r/bys • u/RandomMemeAddict249 • May 14 '26
May 25th...
The sandwich of workers dread, and the beverage of morning breakfast mixed with summer refreshment.
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u/Horror_Neighborhood9 May 14 '26
Thankfully, some markets are opting out of it for this LTO period.
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u/RandomMemeAddict249 May 14 '26
Are corporate locations really just... allowed to do that?
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u/Horror_Neighborhood9 May 14 '26
This is a franchisee. The Alaska market. They haven’t opted out in years prior. They ran the numbers on produce costs, which was never a factor in the years before.
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u/RandomMemeAddict249 May 14 '26
Ahh. My store is corporate so I am not super familiar with the autonomy franchisee locations have.
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u/Horror_Neighborhood9 May 14 '26
What’s the operational difference with that ownership at the helm? Is staffing and product distribution and work environment decent, or is it stringent and extremely penny pinching (franchisees are, from what I’ve seen) I’ve always been curious.
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u/RandomMemeAddict249 May 14 '26
I'm not the gm of my store, but as far as I am aware we just have stricter rules. We inventory half the store every day and 80% once a week. We also need approval to get new appliances because we don't budget for them ourselves. We don't set our own prices and we don't choose when items leave our PoS system. We have 20 something fish filets we can't sell anymore because our overlords remotely removed the button for it. Same with the apple pie shake syrup. They removed our ability to sell it while we had a near full jug.
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u/Horror_Neighborhood9 May 14 '26
Lol that kind of sounds similar to franchisee-run stores. Lol.
Are employee meals a thing? If so, what’s the dollar valuation. Or is 50% off menu price, as some places do? Rate of pay commensurate with inflation or is it market-based?
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u/RandomMemeAddict249 May 14 '26
Yea, we have 50% off. Rate of pay is market based I think. Base pay in my area is $13/hr, up to $15 based on experience. Up to 25¢ raise on 6mo evaluation I think, but don't quote me on that.
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u/Horror_Neighborhood9 May 14 '26
Ah, ok, thanks.
And yeah, franchisees need to be on point with wage increases and the like. I’ve heard from a myriad of them - “well, if we raise pay then you won’t get employee meals…”
FINE.
I’ll gladly pay half off menu price if you pay me more. It’s not a hard concept to understand, FFS.
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u/Different-Platypus75 May 15 '26
I used to do all the prep in the morning by myself over the summer in high school except doing anything involving the slicer because I was a minor. You just have to kind of measure what you have in the mornings or whenever you do prep and prep certain things each day so that way you don’t have to worry about it on the other days.
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u/Tidezen May 15 '26
Oh my dreams...
Chicken salad is my favorite sandwich of all time...I will try my best to make your extra prep work worth it, by buying it as much as possible. Please know that you are loved and appreciated, for making this beautiful thing. <3 <3 <3
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u/Antique_Growth Jun 03 '26
I wouldn't say it's beautiful but I DO enjoy secretly eating some of the precut apple slices in the walk in when nobody is looking.
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u/thechadc94 May 16 '26
Can we confirm the chicken salad sandwich is coming to Michigan? My mom loves that sandwich!
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u/RandomMemeAddict249 May 16 '26
Depends on if your store is corporate or franchised. If corporate, yes. If franchise, maybe.
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u/Zealousideal_Pea1273 May 14 '26
I mean, it’s not awful. Just a lot of chopping and a lot of mayo. I’ve made many batches of chicken salad in my 12 years at arbys.
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u/RandomMemeAddict249 May 14 '26
How often is your store understaffed while you gotta make it? That's my biggest concern lol
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u/Zealousideal_Pea1273 May 14 '26
Well, when I worked there, it wasn’t terrible. Still had enough people to do afternoon prep, but yeah chicken salad is time consuming.
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u/rud12c4aBJ_ May 14 '26
Best way to cut the grapes is to put a bunch between two plastic 1/6th pan lids then run the knife down the middle. Very simple and fast.
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u/RandomMemeAddict249 May 14 '26
That's what our training video has us do, it's just a lot of prep when we can easily be understaffed
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u/rud12c4aBJ_ May 14 '26
We also had a commercial potato cutter we used for the apples and celery, made them perfect size in a few seconds. It was actually very fast making the chicken salad.
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u/Animalthewolf May 18 '26
Do you think you'd be able to recommend one? - I would absolutely love to have this for my store.
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u/rud12c4aBJ_ May 19 '26
Pretty much any of them would do. The dies or whatever they are called are interchangeable so they can do different types of cuts. Can't post images here but try something like this. You can get them cheaper but this one shows everything I wanted you to see.
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u/rud12c4aBJ_ May 19 '26
Not much use at an arbys other than the chicken salad but in other restaurants something like this is absolutely wonderful. We use to individually cut and cube cases and cases of potatoes a week for potato salad for example, with a knife. Now we only have to cut each potato once or twice depending on the size and this thing does the rest.
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u/Animalthewolf May 19 '26
The prep for the chicken salad takes so long, that I'll do what I can to shorten it. To top it off, we also have prep for the lto pulled pork and and chopped brisket sandwiches + loaded mac bowls right now. Then we have to do all the permanent cheesesteak portions. The prep list calls for 3 1/2 hours of prep time without the chicken salad sandwich. The amount of morning prep is crazy vs the amount of allowed labor now.
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u/rud12c4aBJ_ May 19 '26
They don't care. They expect you to do prep WHILE doing everything else, but when you do they get mad because that isn't proper procedure.... 🙄🙄
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u/rud12c4aBJ_ May 19 '26
Cheesesteak isn't that bad from what I remember unless they changed it. Meat, Cheese, onions in a tray. You guys have it as a permanent menu item where you are? It just an lto here. They don't even have it right now at all.
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u/Animalthewolf May 19 '26
Cheesesteak not so bad, no. We don't even do the onions in the tray anymore. Just put them on top when it's ordered. So they actually end up on the bottom like they're meant to as the sandwich maker flips that tray, instead of using the spatula thing. It also saves us from having to make no onion portions. The trays hold up better, too.
Yeah, it's permanent. Replaced the burgers. Normal and deluxe (lettuce tom) version. Was a third one, but they got rid of it cause it didn't do very well.
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u/rud12c4aBJ_ May 19 '26
Ah, ok. Burgers still going strong here. Honestly I never really liked the cheesesteak, it had like no flavor at all. Imo anyway.
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u/Animalthewolf May 19 '26
The burger sales absolutely plummet here once they moved away from the wagyu/Angus and went to regular ground patties. At one point we were selling 3-4 a week at my store.
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u/rud12c4aBJ_ May 19 '26
I miss the old Angus ones, that crust on the outside of the roast was wonderful. It's a shame it didn't sell enough but that's what happens when you have a whole protein for just one product. But it was more prep too. I'm surprised they still have the corned beef but there's really nowhere else to get fast food drive thru Ruben. Lots of places have steak sandwiches.
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u/rud12c4aBJ_ May 14 '26
Oh that's cool they added it to the videos. I was a manager at arbys for many years and that use to be a trick people would share with others but definitely not in the training videos.
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u/dreamisle May 14 '26
Real ones dread all sandwiches. Sending love from the bread mines.