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Food for thought; Not all seasonal job revolve around retail sales

By Kelly Nix, Source: Tribune Media Services

Anyone out there seeking a little extra money already knows that seasonal holiday work can provide a few extra bucks. While most think of retail shops as the main places to look for seasonal jobs, the restaurant and hospitality industry needs some extra hands on deck, too.

Jeff Ware, director of operations for Designed Cuisine, Inc., a catering company based on Morton Grove, says there is definitely an increase in business from November to January, thanks to all the holiday events they cater.

Though business was down last year during the holidays, Ware, who is in charge of hiring for Designed Cuisine, says he expects business to pick up more this year and has started hiring additional staff to cover the holiday boom.

Ware says he looks for experienced catering staff to bring on during the holiday season, some of which he might even end up keeping on after the New Year, he says.

“We’ll end up keeping some of [the seasonal staff] and replace some of our weaker links with them,” Ware says.

Missy Wright-Scroggins, director of operations for the Berghoff Catering & Restaurant Group in Chicago, says that though Berghoff also increases its staff for the holiday season, she does not anticipate keeping any seasonal employees past the New Year.

“You have to be clear that you probably won’t have any work for them after January,” she says.

Fitting in

Even though the jobs are only for a couple of months, restaurants and catering companies are still looking to hire people with the right skills.

“You definitely have to have experience,” Wright-Scroggins says. “We don’t like to reinvent the wheel right as we go into our busy season.”

In addition to hiring extra workers, Ware says Designed Cuisine, Inc. also utilizes a large pool of “on-demand” staff hired through hospitality staffing companies.

Carol Brewer, owner of Carol’s Event Staffing, a hospitality staffing company based in Lincoln Park, says she starts taking on new employees during the fall to get ready for the upcoming holidays season.

Brewer’s company, which has been in business for 15 years, provides serving and bartending staff for private and corporate events. Her clients range from people having private parties in their homes to catering companies who need extra servers for large events.

Like Ware and Wright-Scroggins, she also looks for people previous with hospitality experience.

“Typically, we look for people with at least two years [serving] experience, either in a restaurant or catering setting,” she says.

After the holidays are over and business dies down, Brewer says she keeps her staff as busy as she can but they all understand that there won’t be as much work.

“It’s the type of industry where the staff know that come January, everything pretty much comes to a stop,” Brewer says. “It’s a well-known fact in this business that things slow down in January and February.”

But, Brewer says, most of her staff are “doing other things” and don’t rely on these jobs for the primary income.

“We have a lot of actors, musicians and students, for example,” she says. “So when there’s work—they take it, knowing that come January it might not be there anymore.”

© 2009, Tribune Media Services