Sizzle magazine’s Winter 2013 issue sports a feature highlighting the benefits of working as a chef in resort towns. Colorado Mountain College’s Culinary Institute/Apprenticeship program and graduate chef Steve Nguyen are included. Click for full article at Sizzle’s site, or read below!
Resorts Appeal to Outdoor Lovers
If you like outdoor activities and don’t mind living away from large city crowds, working in a resort may be your kind of job. In general, wages are competitive and benefits are good, sometimes including low-cost housing.
Additionally, opportunities to learn and improve your skills are numerous, while upward mobility is common at resorts and with the contract management companies that sometimes operate them.
Earn your chops
At Delaware North Companies (DNC), Buffalo, N.Y., is one of those management firms. Its parks and resorts division oversees properties throughout the U.S. and in Canada and Australia. DNC manages all the dining outlets at properties in California’s Yosemite National Park. As Western region corporate chef, Percy Whatley, CEC, oversees all of them, including the upscale Ahwahnee Hotel, where he is also executive chef. His career is similar to that of many other resort chefs. A graduate of The Culinary Institute of America, Hyde Park, N.Y., he has been at Yosemite for 15 years, beginning as an hourly cook and working his way to his current position. He “earned his chops,” and expects the people he hires to do the same.
Whatley’s kitchens are organized in a traditional brigade. When he hires people right out of culinary school, they start in junior cook positions. Externs are common and rotate throughout the kitchen.
“Everyone needs to prove their worth,” he explains. His boss, Christian De Vos, DNC’s vice president of food and beverage for parks and resorts, had a similar career path. As a young cook, he followed the seasons, working the summer months in Nantucket, Mass., and the winter season in Grand Abaco Island in the Bahamas.
“The right kind of experience is important,” De Vos says, and suggests that recent culinary grads build their résumé by doing what he did for a few years. “You can’t start off as a chef. You have to get some experience and prove you can do the job. No one will turn over their assets to a 22-year-old.”
Chaminade Resort & Spa in Santa Cruz, Calif., is one of the worldwide properties run by management company Benchmark Hospitality, The Woodlands, Texas. Beverlie Terra has been executive chef there for 23 years. She oversees two restaurants, room service, dining at the pool and banquet services. Because pets are welcome on the property, she also has a dog menu, which includes appetizers for “yappie hour.”
Terra often hires area culinary school grads, including those from Cabrillo College, Scotts Valley, Calif., where she teaches in the culinary arts department. She looks for people who have at least one year of experience, preferably in a fast-paced environment such as Denny’s or Coco’s, part of the Carlsbad, Calif.-based Catalina Restaurant Group.
Michael Dannecker is executive chef at Hilton Rose Hall Resort & Spa in Montego Bay, Jamaica. He believes there are opportunities for young culinarians in Jamaica, but suggests they get some experience in the U.S. before thinking about making a move. He likes his line cooks and others to have at least a year of experience before joining his staff.
Because resort kitchens often follow specific recipes for consistency, Dannecker recommends that students take pastry classes and get work experience in pastry.
Rod Jessick, executive chef at Coeur d’Alene Resort in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, began his 40-year resort career as a cook and dishwasher for the resort’s owners. Although he is self-taught, he’d rather hire culinary school grads. He wants them to tell him what they can do and like to do. “That way, I can better place them in my kitchens,” he explains. The resort runs no formal externship program, but externs are welcome and frequently work in the resort’s several kitchens. Jessick and other resort and lodge chefs look at extern experience when making hiring decisions.
Students in the culinary program at the Summit campus location of Colorado Mountain College (CMC), Colo., have an advantage when it comes to getting jobs at Keystone, Colo.’s, Keystone Resort, owned and operated by Vail Resorts, with properties worldwide. Kevin Clarke, CCE, director of CMC’s apprenticeship program, explains that the resort and school are integrally tied together. Students cannot participate in the culinary program without apprenticing at Keystone, which provides them with three years of paid work experience and, often, a good job on graduation.
Steve Nguyen completed the program in 2002 and went on to take a lead cook position. He worked his way up and was named executive chef of the Keystone conference center five years ago. When hiring, he looks for good cooking skills, organizational skills, a sense of urgency and the abilities to multitask and get along well with a wide variety of people.
“Successful resort chefs and cooks also need to find the right balance between work and the pleasure of living in a resort area,” Clarke says. Nguyen agrees. “I love biking and hiking. Loving it here is part of my success. Being outdoors helps relieve my stress.”
Develop what it takes
A kitchen test, such as working with a mystery box, is the norm during the hiring process at many resorts. Good basic skills are a must, as is the ability to think on your feet, Terra says, noting that if you can’t multitask, you don’t belong there. “You have to be able to think about four or five things at once.
Good work habits and the ability to handle a challenge and improvise are skills Dannecker looks for. “Overall, we also look for team members who possess a great attitude and natural flair for customer service,” he explains.
“Attitude is more important than skills. We can teach skills. What I want are people who are really excited about cooking,” says Bryan Skelding, CEC. As executive chef at The Greenbrier in White Sulphur Springs, W.Va., he oversees the resort’s 14 dining venues and a staff of 151 when the season is in full swing. During the slower winter months, the number drops to about 92, and some employees go to resorts in other climates while others tough it out or work elsewhere locally for a few months.
Because of the seasonal nature of many resorts, the staff is more transient than in other industry segments. However, because many resorts are part of large companies or are affiliated with other resorts, staff members oen can move from one location to another with the seasons. Says Nguyen, “Some of our people go to Wyoming when we don’t need them.”
Working at more than one resort allows chefs and cooks to earn 12 months of pay at rates competitive for the location.
In kitchens as large as those in many resorts, wages vary considerably. In general, line cooks can expect to start at about $14 an hour, says De Vos.
“Lead cooks can make $15 to $19 an hour, and a beginning sous chef may earn about $40,000 a year,” Clarke says. Hourly employees usually work about 8½ hours a day, five or six days a week. The benefits often include insurance, 401(k) plans, even ski or golf passes and reduced-cost housing at some resorts.
The opportunity to move up is the norm, not the exception. “We always look firrst to promote people within our own community,” De Vos says. How fast a person can move up depends on the individual.
“Honest and hardworking people with a great work ethic can move quickly up the ladder,” says Daniel Dumont, CMC. He is executive chef at Boston hotel Taj Boston. He previously worked for Portsmouth, N.H.-based Ocean Properties Ltd. Hotels and Resorts for 12 years. When he left in 2013, he was corporate chef. “I was on the road 45 weeks out of the year. I made the change to have more time with my family,” he says.
potential employers
Check out the websites of a few of the companies mentioned in this article:
Delaware North Companies, www.delawarenorth.com/US-Jobs.aspx
Benchmark Hospitality, www.benchmarkresortsandhotels.com/careers/
Hilton Worldwide, http://jobs.hiltonworldwide.com
Ocean Properties, www.oplhotels.com/employment
The Greenbrier, www.greenbrier.com
Above: Beverlie Terra, executive chef at Chaminade Resort & Spa, Santa Cruz, Calif., developed a dog menu, which includes appetizers for “yappie hour.”
Opposite: Food is always fresh and seasonal at Chaminade Resort & Spa.Photos courtesy of Chaminade Resort & Spa