Second Stop: Introduction

Hello everyone! 

My name is Jessica Pai and I am about to be a second-year hospitality major. Cooking is my passion and I have always known that the kitchen, despite it being crazy and chaotic, is where I feel the most at peace and where I know I can be myself. My dream is to become a chef and one day open either a Mexican-Asian fusion restaurant (because I come from an Asian background) or an Asian-American fusion restaurant (because that is exactly what I am).

My passion actually started with an event that happened when I was about 5 years old. It was a warm and sunny July morning in Taiwan, where I was born and raised. My mom and I had been invited to a picnic-in-the-park. Without even thinking, we all knew that she was making her famous peanut butter mayo and raisin sandwich. Though this was an old and simple recipe, this was the first time I was asked to help with the making process instead of just the eating part. 

My mom is not much of a cook (which explains the “peanut butter mayo raisin combo”)… However, this is what I love about cooking, the fact that you don’t have to be great at cooking and yet you can still cook something for yourself or others. It was this day that I fell in love with cooking. I saw all the weird faces that everyone made when they first heard “peanut butter mayo raisin sandwich” but the content smiles that soon appeared as they took the first bite into the sandwich. 

Going back to my dream of opening some type of Asian fusion restaurant. Customer service is going to be the number one priority at my restaurant. Having worked in a few culinary establishments, I really learned how valuable and important customer service is. At MOD, a build your own pizza restaurant that I worked at, customer service is our number one priority. Every customer is greeted with a big “hello” as they walk through the doors. Every guest is treated with respect and enthusiasm. No guest leaves unhappy. Even if the guest has a bad experience, we make sure to make it up with a new pizza or something and make sure they do not leave our doors unhappy. We were also able to bring in homeless guests and treat them to a free meal. I can’t say that I was able to do that proudly without worrying about getting in trouble at any other establishments that I was at. 

Many of my loyal and old customers at MOD were really there for the customer service. I know that pizza for three to four nights a week is not what everyone wants. However, I had many customers that would come in all the time because of the way we treated them. There were even customers that would make the trip to the restaurant and not order anything but just to come and talk to us. This is the type of environment that I would love to create at my own restaurant. I want the customers to just come in for a couple drinks and to just socialize with my employees and feel like they are part of the family.

Right next to customer service, the second most important thing at my restaurant would be the employee treatment. I believe that a happy employee leads to happy customers. At my first job at a catering business, the employees were treated very well. Not only were all necessary benefits provided, the bosses treated their employees like family. This is the kind of environment that I want to establish at my restaurant. Because the employees are so happy at work, all the clients that we served had nothing but amazing things to say about our service and such. To the bosses, it was not just about the revenue, it was more about making people happy, both their customers as well as their employees. I am proud to say that I worked for a company that valued its employees so much. 

Though it is not the most important component of my restaurant, the quality of food would come right after my customers and my employees. After all, the food is what makes customers come back time after time. At the bakery that I worked at in high school, I knew that our owners and employees did not have the best attitude. However, our cakes and pastries were so good that customers always came back for more. The bakers and cake decorators definitely put a lot of effort into creating these beautiful and delicious cakes.

Customer service, employee treatment, and food quality are what I believe are the three most important ingredients to a successful restaurant. I would love to see happy employees serving high quality food to happy customers. I know it is not going to be easy but I believe that I have the right vision for a really successful restaurant.