Thursday, September 02, 2010

Our New Team Mates

One reason we are so tickled with the new members of the lunch time kitchen staff is that they are all adults!!  Don't get me wrong, we have enjoyed working with many young people over time, and appreciated the efforts they made and the liveliness they brought to the kitchen.  Some of them were even terrific workers.  That being said, there is something reassuring about working with people who have their own "grown-up" responsibilities and understand the responsibilities we have running a restaurant. A certain level of maturity is very helpful in the give and take that dominates day to day life, whether at work or not. 

On the left we present Marlena, who comes from Centreville each morning.  She is the mother of three girls, ages 5, 11 and 14.  Marlena is slowly but definitely taking over Erika's spot on the line.  Center is Mary, who drives up from Greensboro.  She has a 14 going on 15 year old son.  She is learning the salad station recently vacated by Anshuman.  Both Mary and Marlena have previous restaurant experience from another life - which I believe means pre-children.  Third is Brian, who lives in Tolchester.  He is the father of a 12 year old daughter.  This is his first restaurant job, and he has been thrown to the wolf on the lunch line, where he has been training side by side with Kevin during this first week or so.  He is still coming in to work each morning at 9, so I guess it hasn't been too horrifying...(I mean Brian here, although I suppose the same could be said for Kevin, eh?)

Along with Angie and LaVonte, these three are responsible for a good portion of the prep work that needs to be repeated day after day, for both lunch and dinner service.  This includes everything from dessert and bread production to lettuce prep and salad dressings to the making of soup and sauces, all the while  chopping and dicing the produce that gets used from one end of the menu to the other.  There is a lot of serious work to be done, over and over and over.  The day crew bears the brunt of this work, which makes them all very important cogs in the BT wheel.

Welcome to the Brooks Tavern!  Angie and LaVonte have seen a few people come and go, and we all agree - this could be the best lunch crew yet.

No comments:

Post a Comment