A break room is a place for employees to get off their feet for a few minutes and decompress before continuing their shifts. It’s a safe haven where you can grab food, catch up on email or chat with fellow employees — and it’s essential to employee productivity.
Best Employee Break Rooms!
While this space should include comforting amenities, these 25 employee cafes, break rooms and cafeterias go above and beyond. They’re fun environments with bright décor, delicious food and stimulating activities.
Susquehanna International Group, LLP
A Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania, financial company, Susquehanna International Group, LLP operates “at the intersection of trading, quantitative research, and technology.”
They also feed their employees catered meals for free. As one employee wrote on Glassdoor: “You get to work with smart people to solve challenging problems, and you get free lunch while you do it.” Employees can even get involved in a round of poker in the break room.
CamelBak Products
With products designed for active people to stay hydrated, including purification and filtration systems and water bottles, CamelBak knows a thing or two about healthy living. That attitude naturally trickles down to its employees.
As one employee at Glassdoor explains: “Food is brought in regularly. Showers after running the reserve trail. Lastly it’s just the people that make it go.”
NetApp
NetApp produces data hardware and software, including cloud services, data recovery and data storage. This Sunnyvale, California, company also gives back to its local community through Share Your Lunch, Susanna Kim at ABC News reports. Employees get the chance to give their lunch money to a good cause through this yearly program.
Neutron Interactive
Neutron Interactive in Utah produces and filters leads through software such as LeadiD and FraudLogix. However, it’s not all hard work here. Alexia Chianis at BusinessBee says the company has “daily catered lunches and yoga classes” and “unlimited snacks and drinks and a decidedly anti-cubical environment.”
One former employee wrote on Glassdoor that Neutron has “such a fun group of people to work with. Great experience in learning to think on your feet and having a ‘can-do’ attitude.”
WhiteWave Foods
Colorado company WhiteWave Foods manufacturers for brands such as International Delight, Earthbound Farms, Vega and Silk. Glassdoor confirms that the dining options for employees are plentiful and delicious. Abigail Thorpe at Greatist also says the company also has “Halloween parties, free zoo passes, cocktail hours, lunch-and-learns and company races.”
Marvell Technology Group
Want to get into the Semiconductor Café? You’ll have to work at Marvell Technology Group in Santa Clara, California. The café for this tech company serves breakfast, lunch and dinner. Employees on Glassdoor have raved about the food. Marvell also boosts company morale with live events and its own fitness center.
Limeade
Blending health with technology, Limeade in Bellevue, Washington, wants its employees to be the healthiest they can be. There are plenty of opportunities to get one’s sweat with a treadmill desk right in the break room, says Thorpe at Greatist. No wonder employees on Glassdoor are such big fans, with one employee saying “the culture and innovation here is genuine…the customer is truly put first.”
Bain & Company
Consultants Bain & Company have served global customers for nearly 50 years. Some of their specialties include sustainability, acquisitions, mergers, digital marketing and performance improvements. According to Glassdoor, employees all felt they had an ideal work/life balance.
Their break room is also a favorite, says Chianis at BusinessBee, describing the space: “A light filled common area that boasts intersecting hallways and plenty of space to sit down for a quick meeting, enjoy a chat over a latte, or challenge each other to a quick game of pool.”
MINDBODY
Marketing and sales services company MINDBODY offers various bonuses to employees that are indeed good for the mind and body. These include a work afternoon spent playing sports, nearly 30 catered dishes on a vast menu, massages and wellness classes.
Zynga
Zynga produces mobile games, so you’d expect the company culture to be fun. One employee says on Glassdoor they were fed breakfast, lunch and dinner while at work. As another employee writes: “The company spends an excessive amount of money to provide their employees with food, snacks, freebies, weekly happy hours, and team outings.”
SAS Institute, Inc.
Tech company SAS Institute, Inc. is highly-rated on Glassdoor for its work culture. Located in Cary, North Carolina, the company was founded in 1976. “Freek drinks and snacks are in break stations in every building and employees can enjoy water delivery and weekly fruit and vegetable delivery from local farms,” says Kim at ABC News.
Tradeshift
Invoicing company Tradeshift has locations across the world, but its US offices are in New York and San Francisco. Employees there receive “full 100% health coverage, unlimited vacation and sick time, and perks like in-office yoga, boot camp, and gym memberships.” Not only that, but they get to eat well, too. “We also keep a fully-stocked kitchen with healthy snacks and delicious lunches are catered daily,” the company says.
Huntsman Cancer Institute
Housed at the University of Utah, the Huntsman Cancer Institute is a trusted place for cancer patients to receive treatment and support. The medical center has two restaurants on its grounds, The Bistro and The Point. Both are open from breakfast through dinner, and The Bistro is even open on weekends. Guests can sit down and eat or get their food to-go. The Point serves hot buffets and banquets, too.
Sparks
Philadelphia marketing company Sparks keeps it healthy. As Thorpe at Greatist writes: “The company offers its…employees a farm-to-table lunch every few months and hosts on-site yoga classes once per week. And because it specializes in events, employees get to experience them too. Summer BBQs, chili cook-offs, and holiday parties are just a sampling of the festivities that keep this place lively.”
Red Ventures
While, sure, at the end of the day you can head to the local bowling alley or basketball court, at Red Ventures, a North Carolina marketing and sales firm, the employees can stay at work and still enjoy those activities. A former employee chimes in on Glassdoor, saying the “onsite food is good” and includes vegetarian options.
SolidFire
Located in beautiful downtown Boulder, Colorado, data storage company SolidFire offers its employees a lot of perks — including unlimited PTO and on-site massages — and the drinks and snacks the company serves are totally free.
FactSet
A data and analytics company that serves sales companies, private equity firms, wealth managers, investment bankers and more, FactSet has more than 60,000 clients that use its services. Employees are always well-fed, too, because, as one Glassdoor user writes, “free lunch on the company from Monday through Thursday, open kitchen 24 hours.”
OtterBox
Smartphone case company OtterBox offers a lot to its employees, including “chiropractic services, massage therapy, acupuncture, fertility treatment, orthodontics for children and adults, and some autism treatments,” says Thorpe. There’s fun to be had if employees join OtterLife, which is designed to “connect employees with similar interests (from beer to hiking.)”
McMurry/TMG
Marketing company McMurry/TMG specializes in social media marketing, digital design, print marketing and more. Employees get lots of extras when working here, according to Glassdoor, such as “food, games, early-morning home-baked goodies, gift cards,” and more. Another employee wrote about the fun happy hours and Free Food Fridays.
PopCap Games
PopCap Games is a mobile game developer that has created such titles as Peggles Blast and Plants vs. Zombies. One employee wrote on Glassdoor about their experience at PopCap, saying the company has a “positive fun atmosphere, competitive salaries, good benefits, nice perks like free food, free bus passes and challenging technical work.”
Chianis also notes employees will find “break rooms that include lush sectionals where movie watching isn’t unheard of, an abundance of oversized televisions outfitted with video games galore, whiteboards for capturing those fantastic fleeting thoughts, private cell phone rooms, and a tricked-out kitchen on every floor of their headquarters.”
Chesapeake Energy Corporation
With locations across Wyoming, Texas, Pennsylvania, Oklahoma, Ohio and Louisiana, Chesapeake Energy Corporation certainly has a lot of employees to take care of. One way they do that? By having four restaurants at Chesapeake’s Oklahoma City building. There’s even a Starbucks.
Employees can also gain access to a daycare facility, pharmacy, health clinic, fitness center with classes, and theaters that can hold 400 people.
Return Path
A data firm headquartered in New York, Return Path is big on offering freebies to employees, particularly food, as confirmed by Glassdoor. Employees can choose from healthier dishes or more indulgent fare to get them through an afternoon slump.
Spokane Teachers Credit Union (STCU)
According to Glassdoor reviews, many employees at the Spokane Teachers Credit Union stay for years because of the working atmosphere. This Washington company is all about saving money, which makes it unsurprising that STCU is known for its affordable but filling meals at its cafeteria.
kCura
A small IT company located at the Chicago Creative Space, kCura continues to grow because it knows how to treat its employees. The office includes “kitchenette areas with butcher block tables” and “brightly colored corner meeting rooms named after Chicago neighborhoods.” Andrew Sieja, who started the company, also outfitted the space with a video game room and The Couch, a $25 yard sale find that employees gravitate to.
Asana
Productivity software company Asana is renowned on Glassdoor for the work/life balance of employees. That’s probably because they can take care of personal matters at the office, such as getting in some exercise at yoga class or eating organic, healthy foods in a cool break room.
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