Hi.
Welcome to Best Served, a podcast about Unsung Hospitality Heroes
Welcome to Best Served, a podcast about Unsung Hospitality Heroes
Jensen Cummings is a fifth-generation award-wining Chef, Public Speaker and Restaurant Industry Strategist based in Denver, CO. He is the host of Best Served Podcast and Restaurant Idea Factory.
He is committed to reflecting on his own culpability in the status quo of the industry, to reimagining restaurant culture, investing in our unsung hospitality heroes and building a better mode, what he calls a Workplace Worth Working.
He began his career at 17 years old as a dishwasher. He spent the last twenty-plus years working across the industry from cook to server to bartender, Cicerone, Fermentationist, General Manager, Owner, Consultant, Podcast host, even kitchen burnout.
Now, Cummings is innovating F&B models with his three hospitality focused businesses, Workplace Worth Working development: Best Served Creative, new restaurant consulting firm: Angry Olive Consulting, and media and event production company: Fortune Cookie Concepts.
His company mission is to amplify the worth and work of those who feed their community. His personal focus now is to empower and educate future leaders of the industry and leave it better than he found it, for his children to have an opportunity to become the sixth-generation of the family to be of service.
Chef Jensen specializes on the following topics centered around Hiring, Wages/Benefits and Workplace Culture. Additional topics could include Brand Development, Content Marketing, Media Placement, Audience Archetypes, Starting A Business, and more.
If you are not being just as creative and engaging to attract potential employees as you are to attract potential guests, you have nobody to blame except yourself for the “labor shortage”.
Let’s talk about specific bad practices and best practices for your hiring process from writing compelling job stories to transparent job board posts to social media marketing to disrupting the status quo of interviewing.
IG Reel - If You Are Investing In People You Will Quickly Go From Understaffed To Overstaffed!
The days of viewing our employees as “bodies” and “hands” are over. They have been exposed as toxic and not sustainable, as well as just being wrong and a bad business model. A living wage, basic, and creative benefits are required to develop and retain strong teams.
Let’s talk about how to understand the living wage in your area, the market value of your workforce, the cost-benefit analysis of the job package you offer, legal and tax implications, and the impact on your top line and bottom line.
IG Reel - Negotiating For A Lower Wage And Higher Benefits Packages Can Be Advantageous For Both Parties
The Food Is Just The Proof That You Are Who You Say You Are
“Essential workers” doesn’t come close to describing the importance of the hospitality industry and its workers. They are Indispensable, they are #UnsungHospitalityHeroes – we must acknowledge them as pillars of both commerce and culture in their communities. So how do we get beyond our past failures of toxic workplace culture of our people going unheard, underpaid, under-appreciated, overworked?
Let’s talk about what the hell “culture” actually means, instilling a true sense of belonging, how we apply best practices into our daily routines, ways to actually evaluate our shortcomings and successes, and the financial impacts of workplace culture.
IG Reel - Building Restaurant Relationships
Article - Restaurants Are Not A Great Place To Work: How Did We Get Here? What Now?
James Beard Foundation | Culinary Institution of America
Great American Beer Festival | National Restaurant Association
Johnson & Wales University | Restaurant Mental Health Org
Food Is Religion | ProStart | MAPP
