Extremely Poor Leadership - werkgeversreview Director bij ChowNow

1,0
6 sep 2019
Aanbevelen
Goedkeuring directeur
Zakelijk vooruitzicht

Pluspunten

None related to how the company actually functions or the experience of being part of it, though the cold brew is pretty good when it's not out.

Minpunten

There are a lot of cons that I'd like to share with you. I recently moved on after about 9 months and working there was a thoroughly horrible experience for me. The predecessor in my role stayed 3 months and doesn't even list ChowNow on his LinkedIn profile. During his brief stint he successfully recruited a friend to join his team, and he still moved on after 3 months. Of course his friend soon followed suit. It all makes perfect sense to me now. These were definitely red flags to me as I evaluated ChowNow against other options, but I'm experienced and confident in my abilities and chalked it up to them simply not being a fit for the company. If you look at the theme of reviews here you'd get the sense that ChowNow is an excellent place to do your job each day. Maybe it is in some junior positions and to some people that like a lack of supervision/accountability, but for me it was an extremely negative experience from basically day 1. It's clear to me that ChowNow is significantly misrepresented here on Glassdoor, a resource that is trusted by many during the interview process (it was certainly a part of my decision to join ChowNow), and I'm hoping to help others avoid an experience similar to mine through a review in this same medium. * The entire executive team is significantly under-qualified for their roles and thus operate in an insecure way - as you'd expect, this is the root cause of a myriad of problems that cascade down through the organization * One specific example is fear that they won't be able to attract the appropriate talent in alignment with planned growth, creating ideal conditions for mercenary types as they over-extend to land hires in key roles * The working culture over my 9 months was a mix between 1. thinly veiled mercenary-type leaders in operations (they're about a year into this) that believe, correctly, that they can behave any way they want organizationally with no consequence, and 2. what I'd refer to as the 'old guard', an extremely passive aggressive group that have been with ChowNow since the early days - these people/teams REFUSED to partner as per organizational design and were never put into alignment or held accountable by mutual leadership * When the most opportunistic of this 'old guard' align with this dysfunctional leadership, some of the worst working culture I've ever seen transpires for those around them on the org chart: constant process circumvention, baseless attacks on those who own things that they feel they should own, and every other immature tactic you'd see listed in a textbook describing organizational dysfunction - they succeed, and are allowed to succeed by the executive team, in tilting the organization to disproportionately serve their functions in a way that compromises the organization's effort as a whole * This working culture is fully known to the executive team and they choose not to take corrective action (I surfaced this to my manager, the COO, numerous times and it was never refuted or addressed) - I do not know this for sure but the read I get is that they know they can't move on from these individuals right now as it would impact their plans (at least in their thinking) and, as a result, they actually take steps to prop up the very individuals that are having a corrosive effect on the organization * The sacred process at ChowNow is the hiring process - once you're through that and company onboarding there's a distinct drop-off in working culture - it's a complete facade * Bottom Line: Anyone that's serious about their craft, career and where they spend a large portion of their time each weekday should pass on ChowNow until the leadership is significantly upgraded

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Reactie van ChowNow
6y
Thank you for the feedback. “The cold brew is pretty good when it's not out” is a pretty fitting opening to this review. Clearly you had a ‘glass half empty’ experience, which I’m sorry to hear about. We sat 10 feet from each other the entire time you were at the company, and over that time chatted about a whole host of topics: electric cars, bikes, scotch, work tools and projects, etc. I really enjoyed our banter. Not once did you mention any of these problems to me. I would have loved the opportunity to discuss them while you were here. Feedback is critical if we’re going to get better and I’m going to spend time reflecting on this review. As I’ve said previously, I don’t think any company deserves a 5/5 on Glassdoor. All companies have areas that need to be improved and ChowNow is no different. On the other hand, I also don’t believe we deserve a 1/5 either. This review implies the company is failing, which is far from the truth, so I would like to take a minute to highlight a few facts: (1) We will post our highest monthly revenue in the company’s history this month (Sept 2019). (2) Last month was our highest month for sales in the history of the company. (3) We’ve hired 4 VPs in the last 12 months who have more than 90 years of combined experience across multiple disciplines. They all hail from impressive, publicly- traded companies. (4) The average tenure for our current employees is 2.2 years -- with fully one-third of our team having been hired in the last 12 months. 20% of our team has been with us for over 4 years. (5) We run an internal eNPS survey twice a year. We continue to receive high marks, well above industry averages. (6) We’ve opened a regional office and have hired 40+ staff members within the past year with plans to grow further over the next year. I would also like to add that dismissing positive reviews from other team members simply as “being from junior [employees]” and thus implying they don’t know better is not how we view differing opinions at ChowNow, and may explain why things didn’t work out for you. I understand not agreeing with every decision, but pointing fingers at “the old guard,” and at the new senior guard, and at junior employees, and at leadership covers just about everyone at the company. I always encourage healthy debate and think it’s required to build a good culture, but it also requires everyone to understand that they won’t get their way 100% of the time. This includes me. Just because we go with someone else’s idea doesn’t mean we’re letting that person run wild, it means we believe it to be a good idea and are supportive of them executing on it. This is where many of our best ideas have played out within the organization, across different levels and tenure. I like when we disagree, debate, and move on as a team, but perhaps that’s my ‘glass half full’ approach. I wish you well in your career and welcome the opportunity to chat offline if you’d like to share additional feedback. - Chris

Ontdek andere reviews over ChowNow

5,0
9 nov 2025
Anonieme werknemer
Aanbevelen
Goedkeuring directeur
Zakelijk vooruitzicht

Pluspunten

The company genuinely cares about helping independent restaurants succeed, and you feel that mission in your day-to-day work. • Strong leadership direction lately with a clearer strategy, better structure, and more accountability than before. • Tons of learning and growth if you’re proactive; you get real exposure to leadership and cross-functional collaboration. • The sales org is evolving fast with new tools, better data, and improved compensation structure. • Employees are passionate, scrappy, and want to win together; it’s a culture of builders

Minpunten

Still in transition. Processes, tools, and messaging are being rebuilt, so it can feel like controlled chaos at times. • The pace is extremely fast — not for anyone who wants a 9-to-5. • Some growing pains with cross-department alignment as the company scales. • With so many changes, communication can sometimes lag

1,0
15 mei 2026
Anonieme werknemer
Aanbevelen
Goedkeuring directeur
Zakelijk vooruitzicht

Pluspunten

Coworkers are good people and teams try their best despite the chaos. Remote work.

Minpunten

Poor executive leadership, constantly changing priorities and restructuring, lack of direction, low morale, reactive decision making, and executives who are out of touch with what the business actually needs.

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