I applied on their website. I wrote a cover letter and resume that I put a lot of time and attention into, specific to the specific restaurant in their group that I was applying for (Anixi) which had shown on Glassdoor that it was hiring servers. I was excited as this place is vegan, a rare luxury for a server. I also wrote in my submission that I was open to working at any of the other restaurants in the group as they are all vegan.
Soon after, I got an automated email that said that they hold interviews at each restaurant location on different days of the week and gave me a list of those restaurants (Anixi, Beyond Sushi, Coletta, Willow). It said the restaurant chosen and the manager you interview with may not be the same as the one you get if employed. I chose the restaurant that I wanted to work at (Anixi) because I was available that day so might as well. It then prompted me to select a time on Calendly from a list so I did.
I then studied up on fine dining table setting and wines because even though I have almost a decade of server experience in a place that served wine, they call themselves a “fine dining” restaurant and their wines were very expensive. I also listened to a podcast featuring the owner of the restaurant group, Guy Vaknin, and read about him. By my interview I knew all about the business.
I showed up at the building quite early for my scheduled interview because I wanted to be safe since I hadn’t traveled there before. There was alot of construction right in front of the building and I had to walk through one of those makeshift hallways that construction makes to get there. The building itself was intimidating with a big iron gate and statues at the front door.
I was outside thinking about where I would go in the area to kill time, when a man in a suit came out of the building and spoke to me. When I explained who I was and why I was there, he gave me his name (Alex)(but not his job title) and invited me inside to start my interview early. He asked me why my interview was the time I said in a way that made me think he either didn’t understand how the interviews are scheduled or was messing with me. I said it was the time I was given and he said that they don’t have specific times, which I thought was strange considering I was given a list of available ones and selected one via email, but I didn’t argue.
The inside of the place is very impressively decorated. Nevertheless, I’ve seen videos and reviews of people dining there and I’m skeptical of the “fine dining” classification as it doesn’t really fit the style of service (which is like any restaurant and doesn’t have fancy table settings or courses) or level of noise (people say it is high when you eat there but when I interviewed they were not yet open for the day).
When I was there, the only people were me and the guy interviewing me, and the bartender quietly setting up. Occasionally the bartender would look at me with sympathy or curiosity or apathy, or something, while polishing glassware.
We sat at a table and I handed over paper copies of my resume and cover letter. I also had on hand paper copies of my food handler’s and liquor certificates, which the interviewer never asked to look at.
When I handed over my resume and cover letter, the interviewer immediately turned my cover letter, which I assume he had never read online, upside down on the table and never once looked at it. He then continued looking at my resume throughout the whole interview, occasionally raising his eyes for a moment to look at me but barely.
He asked me to describe myself and asked me a few questions but then didn’t really give me much chance to do so or answer. He seemed lost in my resume mostly and not really listening to what I was saying, almost like someone looking at their phone and pretending to talk to you at the same time, and I wasn’t sure whether I was interrupting him reading, but if I didn’t answer more he would kind of look at me like I was the problem.
He kept saying I didn’t have enough fine dining experience, as though nearly a decade of very high volume food service experience, sometimes even doing fancy privately catered events, wouldn’t have been enough to quickly be trained into fine dining, at a restaurant that isn’t even technically fine dining. But I remained agreeable while trying to tell him how much experience I have.
Within the same interview he admitted my experience was “vast” but also mentioned that he was “reminded of when he first started out and people gave him a chance, but that he only wants to put people where they will succeed”, which contradicted each other. Instead of admitting that it would only take about a week to train me like most restaurants, he said he “needs someone who will do well right now, not in 3 months”. I didn’t say so, but that it would take that long is absurd.
He sent me away without a clear no. I asked about the other restaurants and he said they’d see. Never heard from them.
