Milan Rea

I was approached with an offer i couldn't refuse and chose to help this company open a new butcher shop. here i was responsible for everything in the daily operations, i only didn't have control of finances.

daily tasks included opening and closing the shop, communication with vendors, receiving orders, system monitoring, cooking and cooling logs, customer service, responding to emails and phone calls, coordinating orders for the business and customers.

most weeks i worked 45-50 hours as a salaried manager for this company.

• Post covId I was hIred here as a production hand. Anything from curing and brining meat such as bacon and ham, to making sausage for the meat case and helping to serve customers. After a year or so the head butcher at the time left and i had a chance to move into a butcher position. i spent the next two years as a butcher for this company, making sure to always have a well stocked case.
• Here i learned the value of precision work, the intricacies of the industry like salamis, mortadellas, and other various cured items.
• I spent 3 years at this spot before acceptIng an offer to help open a new restaurant. i returned to Louise earl after a year, i was facing industry burn out and realized that restaurant life was behind me. I then spent another year with this team before being approached to help open another butcher shop, with money being my driving factor i accepted their offer.

• My time here was spent figuring out how to operate a restaurant with little to no help. the owner of the business was from Lansing MI and only appeared here occasionally to bring supplies.

daily duties and operations are as follows

opening the restaurant at 6AM, setting up for service, receiving and placing orders, being the lead person for line cooks and doubling as a hand for the servers when they needed it. food prep, storage, organization, and proper handling.

• I held this job in tandem with city built brewing, though my stay here was longer, pushing a year and a half, only stopped because covid forced a company shut down and for multiple people to be let go including myself.

here I learned to be better, the scale, tempo, and quality was higher than i had experienced before. I eventually grew to be a pillar on the line cook team. I was responsible for my station, including prep, sanitation and organization. I was pushed to be better about communication, timing, and working under pressure. we did dinner parties for dozens along side regular dinner service. on busy nights we would exceed 250 reservations, meaning efficiency, timing, communication, and teamwork were imperative.

• Here i was hired in as a line cook but picked up prep shortly after startThey they were flexible with my schedule because i was working two jobs. for the better part of a year i worked this job in the morning and worked at Reserve wine and food in the evening, most days were 15-18 hour days.
• my responsibilities were receiving orders, cooler organization, food prep, andSometimesn cleanliness. sometimes being on line to cook if the restaurant was busy enough.