Most of this was written in July of 2024 right after I walked out of my trial shift with my partner after horrible conditions.
For context I worked at Fireād, Bandoliers kitchen and food service for almost a year and knew Zander the whole time. We approached Zander, the owner asking for a job at Bandolier after Fireād had dissolved. He agreed and we eagerly joined.
Note: Zander blocked me immediately after he didnāt pay me. Have not talked to him or interacted with Bandolier or him since July of 2024. Any claim of āabuseā is comical, he is in his 40s and Iām 20, 19 at the time. Also funny considering he asked for my partner a I back after we walked out, only changing attitude after we said no. Iām just simply spreading awareness.
Zander tells us all to come in at 6 for our first service. We get there and there is barely any of the required ingredients that Zander needed and Zander himself no where in sight for service for 20 minutes.
A line begins to forms to order food, we must tell everyone that we're waiting on our boss to come with menus so people know what they're even ordering, and a tablet system for us workers to take said orders.
Zander comes walking in around 20 past 6, and my partner and I immediately suspect him to be intoxicated. He sets up what we need and immediately we take orders.
About 20 minutes into service, everyone in staff are running around not knowing exactly what we're doing, with about 20 tacos on order, and not even enough ingredients ready, it does not take rocket science to look around and notice the kitchen isn't ready for this. Also consider, we only learnt briefly how to make each taco, hours prior, with no direct instructions to the team together. Me and the team of 2 others, are thrown in the deep end and Zander leaves to do trivia.
He comes wandering back in the kitchen on multiple occasions within the hour, micromanaging and picking and choosing which section heās belongs in. At one point taking over me in the tortilla section and not telling me that he's stopped and gotten bored of the section while our rush was starting.
Next thing I know, the deep frier, literally explodes, the best comparison i have is when you drop mentos in a coke bottle. Zander stands there not knowing what to do with staff holding the holder above, the still occurring explosion. This is dangerous, hot oil EVERYWHERE. Zander chooses to ignore this AND continues to serve food from the same deep fryer, despite obvious safety concerns to us staff and customers arguably.
He leaves again and we find out there is also a major problem with the docket system; Zander did not test run the tablet and every SINGLE order subsequently has a shrimp taco, that barely anyone had ordered on every, single, docket.
I said this quickly and point it out to Zander, he answers me but just tells me to do what's there. I communicate to the staff on frier sections to cook the amount of shrimp that are on the dockets, incorrectly without my knowledge.
Later we have customers complain about having Shrimp tacos they did not order, now we have no idea who
ACTUALLY ordered the Shrimp Taco and who didn't with plenty of food now going to waste.
Zander this whole time is continually micromanaging and expecting more while also not taking any responsibility for how it's going down and not thinking about how stressed his staff is on the first night of service.
My partner close to tears and my legs about to give in due to stress, both of us with years of kitchen experience have never felt like that in a workplace in our lives. I admittedly freak out and I call him out and got us the hell out of there.
Never got paid for those trial shifts. 11 hours of work. My partner did but I obviously got under his bros skin. Zander likes to pretend we donāt exist and that I was insane but his actions speak for himself. He will most likely say this is āuntrueā but my partner and friend we were working with can confirm.
Beautiful staff besides that creep (thereās even more to Zander) but unfortunately...
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