Restaurant Manager
Coppid Beech Hotel

Jane C

00:00:03 My name’s Jane C and I’m the Restaurant Manager at the Coppid Beech Hotel. Coppid Beech Hotel is a four star hotel in Bracknell in Berkshire. My main responsibilities are overseeing the restaurant on a daily basis, as well as looking after some conferences and private dinners, training the staff, looking after the customers, and just making sure everything’s running smoothly. My role is out front, although I do work with the Chefs as well, and there’s a lot of interaction between the kitchen and the restaurant department so – but I don’t physically go in there and cook or anything like that so –

00:00:43 When I started doing Home Economics at school, I really started to enjoy the cooking side of things, and it sort of built from there. I got a Saturday job in a Department Store in – within the restaurant there. I liked the, as I say, with the food, working with the food, and then working with the guests as well so – just even from there, the customers at the café restaurant at the Department Store. After school I went to University, and I did a Hotel and Catering HND, followed by a top-up year of a degree. And those four years were absolutely brilliant, some of the best of my life so far actually. So three years actually in University and a year in a placement in a hotel in North Wales.

00:01:26 And that whole experience was – not just for the career but for the actual learning, just – just life learning really. It was really really good. Being away from home, being self-sufficient, meeting so many new people, having to fend for yourself. It was absolutely brilliant, I recommend it to anybody.

00:01:51 I did four years at University and then I actually came here, straight afterwards, onto a graduate training scheme. So I did 18 months of training all round the hotel. So I worked in every department in the hotel. Almost gave up after the first three or four weeks, because my first department here at the hotel was the laundry, so I was counting dirty sheets, getting a big bin bag each week of the Chefs’ whites, that pretty much stank. But then moved on to different departments and really – the experience now from that 18 months is absolutely invaluable.

00:02:30 I did reception, I did accounts, I did doorman, I did everything. I think it really gives me a really good perspective on all the different jobs in the hotel. Makes me appreciate their pressures, the stress they’re under. Which you don’t always do if you’re – if you don’t actually experience their job. I think some of the – like a housekeeper, some people think it’s quite an easy job, 9 to 5, they have regular breaks. But it’s not at all, it’s really monotonous and really really difficult.

00:02:57 I think it’s really important before you come into the hospitality industry that you do realise the hours that are involved, and how it can take completely over your life, and I think it’s something that you should really consider before going into it. That you’ve got to have that passion for what you’re doing, it’s not something you can really switch off. So, as I say, most of my friends and colleagues are in hotel industry, or leisure industry, and understand the hours and everything like that so. I think where it’s difficult is things like Christmas Day, New Year’s Eve, and you work every year doing those events, and that sometimes can get a little bit frustrating, but my family are really really good. We just work around that.

00:03:41 If I could do anything at all, I’d like to work with some of the really great people in this industry. Some of the really good Chefs, spend some time with them, your Gordon Ramseys, your Jamie Olivers. Out of this industry, I’d have loved to have done some kind of theatre and been on the stage.

00:03:59 ENDS