Rhode Islanders love good food, and our reward is a regular stream of new restaurants.
“It’s fantastic from an entrepreneurial standpoint but every time you open a restaurant, you wonder where the workers come from,” said Heather Singleton, Rhode Island Hospitality Association chief operating officer.
“It’s been that way for several years. Pre-COVID, the No. 1 thing was finding prep and line cooks and chefs de cuisine. Now, it doesn’t matter. It’s front of the house and it’s back of the house,” she said.
With an estimated 3,000-plus restaurants and 58,000 restaurant and food service jobs, Rhode Island’s food industry is important economically. At the same time, finding and training staff can be difficult.
“I have friends in the business. It’s hard getting hourly cooks,” said Joe Melanson, who has more than 30 years’ experience as a chef in both high-end and fast-casual restaurants and is associate professor at Johnson & Wales University’s College of Food Innovation and Technology. “They’re looking for $20 an hour. You’re competing with that.”
But how to solve this ever-increasing labor demand? It comes down to matchmaking between employers and potential staff in a variety of ways. Melanson nods to a recent job fair at JWU where new culinary arts graduates with some training can find positions as sous chefs, he says. “Even this year’s freshmen are eager to work in the summer,” he said.
Not every prospective chef takes the higher education route, however. Sometimes a passion for cooking can launch a potential career much earlier.
Singleton points to ProStart as RIHA’s biggest workforce development success, planting the seed through high school culinary, career and technical programs. First launched locally at William M. Davies Jr. Career & Technical High School in Lincoln, it is now available in more than a dozen Rhode Island schools. ProStart students can graduate with college credits and scholarships across the country.
Case in point: Cameron Vicente. Vicente comes from a Portuguese family, where the focus was on food. “Being a chef was not on my radar but even as a kid, I liked cooking shows. It clicked for me,” he said.
He studied culinary arts at Cranston West High School in its multiyear academic and practical program. He learned everything from knife skills to food safety certification. “It solidified my passions, getting hands-on experience. I had exposure at an early age that I wouldn’t have had until college,” she said.
During the final competition his senior year, with local chefs acting as judges, Vicente got two job offers on the spot. A paid internship shortly after led to a full-time job with the Newport Restaurant Group, where, aside from a brief detour, he’s been ever since. Now at 23, he’s chef de tournant at Castle Hill Inn. “There are opportunities for students if they want them,” he said.
His mentor, corporate executive chef Greg Coccio, agrees, although he suggests Vicente may be a bit of an exception. “The days of someone coming in fully proficient working a high-volume grill, for example, are not as common as they used to be,” Coccio said.
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CULINARY TRAINING: Jorge Reyes displays meat pies stuffed with ham and cheese during his training at the Culinary Hub of Providence, or CHOP, in the Providence Public Library. CHOP is a training space for culinary students at The Genesis Center.
PBN FILE PHOTO/MICHAEL SALERNO[/caption]
Menu for Success is another initiative that encourages high school students to consider a culinary career. Funded by Rhode Island’s education department at more than $1.8 million, the career and technical education program has provided 15 school districts with food trucks and trailers as part of their culinary arts curriculum. Students learn how to run a food truck, from cooking in a cramped mobile kitchen to menu budgeting. Trucks have visited Cranston City Hall at lunchtime and a Lincoln High School football game.
Only 2% of Rhode Island’s restaurants are owned by people of color, Commissioner of Elementary and Secondary Education Angélica Infante-Green points out. “We were talking with the governor’s office about equity issues, which is where the food truck idea came from,” she said. “One Menu for Success goal is to expand that 2% ownership and close the gap because Rhode Island is such a foody state. Money will dictate, but ideally we’ll have a food truck in each community.”
For more than 30 years one of the state’s oldest culinary training programs, at The Genesis Center, focuses on adults looking for socioeconomic opportunities. Many are from immigrant communities and learn skills, including basic commercial cooking techniques, and the financial viability needed to run a restaurant.
Graduates move on to jobs in the culinary ecosystem, some owning their own businesses, others working as prep cooks at Garden Grille in Pawtucket, Providence-based Feast & Fettle Inc., or in food services at Brown University or Lifespan Corp.
The Genesis Center partnered with the Culinary Hub of Providence, or CHOP, to open a contemporary restaurant earlier this year inside the Providence Public Library.
“It [provides] more advanced training opportunities by creating jobs we see owners need help filling,” CHOP Chief Operating Officer Joshua Riazi said before its summer opening. “Students get skills at CHOP while being paid and then move on to work for an employer.”
And this being Rhode Island, chances are Riazi will run into graduates he’s trained. “Even now, I go out to lunch, there’s a 50/50 chance I’ll see a former student,” he said.
