Internship at Filippi's Pizza Grotto

Work Summary

 

Filippi's Pizza Grotto is a family owned Italian restaurant. They serve pasta, pizza, salad, and sandwiches. I currently work at Filippi's as a cashier/ hostess. My internship was every Saturday and Sunday from 8-10:30 in the morning before I worked as a cashier for the rest of the day. My internship included food preparation, sanitizing utensils, enforcing health regulations, and the importance of using a knife correctly. My supervisor was Tom Finch, the owner of Filippi's. My daily routine was basic. The learning outcomes like collaboration, critical thinking, written communication, and career preparation really brought out the importance of my internship.

 

Everyday when I got there I would cut the bread; The funny thing is I initially thought that it was easy. I would take the loafs of bread out of the bag and make six cuts in them, from top to bottom. My first loaf I cut the bread all the way through. My Co-worker Jordan said, “no, no, no”. Then he explained why we only cut the top part. We need to keep the bread warm when we take it out of the oven. By only cutting the top of it people can separate it easily but it keeps the warmth. The other reason is after we cut the bread we put them back in their bags. Each bag contains five to six loafs which makes them pretty snug. When taking the bread out of the bag, if cut all the way through, part of it will get stuck and the loaf will rip apart. I also learned about different temperatures for food what and what temperature they should to be stored at. I learned how to cook spaghetti in big portions. I also learned how to cook chicken noodle soup, meat sauce, marinara sauce, meat and cheese raviolis, pizza, chicken parmesan, eggplant parmesan, and pizza dough. I learned different cutting techniques along with how to hold the food and my fingers correctly while cutting.

Working there as a cashier, I would stay later some days but be in the kitchen. During lunch making orders the reason was that there was only one cook working. When the cook, Jordon, was making a pizza, I could be making lasagna or spaghetti. I really thought that being a cook would be fairly easy. I now understand what they go through as a cook and how long it takes to make food. Having this knowledge I can really use if for my job as a casher. If a person asks me “How long will that take?” I can give them an accurate time of how long it will take.

Keeping the time accurate on an order you really need to use collaboration. The pizza staff has to pass of tickets (orders) to the line staff, the waiters and waitresses have to communicate different things through tickets using written communication. Collaboration is also letting the hostess know as a server you are overwhelmed or that you can take more tables. Collaboration is important to everybody, to know what is going on and how to deal with different situations.

Critical thinking is used all the time in the kitchen, when an order comes in and you need to understand what the customer wants there are times when you just need to improvise. For example : I got a call for a pizza; the customer said I want all Pep, onion and ½ saug , and Bell pepper. When I wrote this I didn't realize that I said pepperoni on all and then wrote it again on half instead of writing bell pepper. So I tried to call the man back but it was the wrong number. So when I realized my mistake I talked to the cook and told him I believe this was suppose to be bell peppers but I'm not sure. The cook said he will make some bell peppers on the side and put them on if the customer wants them. So that is exactly what he did when the man came in.

 

Filippi's still uses older restaurant techniques such as hand written ticket orders. There is a regular register, without fancy touch screens. My technology use was pretty limited. In the kitchen, however, there were a few things that are “electronic devices”. There is the machine to make the pizza dough, oven, stoves, mixer, and the dish-washer. I did get to learn about the different speeds while making the pizza dough. My first time making the pizza dough Tom said, “Do you know what happens if you put it up to high and you have that much flour in there?” I said, “Yea, the flour will go everywhere, I did it once”. Tom laughed at me.

My senior project is a fundraiser, in which I will cook for 200 people. This internship really helped prepare me to make large portions of food at one time. It also stressed how I to pay attention to different kinds of orders. People have different dietary tastes needs some may be vegetarians for example. I need to make sure that I have several different options for those people. Tom has a menu that is really diverse in that way. I also found a mentor for my senior project, my co-worker, Jordan. He is now working in a high-end restaurant, as the top chef.

My internship really opened up my eyes and let me know the different hardships and fun tasks while working in the kitchen.