Just a month after moving from New York City to Sydney, I started my role as a PR Coordinator at Guzman y Gomez. After just one day in our head office in Surry Hills, I was assigned to my training days in my local GYG at World Square and GYG Drive Thru in Casula.
While many other hospitality companies preach about the collaboration between their headquarters and restaurants, GYG actually ensures that every employee, whether you are part of leadership or entry-level, gets to know and understand the full GYG in restaurant experience.
If starting a new job in a new country just one day prior wasn’t scary enough, walking into a fast-paced, well-oiled machine of a restaurant, like GYG World Square, as a complete newbie was even more intimidating. Watching the myriad of cooks, salespeople, and shift leaders manoeuvre around the kitchen with ease, I feared I would get in the way and disrupt their flow.
Walking behind the counter to introduce myself, however, I was met with a kind and patient crew, all willing to show me the ropes. Raissa, Assistant Restaurant Manager showed me around and taught me how to be an expert on the sales, while Andreas, a master on the line, showed me how to roll a brekkie burrito (a lot harder than you may think).
What truly surprised me was stepping into the kitchen and seeing fresh, real food being prepared around me. I learnt the intricacies of the kitchen and learnt how to prep the famous GYG guac, a secret that is sacred!
When 12 pm rolled around I was getting ready to take orders. As a marketing employee who’s always keeping an eye on sales, I loved that we had an extremely loyal customer base, but as a day-one restaurant trainee looking out at the sea of people all waiting to get their orders taken it was a little intimidating at first.
As soon as my first guest ordered, every bit of scariness dissipated, I followed suit of the other crew working sales with me, remaining friendly and engaging with every customer and learning quickly why one of our values is ‘make every customer love us’.
After my four days in the restaurants, which I’ve now learned is more tiring and physically exerting than any day in Hola Central, my feet were swollen and I was exhausted. Still, I couldn’t have felt more grateful to get to experience what it’s like to work in a restaurant.
As someone whose job it is to promote the restaurant, the people that work in them and the experiences you have while in a GYG, I am thankful to have the experience of working alongside our amazing crew. I now know the ins and outs of the GYG restaurants which is a huge part of my job when telling our incredible GYG stories.
