How can I make a lot money and not get stuck working in a shitty restaurant?
This is a question I asked myself when I was 16 years old getting into the hospitality business.
“Long hours, sore feet, not really that much money,” these are all complaints I hear from people who don’t know what they are doing in hospitality — or are working way too much..
Having worked in restaurants where I’d leave at 1 o’clock in the morning with $150 bucks in my pocket and be utterly exhausted, I certainly empathize and understand the complaints.
However, this is not what constitutes working in a restaurant — in fact quite the contrary. If you’re young, in hospitality and/or a curious soul you want to read this article. I can help you get back days of your life, earn more money and love life a whole heck of a lot more.
I’m here to give you tips and tricks I’ve accumulated over the course of nearly a decade working in restaurants and share how I’ve been successful working shorter nights, selling upwards of $5,000 and having the time of my life doing so.
“The secret lies in location, ownership and product”
In the late Winter of 2017, I worked as a food runner at Jacob’s Pickles on the Upper West Side in New York City — a southern comfort hospitality restaurant focused on delivering the best biscuits, bloody mary’s and chicken NYC has to offer. The location is brilliant.
If you’ve ever walked down Amsterdam avenue in the evening, you’ll get a variety of restaurant options including Peru’s best chicken Pio Pio, Japan’s gut-warming miso broth Kouzan, or the Mediterranean’s olive oil at Bodrum. Finally you’ll arrive at Jacob’s Pickle on 85th st, and if you don’t have a reservation on a busy night — be prepared to wait.
Working at this restaurant was an absolute madhouse. 45 minute long wait times and lines stretching out the front door until 11 pm. If I had to best estimate the covers we did, approximately 400 from brunch until closing.
My shifts during the week started at 5pm — this meant I had just enough time to bike home from school in East Harlem, take a shower and hop on the one train two stations down.
Entering into the kitchen was like walking into the fiery mountains of mordor. Approaching the hot line, there were 8 cooks, dishwashers and runners, all Mexican or South American, yelling in Spanish and ridding their brow of sweat.
For the next 8 hours, with a half hour break, I’d carry scathing hot griddles on my arm up and down stairs to tables where, if I was lucky, get a quick breeze of the winter air from outside. (Remember that scene with George Clooney in The Perfect Storm or Keanu Reeves in The Matrix?)
Fortunately, by the grace of Allah, Abraham and the Hospitality gods, this tormentuous hell did not last much longer and I was set free.
Unfortunately, the restaurant building, literally, caught ablaze and took severe fire damage putting the business out for several months — I tried getting shifts at their twin Maison Pickle, however seniority took it all.
Now back to square one, I pivoted back to Henry’s Restaurant which was just starting to pick business up again and was thankful for all the skills I learned working in the back of house — many of these skills still serve me to this day.
Take Risks and Grow
If you are working and laboring all night for $150 bucks don’t just stay because, “the job is really easy, or because I’ve been there for years,” said my friend Brett.
This in of itself is hell on earth. After all my generation (Gen Z’s/Millennials) take pride in doing what we love — can’t really do that if 50 percent of our waking hours are devoted to working at a place we don’t bare.
As many of my mentors, who are very successful multi-millionaires and billionaires have said to me, “figure out a way to work smarter not harder.” Now this doesn’t mean I’m not, on certain evenings, awake until 2 am writing or building my business, but rather signifies to find a place where you can double or triple the amount of money you’re making and work 10–20 hours less — sound good?
I know you’ll be a lot happier with the extra time you get to invest into yourself or work on whatever it is you want to do.
P.s. If you want to be successful in hospitality and business, let’s connect!
I’m on most major social media platforms and have good connections in business and hospitality.
Stay tuned for my mailing list for my book, That F*cking Server. First chapter free available for download.
Links Below
https://www.instagram.com/veggiejacob/
And, click on this article where I dive into San Diego’s best places for a server to make $500 a night. You may just find yourself just wanting to get another job
Cheers
JB
