My name is Kayla François and I major in Hospitality Management at City Tech. Hospitality

generally involves culinary. After my City Tech career is over I want to pursue starting and

owning my own restaurant. This career is best for me because I am a people person. I also want

to invest in something that I can pass down to my children in the future, and because of the

salary. There are so many jobs to obtain in the culinary industry but being my own boss while

doing what I love fits my criteria so well. For this essay I will be giving a culinary background,

and support it with evidence. Lastly, I will be giving some pointers on how to get started in this

specific area.

My major is Hospitality Management/BTech and I want to pursue a career in owning my own

restaurant. I will be giving you a little background information on these things. Hospitality

management is a major that will teach me a lot of the ins and outs of the culinary industry that I

need to know which includes “Food Sanitation and Safety Principles, Food and Beverage Cost

Control, Lodging Operations Management, and Hospitality Marketing” (page 162). One of the

more important things I can imagine I would need to know about is “Restaurant Management”

(page 165) because this is the job description I want to fit in. I know that when owning,

managing and maintaining a restaurant, it can be stressful and rewarding at the same time.

Another area that may become important is “Menu Planning and Design” (165). It’s important to

know what I am going to sell and how I want my restaurant to look. If I decide to do a five star

restaurant, I cannot serve hot dogs and French fries on a paper plate. My cuisine and design has

to mingle. “Choosing a location” (page 1) is equally important when starting a restaurant of my

own. I can’t sell pork and gelatin in a Muslim dominant area because my business will not do

well since they don’t eat that stuff. As you just read there are many things that go into this

career and that wasn’t even one-sixteenths of it! With this degree, the great benefit of starting

your own restaurant is that you’re free to choose any style you want whether it is fast food,

vegetarian, organic and even vegan! You can create an original restaurant without franchising or

you can decide to become a franchiser.

 

 

 

I have given you background information on culinary and my dream career, now I will get

into specifics for my reasons when deciding what career I wanted to pursue. My first reason for

my choice in owning a restaurant in the culinary field is because I am a people person. When

working in this industry, I will be constantly interacting with people whether it be supervisors,

employees, customers, or vendors. The list goes on and on so I have to enjoy talking to people

on a daily basis to create new ideas, accommodate them, and also helping them out. For

example, if I have a customer who cannot really see the menu well and all of my employees are

preoccupied, as a manager I have to step in to help this customer out by telling them what we

have to offer and help them figure out what they want to eat. While doing so, I have to be

patient and might have to repeat myself a couple of times. If I was not comfortable talking to

people on a daily basis then I do not think that I could pursue this career. A lot of

communication is involved in this career daily and consistently along with interaction.

My second reason for wanting to own a restaurant is because I want to be able to leave my

children something in the future. There are families who are fortunate enough to be born into

wealth, but I did not get that lucky. I want to be able to give my children something that could

last a lifetime. The start of my own restaurant can definitely keep money coming into my family

for generations to come as long as they are consistent. I am going to make sure I teach them

the ins and outs of owning and maintaining a restaurant so that they can carry that wisdom

down as the generations go by. I just want to make sure that my children always have

something going for them and that they always have a plan B to fall back on.

My third reason for wanting to own a restaurant is because of the salary. According to the

Bureau of LaborStatistics, “General and operations managers make about $72,000 a year”

(Bureau). That is a lot more than the average yearly income of a New Yorker. If I am making that

much money a year, I will be able to take care of my family, pay bills and live comfortably. I do

not want to struggle to make ends meet by living off of paycheck to paycheck.

Lastly, I want to be able to start saving up the money for my children’s education from when

they are young or even before they are born.

 

I have given you my reasons for wanting to get into the culinary field of owning my own

restaurant and your reasons may vary from mine or they may be similar. Now I want to give you

some preparation tips for starting and owning your own restaurant. According to professor

Cantagallo who used to own his own restaurant the first thing you will need is of course

“money; how much will I need to open? How much would I need to stay open for the year?”

(Cantagallo, par 3). These are some concerns that come into play when preparing to get your

restaurant on its feet. Money is definitely a big factor because you will have to constantly have

to pay rent, pay for maintenance, pay your vendors to restock your food, and so much more. In

order to keep money coming in you have to be very successful or else your business will shut

down faster than you think. Most times there are no room for mistakes, even little ones can

cause your business to end. Another tip that can be very helpful is “décor, layout and menu.

What does the colors, textures, and layout say about me? How many people can I fit in the

space and how much stuff such as equipment, and furniture can I fit into the space provided?

How would my existing kitchen equipment define what I can produce in the kitchen? How much

staff would I need to execute the menu?” (Cantagallo, par 3). You cannot have a country setting

for décor for a five star top chef quality restaurant. It just doesn’t match. You also cannot have

stay and eat style restaurant layout if you only have enough space for a kitchen, you would have

to do a take-out layout for your restaurant. As for the menu, you cannot serve things like pork

and gelatin in a Muslim dominant area, your business just would not do well. One more tip that

I will give you is marketing. “How could I build a buzz about the restaurant without spending

money on advertising?” (Cantagallo, par 3). Well you can always start on the Internet by creating

a website. Creating websites are free and you control what is advertised without anyone else’s

consent. You can also advertise on your own personal social accounts! Everyone is on social

websites so you’re guaranteed to pull in a couple of customers this way. Lastly, you can

advertise on yelp where people are always looking for places to go and reviews, yelp will help

you pull in plenty of customers! It’s all about being creative and cheap because at this point,

especially just starting out, every penny counts.

Remember that owning a restaurant isn’t easy to start but if you are persistent then it can be

very rewarding. This is also a time to get creative with themes, menus, and so much more.

Culinary alone plays a big part in the world because we eat daily, and it is just a part of who we

are. I can only imagine how much bigger culinary is going to get in the next few generations.

Cited Work

Cantagallo, Alejandro. Email to the author. 27. Nov. 2014. Email

Francois, Kayla. “City Tech Building.” Flickr. 2 Dec 2014. Web. 5 Dec 2014

Francois, Kayla. “Hospitality Management Information.” Flickr. 5 Dec 2014. Web. 5

Dec 2014

Francois, Kayla. “No Fast Food Restaurant.” Flickr. 5 Dec 2014. Web. 5 Dec 2014.

New York City Technology. College catalog 2014-2015. 2014. PDF. 15.

Oct.2014

United States. Dept. of Lab. Bureau of Labor Statistics.” General and

Operations Managers”. Bureau of Labor Statistics Dept. of Labor. May 2013. Web. 25 Nov.2014

 

Introduction

            During project one, I have allowed myself to admit some things out loud that I probably would have not if it wasn’t for this assignment. I also have a different way of viewing my current situation and things are finally starting to turn around. I am learning how to better deal with problems and using those strategies in my everyday life.

Thinking in Writing

MY DAY- FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 2014

9:30am Woke up and got ready to go do laundry and food shopping.

 

10:35am Sitting in the laundry mat thinking about my boyfriend and all the things we’ve been going through lately.

 

11:02am Thinking about all the h.w I have to do this weekend plus I gotta go to Manhattan with my friend at 3pm today

 

11:15am On my way to the super market with my brother.

 

11:45am Just got back in the house to put the food away then going back to the laundry mat to bring the close home.

 

12:19pm Finally home with all the laundry and food…decides to go make bacon and eggs

 

12:25pm The thought of cooking was too much I just settled for cereal

 

12:55pm Thinking about my boyfriend again…

 

1:27pm Decides to go post my homework on OPENLAB since I have time to kill and it means I have less homework to worry about.

 

2:12pm finally finished with my English homework.

 

2:55pm About to leave my house.

 

7:58pm Just got back home, brought candy from a candy store in Manhattan!

 

7:36pm Calls my boyfriend.

 

10:39pm Got off the phone because his phone was dying.

 

10:47pm Decides to go take a shower.

 

11:21pm Calls my friend Allison.

 

4:09am Decided to get off the phone because we were both tired.

 

4:32am Decides to get off Facebook and go to sleep…my sleep schedule is still not back to normal and not having school two days out of the week from Monday to Friday doesn’t help. I’m not obligated to go to sleep early everyday because I don’t have school every day.

 

Dumbo Park

City Tech College

Where I Meet My Boyfriend

Thinking Rhetorically and Reflectively

Relationships & College

     College and relationships is a hard thing to balance. How do I make sure that I’m not spending too much time on college work? How do I make sure that my relationship isn’t interfering with my college work? Multitasking is easy for most people including myself but ever since I started school in a new environment, I can’t seem to wrap my mind around the thought of balancing college and my relationship of 4 years.

I attend City Tech College (Francois, “City Tech College”) and I still haven’t gotten the hang of college yet, which makes me overwork in my opinion. If it is not school related, it is hard for me to say yes to other activities when I have homework even if I just have one left. This has its advantages and disadvantages. On one hand, I’m getting all of my homework and studying out the way. On the other hand, I’m stressing myself out and not making enough time for myself and fun activities to make the most out of my freshmen year. My boyfriend has told me about twice that ever since I started college I haven’t been making much time for him. I do believe that it’s true, but I just can’t seem to find the time for play when I have so much work that needs to be done. Do I make more time for my relationship? Do I continue to solely make my life about dreadful college work? How will my decisions now affect my future?

Being in a relationship is great, I always have someone who is encouraging and supporting me even when I don’t believe in myself. Recently, I’ve had thoughts of leaving college. One of the things stopping me from doing so is the fact that I know that I will never return. I want to go through college all at one time so that I can close that chapter of my life. My boyfriend been helping me a lot actually. I haven’t even really told him about how college is making me feel, he just knows that I’m not really feeling it right now. He has helped me out a great deal since I started taking my summer class with studying and homework. Even math, which we both hate!  He doesn’t get frustrated when we both try to figure out how to get the answer. He tries to understand it first then helps me understand it. He doesn’t even know how that makes me feel. It feels good to have someone willing to go through it with me. Especially since my mom can’t really help me because she doesn’t remember a lot of the work I’m having trouble with. She has offered to get a tutor for me but for right now I’m declining.

Being in a relationship also can be stressful at times. When I have so much going on in school, I don’t want to have any extra weight on my shoulders. When my boyfriend and I are not getting along, it becomes difficult for me to focus on anything else. I’m usually sad for a little while, then I’m okay but I still can’t seem to focus on getting anything else done. Before, it used to take us a couple of days to get back on good terms but now, we are usually on good terms the same day or the next day. Although this doesn’t happen a lot, I’m trying to find better ways to deal with this specific situation. I’m thinking maybe making the first move in addressing the situation so that way it can be squashed sooner. The funny thing is we are two totally different people in general but when it comes to emotions we are very much the same. In general, he’s more outgoing, likes to talk about problems he is having verbally. Me on the other hand, I am shyer, and when it comes to talking about problems, I’m a writer. It’s hard for me to begin to talk verbally about a problem. I usually write a letter to start off and ease into verbal conversation. One thing I can say about our downs is that it definitely broke me out of my nonverbal approach shell. Eventually I started talking about what’s bothering me. When it comes to us not talking, we both want to end the problem sooner rather than later but i don’t think either one of us is comfortable with making that first move. We both just wait around until either the other person calls or we can’t take not talking anymore. Thinking about my boyfriend again… “Day of Thoughts” (Kayla Francois, par.8) When I’m thinking about him I think it would help to just call him, seems like all I do is think about him and I don’t do anything about it.

I do wish that he was more understanding. We went to the same school for middle school but for high school, I remained in the same school and he went to another. During this time we would meet each other downtown (Francois, “Where I Meet My Boyfriend”) when we wanted to see each other, then we would go to Dumbo Park (Francois, “Dumbo Park”), walk the Brooklyn Bridge, or other fun activities. The school he went to actually allowed him to graduate in three years. So while I was in 12^th grade, he was starting his first year of college. I personally decided to give him a little more space. My reason for this was because I didn’t know how it felt to be a college student, I didn’t know what he would have to go through during his first year and I didn’t want to put him under any more stress than what he was going to have. When I would call him, we would talk a lot less on the phone because he either had work to do or he was extremely tired. I understood that. Sometimes I would wait for him to call me when he had down time. Me going into my first year and him going into his second year, I expected that he knew how it felt to go through college for the first year. Although we are in different majors and everyone’s experience is different, I can imagine our work load is pretty much the same. I feel like he wants me to still be available as much as I used to be. I would love that too but college is a lot different from high school. I didn’t have to do all my homework; I didn’t even have to study. I went to school the same time everyday in high school. Now I have late classes, early classes, every assignment I get I have to complete if I want to pass my classes and understand what I’m being taught.

Thinking about the problem I’m having and doing nothing about it is not going to actually get rid of the problem. I have to go through trial and error. I know that I can’t just do one thing and not worry about the other. Maybe it would be easier to set days where we see each other, days where homework gets done, days where I relax and not worry about anything. College is about being organized so why not try to ease my situation with organization? I think it would be a great help. I think that once I find the right balance, it will be easier to deal with my current situation. I’m a person who likes challenge and doesn’t become overwhelmed easily. At the same time this is all new to me. Also from the very beginning of college, I told myself that all my college work was going into one spiral notebook. It may seem unorganized but I find that when my stuff is all together in one, it’s easier to manage. I have a file folder where I keep all my papers. I don’t have to worry about which notebook I have to bring to my classes for the day, I don’t have to worry about if I forgot a paper at home, everything is always together.

My sleep schedule is still not back to normal (Francois, “Day of Thoughts”). This is also affecting both my school work and relationship. If I’m not getting any sleep, I don’t have the energy to get things done. I usually make myself get out of bed to do my homework. When that’s done I just want to go back to sleep, not making time to make sure I even call him to let him know I’m thinking about him and missing him. I believe that my choice will be to continue school, and organize my social life to mingle with my college life so that everything doesn’t feel like a chore to me. I think that right now my mind is looking at everything as a chore wheel; everything is the same week after week. I have to try to gain something out of everything I do so that I stop thinking about everything as a routine.

As for my future, I do want to get into the culinary business maybe even own my own restaurant. I do need to get through college but also make connections and become very social. Hopefully as time progresses, I will become more comfortable with going up to people and making friends. College is just the door to success, being social is the key that I need to open the door and get through!

 

Work Cited

 

Francois, Kayla. “City Tech College.” Flickr. 12 Oct 2014. Web. 12 Oct 2014

Francois, Kayla. “Dumbo Park.” Flickr. 12 Oct 2014. Web. 12 Oct 2014

Francois, Kayla. “Where I Meet My Boyfriend.” Flickr. 12 Oct 2014. Web. 12 Oct 2014.

Kaylaf54 [Kayla Francois]. “Re: Project 1: Thinking in Writing.” Openlab. ENG1101 D346 English Composition1FA2014. 21 Sept 2014. Web. 12 Oct 2014.