I really miss my friend and kitchen manager, Jose. He was with me for more than twenty years and he was my strong right arm. I never had to worry about training kitchen help, whether we would have a dishwasher or how we would fill a shift in the kitchen. He was fabulous at inventory and we rarely ran out of anything when Jose was doing the ordering. He was a real kitchen professional who over the years only missed work a few times, and then only when he was so sick that he was in the hospital.
In Mexico, Jose had studied to be a Veterinarian and as a result he had an educated perspective about a lot of things including health and welfare issues. He could fix a sink faucet, correct the temperature setting of a cooler and in general do mechanical repairs that made my job easier and allowed me to get away from this place occasionally. He wasn’t afraid to try to do anything I asked him to do. He never said, that’s not my job.
When you have an employee like Jose, you get spoiled. Now, almost a year after his leaving we finally have things like the inventory down to a science but we miss his moderating influence in the kitchen and we have come to a decision to find someone to replace him. We do not want someone that has long experience in the food business, we would rather have a young person who has the right attitude. We have already had some bad starts with kitchen managers who were trained by others.
Our program is so unique in Rockford, that working at another restaurant here, where they are mostly assembly lines of food supply company items, is not training to work at the Irish Rose. For instance, not only do our people need to be able to make bread, but also things like mayonnaise and catsup. This is not the practice at any other restaurant in the city. We are prepared to teach someone to do this. We are looking for a person who likes to cook and wants to be in the restaurant industry. Someone who wants to learn to be a chef.
This person will start training on the line. As time progresses, we will move on to managing inventory and developing recipes and developing new items. including shopping the market in Chicago. He or she will also learn, depending on ability, how to repair and maintain all kinds of kitchen equipment. Eventually, there will be a sharing of all financial considerations in running the business and a voice in the planning of how you run a fresh food restaurant in Rockford Illinois in 2018. In other words. a path to becoming a true chef.
Call us for an appointment with Kyra to apply for this position. Mondays through Thursdays from two to five PM at the Irish Rose, 815-964-0480