BrewDog Waterloo open letter - A manager's response
After the workers signed a letter detailing their conditions a duty manager from another BrewDog pub got in touch to have their say
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This comment from a duty manager is a response to the open letter (below) sent to BrewDog management by workers at Waterloo last week. BrewDog deny all allegations. This is a chance for someone in management to have their say…
“There are times when we stay open when I believe we 100% should not be open. We had no water on a Saturday night, it was rammed, we couldn’t wash glasses or dishes, couldn’t wash hands. The operation team was called, the situation was explained and they flippantly asked if people could use the loos in the bar next door. We just ignored them and closed.
In my experience the operation managers can’t handle their workload. I feel there’s too many bars for them to manage and this leads to urgent emails regularly unanswered. A site visit to us is rare and I think this is because this isn’t their favourite part of the UK.
I believe they are so overwhelmed that they don’t provide us with the right information. Instead I find we have the beer team, bookings team and folks that don’t understand the business continuously overstepping and trying to manage us.
In my experience the operation managers set unrealistic deadlines. For example, a Zoom call was recently organised at short notice - less than 24 hours - and it fell on 50% of the attendees day off. We were given no notice of the subject, so we couldn’t prepare anything, and it turned out to be just about beer pricing. In reverse, I’ve found that there are constant messages that require action by the next day but we’re given no notice to answer.
Individual bars can’t manage their own bookings; this is all done centrally. I’ve found that often bookings are taken at a peak time - like 7pm on a Wednesday - when 75% of tables are already booked leading to huge waits for food. When I send emails centrally these are often missed leading to occasions when the kitchen and bar can’t handle the amount of orders.
I discovered that we were having a new menu only five days before it was launched, creating what I felt was chaos. I was told some pubs around the country received no menus, the prices were wrong or were just printed as ‘zero’.
Not a single member of the current food operations team – to my knowledge - has ever set foot inside my bar. They’ve never audited the equipment here, they keep adding dishes - desserts, sides - expecting that we can deliver a massive menu daily.
The food team has to come up with a new food special every month, I think they forgot to tell the print company about the last two that they came up with as the menu stickers for them were never delivered.
The only thing keeping my management team here is Hop Stock, the big carrot-dangle. Shares are divided between the salaried team members and if/when we float we’ll get a stack of money, apparently.
£30,000 x 3 years was a touted amount but who knows what the company will be valued at if it keeps going at this rate.
There’s no training materials - all we have is a general manager induction book.”