Help me improve? What can I do?
Hello I'm a 21 year old kitchen helper from Italy.
I usually help with washing the dishes and appetizers but when the restaurant is busy I help with only the appetizers.
I started this june part time 7 hours a day 5 days a week. Meanwhile I helped during sundays for 12 hours circa from May.
There are 4 types of appetizers.
Cheeses with marmelades/ honey
Pickled vegetables with a mix of cold cuts
Crostini Mix
Appetizer mix (a mix of all the three above)
I have only a oven grill that I can use for the Crostini and many times there are more combos of appetizers so it usually is enough.
Today there where so many appetizer that I couldn't be phisically fast enough and the chef had a breakdown, not with me, but she was rather sad.
I had too many of them and 3 tables had to wait a lot of time (45 minutes circa).
Every appetizer I start making/ putting in the oven is signed with a dot on the order paper and when I send them out I cancel it with a slash too so I can keep track of them.
We usually have 80/90 people per dinner these weeks.
Is it because I'm slow at this point or do you think there are other problems?
Tomorrow I will ask what I can do to improve but in the meantime I wanted to hear other opinions. if you have any suggestions it will be greatly appreciated.
P.S. The kitchen staff is composed of:
A dishwasher (not me these weeks)
A first courses cook which is also the chef
A second courses cook
A second courses helper
An appetizer "cook" which is me