So I have been working for a pizza place for about a month and a half now. It’s by no means challenging or difficult work, and it’s certainly not what I envisioned as a job choice, but it is food and I get a paycheck. I took a slight pay cut over what I made at Stonebridge, but the pizza place is a minute from my house so I am not spending $80 a week on gas. I ride my bicycle on nice days (of which today is not one, but fortunately I have off.) The other nice thing is that since it’s not seasonal work, I am considered full time and therefore get time-and-a-half for overtime. I typically work 45-50 hours a week, so the extra pay definitely helps.
Basically my day is not too different than what I did at Stonebridge. During the week, Keith (head of the kitchen) opens, so I don’t go in until 11. The two of us work lunch, then if it’s dead one of us will go home for a few hours to cut payroll, then come back around 5 to run dinner. At 4, one of our three “kids” comes in after school to work the night shift, so again if it’s kinda dead me or Keith will take off early. One of us has to be there at all times though, since the kids can’t work unsupervised (not only is that state law, but they wouldn’t do anything at all if they weren’t watched.)
On the days I open (Sun and Mon) I go in around 10:00am to clean out the pizza oven (has to be vacuumed out while it’s cold) and then turn on all the equipment. Then my prep, which usually is just chopping up pizza toppings and making sure we have enough stuff to get through the day. We pre-cook our fries, which requires the fryers to be at 250, so they all have to be done before we open (at which time the fryers have to go to 350 to cook stuff.) The kitchen handles orders for the attached Tavern too, so depending on what day it is we might need more of something than on others (such as Mondays, where we’ll need more pizza dough and chicken fingers / wings to feed the pool league.) For the first part of the day I am by myself, but there is rarely a lot of business after lunch. This past Sunday I sat at the bar watching the Pats game, and Monday I cleaned everything that didn’t move and then defrosted the freezer (I had an entire prep sink filled with ice chips. I am betting it hasn’t been defrosted since we opened last year.) Sundays we at least do some afternoon business (especially now that football season has started) but on Mondays, everyone is at work or school. It’s hardly worth opening before 4pm, but good luck trying to convince the owner of that – his daughter runs bar during those hours, and we wouldn’t wanna cut into her pay…
For the most part, I work with good people. Keith is in charge of the kitchen, and does all the ordering. He also spends a lot of time complaining about the owners, who are pretty clueless when it comes to running a restaurant. This, I have learned, is pretty common. The only people smart enough to actually run a restaurant are people who grew up working for restaurants, however that usually means they are smart enough not to try running a restaurant. You can’t just wake up one morning and decide to open a restaurant, which is probably why there is so much used kitchen equipment on Craiglist. As for the kids, we have three – all are good at making pies, but they don’t run the grill or the fryers. Some sort of state law from my understanding, although it escapes me how stuffing pizzas into a 650 degree oven is safer than running a 350 degree grill. I have burnt myself on both, and lemme tell ya, the oven is MUCH worse. They also seem allergic to cleaning anything, which is why they need constant supervision.
Today and tomorrow I actually have off. I am not used to this – sure I had days at Stonebridge, but they were always subject to change due to the amount of events they did. We don’t do weddings at a pizza kitchen. 😀