TABC is well known for all the lunch options available on the same street our school is located. These restaurants vary from meat to dairy to virtually anything you can think of.
Given that we have so many restaurants around TABC, I’ve often wondered - who is working at these restaurants?
To answer this question, I’ve conducted an interview with a fellow student and friend of mine, Yosef Morrison. Yosef has worked in many of the best-known restaurants around TABC. He sat down with me to give our readers an insight into those restaurants and the restaurant life.
In my interview, I asked Yosef if working was hard for him and had an effect on his school work. He observed that “working is a full-time job and is something you have to commit to and so it is very hard to deal with school and tests.”
He added that committing to a job is a “very hard thing to do because it can stop you from doing things which you would like to do on your own time.”
Although Yosef has worked for many restaurants in town, you can find him now at Sushi Metsuyan, where he’s been working for the past year.
The schedule of working at a restaurant can affect a lot of things. For example, Yosef’s job at Sushi Metsuyan right now is a 12-to-9 job; this can take away from school work that needs to be done over the weekend.
If this job is so time-consuming, what exactly is consuming all that time? Let’s imagine that you had Yosef’s job. What would you do all day?
Well, first you’d have to start setting up for the lunch rush and the flow of the people coming through the restaurant. Lunch at a restaurant in Teaneck lasts from about 12:30 - 3:30 every day, meaning that you have to be there for three straight hours, serving and preparing food.
Once you got all of that done, there’s a period of time where restaurants are quiet and fewer people come through. This lasts until around 5:30. But once 5:30 hits, you have to deal with the dinner rush and be prepared to go on with that for three hours. Once all of that is done, you have to close everything up and shut down in order to be ready for another day of this restaurant life.
Yosef observed that working has benefits to it, like making money. If you put in the time to work or to do another job, he said, “you will see that in a matter of weeks you will be making money and that feeling is a very good feeling.” This can lead you to want to go out and make even more money for yourself, he observed.
The hardest job which he ever did was doing catering for a summer program called Yachad Getaway. This program takes place during the summer in Pennsylvania for Yachad members. He said it was hard because it was an all-day job. Yosef had to wake up early and go to sleep late for the job.
One questions you may be thinking is, would Yosef recommend that TABC students work at restaurants? His answer is a qualified yes. “First of all, there are more disadvantages than advantages. But it is very fun and if you can keep your school life intact, then [working at a restaurant] can be a very good job.”