Cooking on Friday Nights

Working in the hospitality industry as a hostess can be tough, but what about working as a cook on a busy friday night? I interviewed Neckson Jean-Baptiste who has been a cook for Tarpon in the past. He gaved me great insights of what it has been like for him to work in the restaurant buisness. Neckson's true passion is music, as an R&B singer he is working extremely hard to make it in the entertainment industry. Cooking is his second passion, and this is what he does until his music career takes off. When being asked what was his worse experience in the kitchen, Neckson had an interesting story to share. " My worst experience would have to be a busy Friday night at Tarpon Bend. One of the cooks had an emergency and called out, therefore there were only me and one other cook. The manger was fairly new and was still being trained on working the stations correctly. Friday nights at Tarpon get extremely busy, Tarpon Bend is located in a good area where a lot of customers come in and out. The kitchen holds three stations, I was working on both sautee and salads that night. The hardest part was to keep my eyes on both the fried foods as well as preparing salads and entrees. But this was not all, a party of 6 entered the restaurant and each ordered a seafood kettle which takes about 14-15 minutes of cooking. There was no time to recover as other tickets kept coming in. As a result, the food kept coming out late." That same night Neckson mentioned that he received a total amount of 30 tickets at one time. With all the hard work that cooks put in, Neckson mentions that the best part of working in the restaurant business are the compliments from customers. Praise is mostly what cooks like to hear from customers, because as we all know long and strenuous hours while standing on your feet having to endure stress is certainly not enjoyable. Finally, i asked Neckson how will he use his culinary skills when the music career takes off. He mentioned that he wanted to go to culinary school or take buisness mangement classes so that he can open up his own restaurant. Neckson wants to impact the hospitality industry making it a wonderful dinning experience for America.

Working in the Hospitality Industry

Working in the hospitality industry, may not be so easy for individuals trying to make a living. Dealing with rude customers, people that do not tip well, and drunk individuals on friday nights are just some of the pitfalls of working in the restaurant business. When i worked at Tarpon Bend, in Fort Lauderdale http://www.tarponbend.com/ i experienced first hand what it was like to deal with all these pitfalls. One of my worst experiences was on a Friday night. I was a hostess and there were lots of people at the bar, i had to make my way through the computer so that i could put orders in. One of the customers standing up at the bar, looked at me and said " am i in your way?" sarcastically i responded " just a little bit". He got furious used profanity and i had to call over my manager to settle down the situation. The guy eventually left and the situation blew over. Another Friday night, one guy opened up a tab at the restaurant for ten people when the bill came he apparently could not afford it and started raising hell at the bar cursing at the manager. All the bouncers gathered around him as he was becoming more and more violent. The bouncers took him outside as he was starting to throw punches at security. Working in a restaurant can be difficult however, it can be life changing in a good way. Working at Tarpon really taught me valuable lessons and i also met wonderful, genuine people. The waitresses are all extremely good looking as well as giving customers great service. They all work there butts off to make more money and the cooks had always an interesting story to tell making all of us laugh. This is also where i met my boyfriend, he was the cook and i was the hostess. Who ever thought that you could find love working in the hospitality industry!! As a matter of fact this has happened to a few people i know. One of the waitress and a bouncer at Tarpon had a wonderful relationship, and my other co-worker worked in the excutive offices for the restaurant and her husband was a cook. Even though working in a restaurant can be tough, you can meet a lot of interesting people and also find friends and love.... The only downfall are the incidents that may happen are a little more extreme than the average job however, the experience and knowledge of customer service is life changing.

Hospitality Guru Diva Introduction

One may ask who is hospitality Guru Diva? or Why is this blog so important? Well, I thought that since many of us work in the hospitality industry or have worked in it in the past it would be interesting to write and gain thoughts of what others may think of working in the industry with the hard economic times we are dealing with right now . I think that it is also important to guide and lead others to many job opportunities in the industry. Many people have lost their jobs because of the economic crisis and are looking for opportunites to search for leads hoping that somewhere someone is hiring. A great website that can help people find jobs and also help employers find their right candidate to hire is called http://www.job.travel/. I think this was a good idea to help people in the hospitality industry find what they are looking for or even a lead to where they have the possibility of getting hired in these hard times. Also check out http://www.hotelschool.cornell.edu/about/pubs/news/newsdetails.html?id=541 Cornell even talks about how beneficial job.travel is!!