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.