What I’ve Learned From Working In the Restaurant Industry

I don’t think it’s any secret that the restaurant industry is one of the most hostile to be in. People get burnt (metaphorically and literally) left and right, there’s drama between staff, competition between chefs can become absolutely fierce, and some customers are absolutely brutal. Now, before I get into talking about anything, obviously I’m not writing this post as a seasoned worker who has climbed the ladder over the past 35 years. The only reasons I have experience with the industry are as follows:

My dad has co-owned a restaurant (recently converted to a bar) for the past 10 or so years, with the help of his brother, who has been in the industry for ages, and I helped open a restaurant for a little under a year working as a host.

I won’t try to hide the fact that I’m 18 and have next to zero real world experience compared to older adults, but I think I’m good at understanding people, and this is my blog so I’m going to talk about it.

Communication

I should go ahead and get it out of the way, but this was my first job. With that in mind, I think it puts into perspective why I learned so much about people, because I probably would’ve learned similar things if I had a previous job.

The hosts (for anyone unaware) are the first people you see at a restaurant. They’re normally in front of a tablet at a stand and their job is to get you seated. Since they control the flow of people through the whole restaurant, naturally we have to be good at communicating, whether it be with the customers, servers, or the managers.

The managers considered us a very important position, and rightfully so. That being said, a few of my coworkers had issues at times communicating things to people. It went the other way around too, servers would sometimes make changes on their own and not tell us, managers would let servers off for the night and assume that we knew, parties with reservations would walk in with 3 extra people and our seating plan would be messed up, etc.

Now, I knew that communication was important in the workplace. That’s a pretty obvious statement that applies pretty much everywhere. Before working, however, it had somehow never occurred to me that the principle of communication needs to be audibly drilled into everyone’s heads. It’s very easy for people to assume that someone else knows something, and that can blow up into a big problem very easily if the assumption is wrong.

Drama

I’m not sure if other types of workplaces do this as much as mine did, but there was a lot of drama and gossip going around at almost all times. After it had been a couple weeks and everyone got to know each other a bit more, certain groups started hanging out, and naturally that led to drama and people talking about each other, which continued pretty much the entire time I was there.

Thankfully, I got the job when I was 17, and being as young as I was meant that I was never really involved in any of the drama, as everyone there saw me as the ‘kid’ of the restaurant. It was still important for me to see the interactions between people and things like that, just so I knew moving forward what not to do at jobs in the future. 

Side note: I’m sure all adults know this by now, but it’s almost never a good idea to start dating or get romantically involved with your coworkers. Thankfully I learned that by seeing other people try it, and not firsthand.

Working Under Pressure

On the surface, pressure at a restaurant might seem silly, as if Anton Ego from Ratatouille were coming to give our food a scathing review and put us out of business. In reality, the pressure really comes from the everyday customers.

Managing the flow of people in a restaurant includes making sure the servers are being seated as fairly as we can, while still accommodating for whatever the customers might want, and that gets very difficult once the restaurant fills up. Once that happens, several different things normally converge at the host stand that create pressure: specific requests from guests, constant questioning from managers, complaints from servers or bartenders, and complaints from guests.

That job was my first experience in dealing with things like that, and I’ve learned that (most) times, it’s best to give things to people straight. If servers or managers complained about things I couldn’t control, I simply told them as much. Being the youngest one on staff, people would often try to control things I did, and it was important for me to be assertive and force everyone around me to recognize that I knew how to do my job, and could do it well. Eventually, my coworkers grew to realize that I was mature enough to handle things on my own without being supervised at every moment.

Another important concept I learned was about improvisation. There were plenty of times where we had to go “off-script” in order to make things work, and that’s something I think is very important in general. If you know how to improvise, or at least work without a set of explicit instructions on everything, you’ll be very well suited to work in an area that changes quickly or involves a lot of risk.

Conclusion

All in all, I’m very grateful for my first job. Although I don’t intend to make a return to the restaurant industry, it was a good first experience. Rather than working in a convenience store, or another job that was pretty much stagnant at all times, I had a defined role in an opening restaurant, and made a tangible contribution to the business. I think the lessons I learned there will help me in just about any job I might work in the future.