Working with Food - a Job for Life?

Phil Saunter and Shareen Campbell, owners of Los Gatos Tapas Bar and Bistro Les Chats, discuss the skills needed to work in the hospitality industry.

Everybody prepares and serves food at home to some extent, but does this mean everybody has the skills to work in hospitality? In our experience, the answer is no.

Every week we are approached by young people looking for work. Almost exclusively these days, these are European migrants who are keen to work. Without these keen eager young people we would be stuck for staff.

Sadly, for many native young people, working in a restaurant or bar seems to be the job of last resort, if you have no qualifications, if you can't get another job, if you’re a student on holiday. This contrasts markedly with most of the rest of the world. 

Take France, for instance. There, you can't be employed as a waiter or a chef unless you have a professional qualification. You expect a decent salary and to progress through the ranks, hopefully to Maitre d'Hotel or to own your own restaurant. This is why two of our front of house staff at Bistro les Chats are French. They have trained for a respectable profession.

Few of the young people who ask us for jobs understand this approach, if only they did, they could go far! When we started, our idea of what constitutes good service was based on what we expected as customers.  But that's not quite the same as understanding how to do it. We didn’t always get it right and perhaps sometimes still don’t, but we have learnt a lot from our professional staff for whom the industry is their career.

If everybody needs to eat to live, then surely preparing and serving food and drink should be regarded as an important and life-sustaining role, not just for the customer but also for the person doing the work? Isn't it time we learned to regard the jobs of kitchen and restaurant staff more professionally? Shouldn't we encourage more self-respecting young people to enter this worthwhile career as a job for life? 

If we were to leave the European Community or impose strict immigration policies for European citizens, many businesses like ours, and the public as customers, will suffer.