Thursday, August 30, 2007

Days Off

My days off are Wednesday and Thursday not to bad. Its two days that most people don't have off during the week. Restaurant and Food service works are almost on an entirely different schedule from the rest of the world. Most people have Saturday and Sunday off which most of us in the food business can only dream of having those days off. Friday through Sunday is the money making days of the week. It is the busiest and craziest time of the week for most food establishments there for we never get those days off. Unless the boss is feeling nice or you happen to request those days off in advance. Most food service professionals like myself come to the realization that we'll never get weekends off and we don't really mind either. For most of us our Friday is Sunday or in my case at the moment my Friday is Tuesday. Along with the crazy days of the week we get off comes the fact that it almost never stays the same. Our schedules and days off can change daily, weekly, monthly or what ever the business trends call for. So as you can see if your entering the restaurant business and your not flexible with your schedule or you want the weekends off you might want to try something else. My experience as a restaurant manager with hiring if you can't work weekends we most likely won't even interview you. Some times we can work around the non flexible availability of people but the ideal hire would be someone who can work anything they are scheduled to work.

Monday, August 27, 2007

The Real Deal

As you can see from my pictures I'm the real deal. But you can have all the skill in the world and if you can't land a position where you can realy show your stuff what good is it? Well you can wow your relatives at family functions. If you want to make it in this industry you have to work hard if you really want to make a living working with food. Although I'm a bit discouraged with the speed in which my career is progressing I love this business and I don't want to do anything else. Right now I'm busting my but for Bob Evans restaurants gaining management experience and then I'll shoot for those kitchen management/ sous chef positions. If you can't truly say you love the restaurant business and you don't like to work hard you won't make it in the restaurant business.

Friday, August 24, 2007

Just Another Day at The Restaurant

Another Day of work we are short staffed. Whats new the same thing happens at almost every restaurant at this time of year. Every one goes back to school and you end up short staffed. How dose this keep happening year after year. It dosn't change!!!!! I am working on my second year of management and I already know how to fix the problem but it is the bosses above me. We're fine we don't need to hire we'll slow down when school starts but we can't even run a simple monday or tuesday shift because the retaurant is short staffed. It takes the area director to come in to make the GM realize we need more staff. Although it dosn't take a big brain to figure out when you only have one cook on saturaday and sunday mornings at a restaurant that is famous for breakfast that we need to hire more staff. How hard is it to continuously hire towards the end of summer to ensure you are fully staffed when school starts back up? Aparently pretty hard since it seems to me no matter what restaurant I've been in it is always done at the last minute after customer complaints rise and every shift is rocky. Although after numerous shift covers and people are where they need to be the shift will sort of run ok but how can we stop the cycle?

Thursday, August 23, 2007

Restaurant Manager

I'm a restaurant manager for Bob Evans. I started out as dish washer in the restaurant industry at the age of 15 and I have worked in the food business ever since. I love to cook I want to become a chef. Thats a achievable goal but a tough one because our industry is flooded with people of all walks of life going after the same goal. I went from washing dishes to cooking in no time, I loved it. The fast pace, the insanity and the never ending stream of orders flowing in with questions, how long on this , where is that, fix this , I said no cheese and we keep coming back for more. Everyday is a new experience in the reataurant industry loaded with a whole new aray of problems to be solved. As I but in the long hours and cook for different restaurants I decided I need to go to culinary school. I spent four years learning all the basics of cooking and baking as well as management. Yet with the degree behind me and some experience I find it very hard to get the positions I want. So here I am working for Bob Evans as a restaurant manager. I took the position only to gain management experience and I still find it difficult to land a sous chef position or even get so much as an interview. So to those of you expecting to go to culinary school and get a degree then walk in to that fifty thousand a year job or more it probably won't happen unless your lucky. You need the degree pluse a few years of experience to get your restuarant career going if you can handle the abuse we love to continue to endure.