sous chef

line cook

assistant manager

head chef

deputy manager

Youngs Pubs

I'd like to preface this review by saying that I have never ever given a one star review in my life. I am a generally positive person and I often think one star reviews are cheap and done for shock value.

However, after giving it some serious thought, I could not think of any single reason why Youngs as a company deserve a second star.

So, to start with the broader stuff. Those at the top of the company could not care less about their employees, so long as sales targets are met and budgets are kept tight. This - to be fair to Youngs - is something true of almost every large company.

What Youngs excel at though is an undying commitment to middle management gurus who know little-to-nothing about what they are being paid to organise. If these people have worked a day in their life behind a bar, then they are doing a good job of hiding it.

At a time when Youngs pubs are constantly being told to reduce hours, raise prices and scrimp wherever possible, money is wasted on SMCs (social media coordinators) and area managers who contribute absolutely nothing of note to the company, other than making occasional suggestions and changes in order to look busy.

This means that Youngs ends up on the receiving end of bad press such as charging £28 for 2 cauliflower steaks in their much vaunted 'a cut above' deal. The fact that this got through so many meetings and made it to the public eye is a damning indictment on the lack of self-awareness that these people have.

It is essentially an emperor wears no clothes type situation. These people have to enforce pointless changes in order to justify their jobs to people higher up the chain, who must likewise do the same to their superiors. The resultant effect is those working in the pubs being given even more work to do for no added incentive.

What maybe speaks worst about Youngs is that the customers aren't getting a good deal out of this labour exploitation either. The prices (particularly in London pubs) are eye-watering. Several pubs charge £6+ for fairly average lagers, and the prices of wines are similarly extortionate.

What everyone wants Youngs to do is cut their prices and nothing else. What Youngs choose to hear from their customers is 'we want an interactive drinking experience complete with complicated apps and flowery gins that grinning, sycophantic bar staff recommend to us the second we come through the door.'

In terms of pricing, the food may be the most offensive aspect of all. With a mildly-jingoistic focus on 'British food', Youngs pubs charge £13-£15 for dishes such as fish & chips and burgers. Of course, as no staff are paid well enough, the end product is often downright insulting, considering the price being paid.

As mentioned in the title, if you have a nice, kind and friendly manager, you will be able to survive in this job for a while. They will be able to shield you from the worst of Youngs' corporate tyranny, but at the risk of incurring the wrath of their own managers.

The rate of turnover is so high that, invariably, you will end up with Youngs' dream manager. This is a typically a man in his early 40s who is more keen to win the respect of one-off customers than long-serving, hard-working staff.

They will not bat an eyelid at cutting hours and sending people home early, even if this has serious ramifications on people's financial security. A job that pays c.£8 an hour and only can offer you 15 hours a week if sales are slow is no job at all.

Even if you are one of the 'lucky' ones who can keep their hours in tact during the cull, you will feel the effects of understaffing very quickly. Closes take much longer, shifts are much busier and general staff satisfaction deteriorates quickly.

To add to this, at this specific pub I worked at, competent and skilled bar staff were ushered out in favour of highly sociable but utterly mediocre replacements, who could not even change an ale barrel. This is, to be fair, in keeping with Youngs' policy of style over substance.

For a company as hellbent on drilling customer service skills into their staff as Youngs, the mask slips as soon as profit margins are in danger. If you want to see good customer service, then please pay your staff well, give them *PAID* breaks and ensure they have suitable hours.

If you are a student who can work part time, I'd imagine this might be a job worth doing for a year or two. Eventually though, the tedium of the job - and the hollowness of the false enthusiasm that mangers, SMCs and area managers attempt to inject into it - will probably turn you off it for life.

The most galling thing of all, is after a shift where all of the above has come into play, the utterly aloof manager will come down and announced that you have 'smashed the sales target today', or phrase it in some other equally annoying, Wolf-of-Wall-Street-esque manner.

Supposedly, this is meant to make you feel good. In reality, if you are an even remotely sentient human being, you will merely realise that you were exploited even more today. You might, if you're lucky, get a free drink out of it at the end of the night, but if there's been wastage that week then good luck.

In closing out this therapeutic rant, I would like to say that there are some very good, honest and hard-working people working low down in the company, often in their second language for good measure. More than anything, I feel immense sadness that their hard work will never be appreciated by Youngs.

I honestly have never disliked a job i've had. Until i worked here. 
 
On a typical day, I'd arrive to open at the pub at 10am with co-workers and our assistant manager (who was great and pretty much ran the pub alone). We would clean the toilets, hoover the floors, set up the bar, clean tables, change the bins, check the garden for litter etc and if we had time polish the furniture, all before opening. 
The usual customers would come in and we'd chat a little before the managers would tell us off or give us the eye that we should be cleaning more or doing something else. I learned that I cared more about the customers than 'looking busy', but still had to do as i was ordered. 

I'm an extremely hard working person, and i'm an out-going, bubbly, respectful person. I take direction well and have had many jobs that i've loved.
  The hardest part of this job was being around the management. They had random favourite staff members and not-so 'favourite' staff members. I felt picked on a lot, for no reason, even co-workers noticed. I worked really hard whilst i was there, taking on extra hours and helping out the waitresses run food when i was needed! I felt like i'd done a full workout most nights, when management did nothing (the assistant manager was really great though, i can't express enough)!

We didn't get fed. We'd work split shifts most days. We'd get treated like rubbish, even though we were the ones keeping the buisness running. We daren't give any new ideas for the pub or we'll be the new 'person who thinks they know better'. We'd have rubbish hours and NO breaks- you'd have to wait until you finish your 6/8/10 hour shift. the only person that got a break was a diabetic co-worker who once almost passed out because he wasn't allowed a break to eat, so complained. 
It's just not worth it.  

None of us (the staff) were ever recognised as hard workers, so one member of staff walked out on a busy day after getting shouted at. Another quit and never got a bonus of £500 that he was promised for RUNNING the pub whilst the managers went on holiday for a whole week in the middle of a busy summer. And another got a job somewhere else straight away as a Bar Supervisor and was treated with respect. 

The chef was good. The staff were lovely.

I went into the job thinking it would be fun and exciting and I wish someone had warned me how wrong I was. On a typical day you're expected to either serve at the bar with 3-5 other people and no space to move, or you're on handheld and having your cash tips stolen by other staff members. The managers are awful and have more of an interest in sitting in their rooms or the office chatting than they do in working, and only 2 of the managers (out of 6) actually have any interest in working. Managers are also not allowed to accept tips and yet it doesn't stop them from happily taking cash and blowing on booze between themselves.

The staff discount is 20%, which would be great if you were actually allowed to spend it at your own pub, and if you were earning enough to buy a drink there. They expect you to live on £8.50 an hour, when you need to spend ridiculous amounts on travel each week because you can't afford anywhere nearby on that salary.

The only thing I can say is that most of the staff were nice, and the food was mostly amazing. As long as the right staff memebers cooked it, also they don't change how much you pay for lunch so even when I wasn't working  days a week I was still being charged for 5 meals per week.

The customers were generally awful, and management did nothing to stop it, including making me serve a group of older men who were making lewd sexual remarks about me, but when a customer complained that a fellow staff memeber made a lewd sexual remark to them he was made to apologize to them and put on a displinary.

The only good thing was that when the rotas where put out they were generally reasonable, but they often wouldn't be put out until a Saturday or Sunday evening, when they started on a Tuesday. You were als expected to have any days off requests in by a Wednesday, with any requests made after that being rejected.

After working in a couple of youngs pubs for a couple of years, the people I worked with and the customers I met were the only reason I had worked for youngs for so long. Working for youngs is okay as long as you're part time, however it's a complete waste of time if you're looking to progress through the business full time. 

One of the main problems I have had with this company is the lack of appraisal and respect given to their staff, yet criticism was always given by the people working above. For instance, one of the pubs I had worked in was consistently surpassing the budget nearly every week, however there were rare weeks where the budget had not been met and head office was always there to make a huff about it.

There were also long periods where my colleagues and I could not get a proper staff meal so we were forced to waste our money on local supermarkets to actually get some food. This was because the head office wanted to save money by cutting the funding for staff meals, so we were left with bits and pieces of leftover food which did not equate to a filling meal. For an overly expensive and stingy company that charges nearly £7 a pint, you'd think they wouldn't have a problem with money.

Average pay is lower than a restaurant, but, at list in the kitchen, you close at 10.30pm Sunday at 9pm . Shifts are up to manpower. Means if there's people covering you can have a decent week. 40 to 50+ hours per week if you are paid by hour can be ok, but I had managers forcing me to cutting up shifts down to 30h. Head chef are on monthly salaries, so doing 60/65 hpw, is bad. They give you training if you need it, plus the mandatory haccp, work safety etc.. the pub can be good or not, depend of the manager you find, but as always you can ask a transfer. Another negative point  is when you do food orders, you can only deal with one supplier now for dry goods, veggies and meat. Prices are higher than the local supermarket and worst quality. If you are a head chef you have to take care of the gp and it's a pain. Staff food, only kids portions are paid back so you can have complaints and after a 10h shift I can understand them. They promise a bonus on target that, on this condition you will never realise. 

When I started working for YOUNGS company I was barely new to London so it actually help me a lot to meet many interesting people (my colleagues, management and customers) and increase my confidence and overall communication with people!

Working in busy environment (football matches, big functions) established me as both a strong worker and a responsible and dedicated team player. 

The most enjoyable part of work was to learn about wines and food, go to various trainings (youngs brewery, tequila, whiskey, vodka and absent tastings) and of course (apologies of repeating myself too much) meeting a great number of new people.

The hardest part of the work was sometimes working very long hours (12-14 hours shift) and of course mainly during the weekends so had to adopt to different leisure routine but I guess that only proves that if someone really likes or wants something nothing is an obstacle!

A typical day at work would involve firstly checking emails and conversing with clients - usually concerning private hire and larger bookings. Secondly, I check the booking system clients use to book online and organise incoming bookings on a smaller scale. After this, I would check my diary and schedule what jobs are a priority. Usually, this would scheduling social media posts, putting together a local mailer, designing flyers for our events and socialising with local businesses in order to promote our private spaces. 

In doing this, my organisational skills improved massively and my ability to prioritise jobs in order of urgency. Furthermore, this job improved my ability to build a professional rapport with clients. 

The hardest part of the job was entering local businesses and pitching our private spaces to teams. However, the most enjoyable of the job was designing flyers and promoting an event online.

They do not care for the wellbeing of the staff. They tell you they are a company proud on helping and supporting. They promote within which I would normally say is great, but this is due to the bad reputation they have, doubled the work loads and lowered the budgets. Often head office will sent something out that will need to be completed that day but when you are already doing the load of 2 people can be very differcult to keep on top of what is expected.
Chefs side executive chefs are great full of knowledge and want to see good seasonal food. I was really sold on this. But it comes with a very high price, if management don't expect to have a day off without being contracted.
Some days I would work 14 hours no break. Because budgets were cut and no other person working with me.
If you are young and hungry and want no work life balance it probably is for you.
If you want a bit of a balance they o don't recommend.

Unfortunately you can no longer find skillfull chefs in this company. It's all about getting the food out quickly so that  you can get as many costumers as possible in and out. It's seems that sadly it's all about the profit.
 The management only cares about hiting targets and because of that they look after the FOH staff a lot more than the kitchen staff,that they are just there to cook the food. 
 Youngs has very much a fast food approach to their quality and service of food , as most of the profit comes from the bar.
 There is a sense of unfriendliness and a very comparative coexistence between the staff. 
  I belive this is something tjat is manipulated by the management that  benefits by the grimmy atmosphere.

 If you are an expirianced chef then  better look for somewhere else that will appreciate your cooking skills more.
  If however you have never worked in a kitchen before , then this may be a good start as you will at least learn the very basics.


I think the thing that I loved about Youngs was that you could work as much or as little as you wanted. At the time of working I didn't have much else to do as in, studying, relationship, family ect. So for me I worked as much as I could doing up to 60h a week. But that wasn't rostered on for me. It would be like 35h a week and I use to ask co-workers for their weekend shifts and would cover any holiday ect. Its great as a first time job because you learn a lot about how a work place should be, in a relaxed environment. Such as being on time for work is a MUST. You learn to work collaboratively, to help out others when they might struggle with something. That you HAVE TO BE FLEXIBLE, as in you might think that youre going home at 10, but if your work load isn't finished... But mainly you learn to love what you do. And once you've shown your worth, you get rewarded and Youngs will put you through training to progress you.
All in all i've done many jobs but working for youngs was so much fun and I've made so many friends for life.

Top Job Titles	Average salary
Sous chef 509 salaries reported	£15.77 per hour
Line cook 915 salaries reported	£14.14 per hour
Assistant manager 208 salaries reported	£14.39 per hour
Head chef 176 salaries reported	£43,229 per year
Deputy manager 88 salaries reported	£34,597 per year

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