You can stop holding your breath

I got the job! Anticipated start date is April 4, with a list of tasks to complete on a very nice hourly basis until then. Excitement abounds! We are waiting for Marnie's official acceptance letter but they alluded to her directly in my "list of tasks" so we know she got it, just not if they agreed to her hourly wage.

Times are happy.

Olives Ole is doing well. The ingredients and supplies list can't stay completed no matter how hard I try; as soon as I send it off, I get two emails letting me know things have changed again. I need to take a 5 Hour Energy and crank this sucker out while I still have time.

And yesterday I finally got into the swing of writing out all my notes for the Original Mexican Restaurant into quiz form. It's a lot of fun and it will be very helpful for new hires to have the menu knowledge really drilled into their head before they begin.

This past week I got to be the student rep for the San Antonio Culinary & Restaurant Committee luncheon again (two semesters in a row! Lucky me!) which meant eating great food made by one of the Management & Food Production classes--the best gazpacho I've ever had, plus lamb chops (mine was killed) and a really interesting baklava cheesecake. (See below.) I was also treated to the best breakfast tacos in San Antonio at Mitman's (sorry, Tink a Tako, you've been replaced), fed chipotle chocolate brownies that we'll be selling at Olives Ole, and more free fried pickles, bison burgers and sweet potato fries at Earl Abels during last Sunday's Olives Ole meeting. For as much work as I'm putting into this semester, I sure can't complain about the food.


It's the little perks, really.

Overall, I am feeling great and really delighted in everything that is being accomplished. My ducks are all in a row. This week.

Counting my chickens

As of right now, I am finishing up my Culinary Arts and Restaurant Management degrees. I have 1 more class in each category to take over the summer/fall and then I will graduate. I have also been intending to apply for the Baking & Pastry Arts program which would have me done with St Philips in Spring 2012. It's competitive-- about 80 people apply for a class of 16. But I'm confident that I would be accepted because *brag mode engaged* I am well-known in the department, I have excellent grades including in the pastry classes I've previously taken, and once I get that pesky little detail of not having any professional references straightened out, I write a pretty good application essay. Plus my good friend Marnie will kill me if I don't apply for it, because she is too.

Well, Marnie may be killing me.

Have I mentioned that Chef is consulting on the side for a fellow who is opening up a bakery? Probably not. This week I took two bakery-related field trips with Chef--Monday we went and picked out and paid for restaurant equipment on the South side of San Antonio. Boy do I need to learn Spanish. Chef told me straight out that if I went in there speaking English, I would get a different price quote. But that equipment is built like a tank, yo.

The second field trip was getting it delivered to the location, which he has already purchased. It's in Leon Springs on Boerne Stage Rd and I-10, which is a pretty great area. Of course it was the day that San Antonio decided to be 20 degrees, but whatever.

So the long and short of it is, this guy Tom has the business plan and savvy but he needs a general manager, effective April or May of this year. Chef thinks it should be me. Tom seems amenable--at his request I have already sent him my resume and we are meeting sometime over the next week or so to discuss employment.

If I like what I hear, this may be my entrance into the culinary world.

I mean, when else can you graduate from school and have your first job offer be the GM position to start up a new business? Especially one that is being consulted by Chef who certainly has the years and experience to back up his confidence in what Tom is planning.

It's kind of scary and awesome. But I want to be sure that I believe in what Tom wants to do and my role in making that happen. I've had enough "jobs" to know that I am happiest and I work hardest when I'm part of a mission. I'm a crusader. That's why I'm enjoying my work with Chef so much; I see every part of it as a chance to do something great, and it's really rewarding for me. He's got to make me a believer, or I'm staying the course with school.

A slightly inappropriate funny. Chef and I were talking about my upcoming interview. I was expressing how nervous I am to ask about their expectations of me as the GM of this unknown business, and Chef told me I was going about it all wrong. Rather than letting Tom tell me what I was going to do, I need to tell him what I can do, what I will do, and what I won't do--namely, work myself to the bone and never see my family.

I surely looked skeptical with a hint of shock, because have I mentioned I'm a crusader? who were not known for their rich and thriving personal lives? so Chef took a different approach. "Treat the interview as if it were a request for sex. YOU have to be the one to set the terms. YOU set the conditions and be firm about them, and if he doesn't follow through, it's a no-go." He paused and added, "Just put your mind back in high school."

I dimpled and said, "Oh, no, married life is like that too."

Sad thing is, it made sense. And I feel more confident going in and changing my life. Possibly. This may all be very anti-climactic if it doesn't work out, but it's a fun milestone.

(In other weekly news, I finally finished the food requisition list for Olives Ole, put it in a snazzy format and am getting it proofed before submitting it. And I also turned in my ingredient requisition for the San Antonio Rampage demo next Wednesday. Tomorrow night, the aforementioned-future-assassin Marnie will come over with her son and sister-in-law and we will do a test run of the demo using the civilians as surrogate hockey players. Which means between now and then I need to buy the test run ingredients and finish the handout which is the basis of the entire class. I will need to hit up the Original for a bit this weekend but not actually for the Practicum--my Legal Issues class wants us to do a "property inspection" and check for any safety hazards/violations, so it's as convenient as anything. Well okay it isn't, because it's downtown which is a long drive and then I have to deal with parking nonsense, but I would feel silly inspecting a random other place.)

A week at a glance

Last week was snoozy. That's its official designation. I was lacking a sense of urgency, compounded by a general lack of communication with Les Dames. Fortunately this picked up throughout the week and Chef and I started a very tentative timeline of events. Fast forward to yesterday, a 3 hour meeting at the Botanical Gardens where we laid out the general schematics for the concessions booths and my fellow St Philips students got even more courses to prepare.

(Currently we're in charge of making:
*a Texas “Greens” Salad with Roasted Butternut Squash and Agave Caramelized Pepitas
*Peach Wood Smoked Chicken
*Tuscan Dried Cherry Farro Salad
*Hummus Three Ways (roasted red bell pepper, green olive, and toasted pine nut)
*Grilled Vegetable Pita Sandwich
*Triple Chocolate Chipotle Brownies
*Mashed sweet potatoes and a pomegranate & red wine reduction to accompany Persian Spiced Lamb Chops

and now the food that will be featured in the hourly demos:
*Italian-Mexican Pesto
*Cannellini Bean Salad
*Mediterranean Salad
and more of the farro and mixed greens salads)

It was a hugely productive meeting. Though Chef couldn't attend this meeting, I think I did a good job--I took notes and pictures and got all my current batch of questions answered. But boy was it a lot to take in! I sincerely hope it's easier for everyone next year.

(I also asked them to save all receipts pertaining to purchases made for OO this year because we have no list of the dry goods used last year, just various amalgamations of "oh, I'll need 2 flat top ranges for my dish" that need to be compiled. It's all over the place and that's not very helpful right now--we'll be ordering too much of some stuff, not enough other stuff, and again next year should be MUCH better. I'm already picturing a table with "Supplies" at the top, "Item," "Amount" "Used by" "Used for" which will be so easy to fill in and change to meet variations in the portions prepared/recipe used for future years!)

This week my task is to add the new recipes to the list of ingredients and send that to Rosemary, of the RK Group, who will be getting the food donated probably from Sysco. Then we'll start on the dry goods list. So that was work on Olives Ole.

I visited the Original for another 6 hour stretch, which again was very productive. I have plenty of fodder for the testing part of the handbook, that's for sure! I got more of a chance to talk with Jose, one of the two lodebearing cooks in the back, and it helped assuage my concerns from last week about "really, what good would a handbook do these guys?" (Answer: not much. But some.)

Today I am running errands for/with Chef, including going with him to where he gets restaurant equipment. I was going to meet with Larkin, the son of the Original's owner whom I met on Saturday's shift, and go over some recipes but we can do that via email.

On top of all that, I am a week away from teaching another demo to the San Antonio Rampage. I finalized my menu at least and am very excited about it, but I need to finish the handout to accompany the class, requisition the ingredients by Wednesday, and do a dry run with my friend Marnie and some victims (aka family and friends) on Friday so that it goes off without a hitch next Wednesday. The only problem right now is the time got changed to 2pm-5pm, which may conflict with our school schedule--I'm pretty sure all 3 of the labs that we have at school will be in use at that time, so there won't be anywhere to actually have the class. I'm waiting to hear back on this. So yes, a very busy week right on the heels of Snoozeville. That's just what I get.

Day one at the Original

Yesterday I switched gears from Olives Ole to focus on my other major project: writing employee handbooks for the waitstaff, hosts, and cooks at the Original Mexican Restaurant on the Riverwalk. From 6pm-11pm I immersed myself in the restaurant, which meant shadowing all the stations, walking around the place, and talking with as many employees to get their perspective on what new hires need to know when being trained. Apart from a few months of low-key waitressing, I have no restaurant experience so this is a whole new set of job skills for me. It was intense.

Fortunately it was a "slow" night by Riverwalk standards, so I had plenty of opportunities to talk shop. The waitstaff is the only group of employees with any sort of training manual already created, although one waitress I talked to stared at it blankly and said she'd never seen it before. It's not a bad foundation and actually does test on most of the important things...but according to the managers, the waitstaff is just not absorbing it. I'm going to rewrite the tests so that the same questions are asked 2-3 times in order to help reinforce the knowledge, and I want to create a more hands-on, visual test for things such as the bar menu (one of the largest knowledge gaps identified....with 38 margaritas, I'm not surprised!).

Part of the problem is the extremely transient nature of the employees here. One manager estimated that they go through 200 waiters a year. They come and go so quickly that a significant portion of the staff is still learning the restaurant at any given time. That makes it hard to achieve consistent service. Such is the nature of Riverwalk restaurants and waitstaff in most places.

(I have to say that at least as far as last night, I thought the waitstaff was pretty good. They had a decent hustle, I didn't see too many congregating or wandering aimlessly, and their tables seemed taken care of fairly well. That was my initial impression anyway.)

The hosts don't even have a manual. They are not trained according to any standardized program, and more often than not, their training consists of "okay, these are the table numbers, go seat people." The elements that the senior host last night found lacking were menu knowledge and sales skills, although he doubted that the latter could be taught. I disagree--I am a pretty reserved, shy, occasionally insecure person but I have been taught how to sell by engaging the customer and making them feel that connection. Too many times last night, I would see a group of three hosts at the front all facing inward at each other, while potential customers passed by the entrance. That was the moment the hosts needed to make eye contact, smile, extend the offer--"immediate seating available!" Even if they aren't saying it verbally, they can say it with their body language. I saw enough people pause, look in, give these visual clues that they were right on the edge of getting pulled in--and nobody engaged them. They were ignored. I know this is a teachable skill.

For comparison, when Chef Will is at the Original, he said that he spends about half his time at the front doing just what I described: converting potential customers to actual customers. The cutesy philosophy: read 'em, greet 'em, seat 'em, bleed 'em, and repeat 'em. He's terrific at it and business soared when he was at the helm. I understand that there's more to it than "pulling in as many customers as possible--" after all, if we fill more tables than we have staff to wait, then there will be a problem. But we had plenty of staffing. It shouldn't have been an issue to keep pulling in customers until the place was full, pause briefly to turn over some tables, and repeat the process.

Maybe I'm just an overachiever. I dunno.

Anyway, room for improvement with the host training. I'm excited about that part.

And finally the cooks. I spent enough time in the kitchen to see that they were a calm, capable bunch of men who really don't require training for what they're doing. It's color by numbers--the prep work is done by one group, the cooking/assembly by another, and for as basic and familiar as the dishes are, their system works just fine. I'm a bit intimidated to try and create a manual for this position. I'll talk to Chef about it.

I felt fortunate that Chef had enough free time to sit with me and explain the inner workings of the Original. It was a terrific learning experience, start to finish. At one point I was fretting over whether I was doing myself a disservice by wanting to enter the teaching profession without putting in years of work in this restaurant atmosphere.

Chef's awesome response: "You don't have to have your ass kicked to know that it hurts."

So that was the Original.