting them to work long shifts without the legal entitlement to breaks. 

Top Job Titles	Average salary
Sous chef 9 salaries reported	£30,250 per year
Head chef 5 salaries reported	£37,400 per year
Assistant manager 9 salaries reported	£29,813 per year
General manager 1 salary reported	£40,000 per year
Chef 1 salary reported	£13.49 per hour

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