I worked for Jack in the Box for nearly seven years, starting as an ordinary crew member, and worked my way up to store management where I was for 3 years. A few months ago the locations in my area were all sold to a franchisee and I, along with most of the other GMs in the area, were laid off by the new owners.
As i’m no longer bound by the confidentiality agreements I signed when I got the job and feel no particular loyalty to my former employer, i’d be happy to answer any various and sundry questions the Teeming Millions have about Jack in the Box or about the drive-thru business in general. Fire away.
Jack in the Box is one of the better fast food places, in my opinion (despite the controversy a few decades back about the food poisoning).
What would you say was the best thing on the menu?
I was on salary for $40,000 a year. My schedule was based on a 45-hour work week, so about $17 an hour if you do the math that way. Most weeks I usually worked closer to the neighborhood of 55-60 hours due to the various sorts of things that would come up that i’d need to deal with.
Most of the people I hired tended to be younger people, but I would hire older people as well if they had the right skill set and didn’t have a cloudy past. The main red flags I looked for were criminal records, a lot of employers in a short period of time, or people who lived at the homeless shelter down the road from us. (They pretty much NEVER lasted past their first week.)
As far as sandwiches go, the sirloin burger. For side dishes, the stuffed jalapenos. For breakfast, the steak & egg burrito.
Jack in the Box has a HACCP checklist that the shift manager or GM is supposed to go over at least three times in a day, and it’s pretty thorough as to verifying product temperatures and such. Employees are required to wash their hands at least once an hour, which is verified by a timer and another checklist. Gloves aren’t required except in states or municipalities where the law requires it. It’s a good system when it’s enforced, but it’s only as good as the manager enforcing it. Corporate has inspectors who visit each restaurant (corporate-owned and franchised ones both) randomly once per quarter and check it themselves. There are pretty steep penalties for any employee or manager who gets caught breaking the rules, and a franchisee can lose their license (and be forced to sell the stores back to corporate) if they have repeated failures.
Again, this one is only as good as the manager who enforces it. Every food product has a shelf life on the package, and once the package is opened (like to prep lettuce for salads, for example) it gets labeled with another shelf life. Expired product is supposed to be thrown out immediately and written off as waste, though I heard of unscrupulous managers simply re-labeling product and using it anyway. (Which would be grounds for firing if they got caught.)
It varies depending on the product. With produce, lettuce and tomatoes come whole and need to be prepped, while other vegetables are already washed and sliced and ready to use. Burger patties come frozen and pre-shaped, as do the various chicken patties, filets, strips, etc. A lot of the prep person’s job was assembling salads and “setups” - little cardboard boats with preportioned amounts of topping for things like the breakfast burritoes or the bacon cheddar wedges, which get popped in the microwave when they’re ready to be used.
About half to two-thirds of my time was spent on the floor, particularly since we were a lower-volume store and at off-peak times it might be only myself and one or two employees on the floor.
I started at the store as a crew member and worked my way up through the ranks. I spent a few years as a shift manager and a few years as assistant manager.
Not to hijack, but many years ago, I did this job for this company (after, like Smapti, working my way up from ordinary floor-worker, through shift leader, and assistant manager). I’ll try to contribute anything I can to the thread. At the time I did the job, each restaurant was visited at least once per month for a full inspection, and several times a month by mystery guests.
They come frozen and pre-made, a tortilla around meat. You pop up to 6 of them into a fryer rack, close the rack, then drop it into the fryer for (I think) 60 seconds. Pull out the rack, open it and dump out the tacos onto a tray, then open them up (usually burning the tips of your fingers), drop in some cheese, some lettuce, and taco sauce, then pop into a paper sleeve and serve.
At the time, there were complete restaurants I wouldn’t eat at, but there was never “I won’t eat THAT” items on the menu (other than things I just flat out didn’t like). Now I don’t eat there, but mainly because I avoid fast food.
Do individual stores get the results of those phone surveys customers occasionally get invited to take on their receipt? How seriously do they take them? What are you supposed to do about it if the results are unsatisfactory?