USSE does NOT strike me as the type who can make a career out of food service. Depending on what you're doing and where you're working at, the money is FAR better than what people think, but you WILL earn every penny of it. Give you a for-instance for Wisconsin, and this was going on at LEAST 10 years ago, but a friend of mine was an assistant manager who started at $33k/yr. Doesn't sound like much, but again, 10 years ago, and the cost of living in Wisconsin is nowhere near NJ. I know for certain that there were managers (not owners) who worked for the same chain I did that made $65-70k/year to start in NJ, which probably sounds like you're just scraping by (in NJ), but that was for people who were able to at least use one nostril to fog up the mirror in the hiring process.
I hate the "check this out" stories though. It's bad enough I had to live through them, and that they go on EVERYWHERE