What I learned about working in foodservice (or, I was a college-aged student taco slinger)

Ladies and gentlemen, today — March 21 — is National Crispy Taco Day, so I thought I would enlighten my followers with tales of my own taco slinging days.

It was the mid-1980s and it was my second year at UW-Eau Claire. My status as a student was somewhere between sophomore and junior (I was screwed in the credit transfer from a trimester university to a semester university) and I became keenly aware of the need for more money in my wallet.

Like most college students, reality presented itself in the form of a part-time job. In those days, there were very few opportunities for students to make money outside of pizza delivery, bartender or retail foodservice worker. I became aware that Taco John’s on Water Street (which is no longer there) needed folks to work nights and weekends.

My interview, as I recall it, was uninspiring. I’m not really sure why I was called back to be told I got the job, but I later found out from an assistant manager that the female manager called the wrong person back (me) so I guess it’s better to be lucky than good.

Regardless of the scenario behind my hiring, I showed up for work eager to learn. Employees each received a lovely tan polyester shirt (which we had to wash after each shift) and report for training. The emphasis was on the weight of each food item — tacos were 2 ounces, soft shells were 5.5 ounces, larger and “super” items weighed more (which is why they cost more).?

Then came the trial by fire: Lunch hour. Because the Taco John’s was located in a former 7-11, the building was not ideally designed as a Taco John’s (there was no drive-through like the Brackett Avenue Taco John’s) so most traffic was walk-in. We also had video games in the entry area, which attracted middle schoolers who liked to order one taco and a water and were ultimately asked to leave because they messed up the laminate booths and tables in the lobby.

But lunch hours were something to behold. We served easily more than 100 people from 11 a.m.-1 p.m., and that number could increase to 150 or 175 during Taco Tuesdays (hardshell tacos were two for one), Super Thursdays (“super” items like Super Burritos were on sale) or Softshell Saturdays (when softshell tacos were two for one).?

My job initially was to work the counter and take orders using a grease pencil and an order pad. Orders were hung overhead and people working the line had to be able to read your orders to determine how much food to prepare. You found out fairly quickly if you didn’t have the correct Taco Terminology for your abbreviations or if your bad handwriting portended a future career as a doctor because you were the only one who could read it.

After mastering the order-taking task, I moved to the cash register. If your register drawer didn’t “balance” at the end of the shift (your drawer had to have the right total based on the register log of transactions), you heard about it. If it was really off, you were taken off the register and moved to beverage filling or the steam table.?

At the beverage station, you read the tickets and determined how many drinks were needed for each order and prepared them in the sequence they were placed so the beverages could be given out with the correct food orders.

The real test was when you were put on the steam table. Workers had to have their food weights down and let the manager know when certain items in the steam table shelf — like hard taco shells, taco salad bowls and fried tostada shells — were running low.?

If a food item looked “heavy,” the manager would grab it and throw it on the scale. If you were repeatedly heavy with your food items, you worked with a manager or assistant manager until you knew by holding the food item whether it was "heavy" or not. ?

All workers were expected to do prep work when it was slow at Taco John's, and that was how I earned my first trip to an emergency room in Eau Claire. Mostly, prep included making a new batch of refried beans, taco meat or chili, but occasionally, we had to chop lettuce and slice tomatoes. It was during the latter that I sliced my left thumb, requiring stitches.?

We all had a great laugh about my trip to the ER, but I was kept away from the knives for about a month. I had the thumb scar for years.?

So -- besides being more careful cutting tomatoes -- what did being a college student taco slinger teach me? Plenty:

Teamwork makes the dream work. You find out fairly quickly if you can stand the heat of a lunch hour or a bar rush (the Water Street Taco John’s was open until bar time Fridays and Saturdays and late during the week). People who couldn’t handle either one turned in their polyester work shirts and moved on.?

We built the team hoisting adult beverages at someone’s house or apartment after our night shifts, or some day drinking on the weekends. And yes, there was the awkward dating between co-workers that the rest of us had to navigate. This also led to some taco careers being prematurely cut short when the break-up drama occurred.?

The customer is usually right. Another thing you learn pretty quickly is that the customer is usually right. The exception is the intoxicated folks who couldn’t remember what they ordered, or couldn’t remember what name they gave the order taker (many times, the funnier the name the more difficult it was to remember). That made it difficult for said hammered customers to pick up their food when it was ready.?

Man, did I love tacos. Taco John's employees were able to buy food at half off as workers before or after our shift, and eat for free during our shift. This may or may not have been the source of my weight gain, known as the freshman 40, but I’m sure the carbohydrates in the adult carbonated beverages I was consuming WITH the tacos played a contributing role.

I still love tacos and eat infrequently (although much differently) at Taco John’s.

Memories — like the corners of my . . . burrito. I still reflect positively on my experience at Taco John’s, although there are some parts of it I would like to forget. One of those was smelling like a taco when I departed for home from work.

I still tell stories about working at Taco John’s. Much like the TV show “Dragnet,” the names are changed to protect the innocent, but mostly because the subject matter of those stories occurred about 40 years ago. ?

One story that’s pretty clean: We traded menu items with McDonald’s next door. When we were not busy, a worker (usually the assistant manager) filled a bag with food and brought it next door and picked up a bag with fries, burgers and apple pies. No amounts were calculated so nobody could actually testify in a court of law with any certainty how much was traded.?

I still remember my crew mates Carmine, Brent, Jackie, Cathy, Mary and the franchise owner, Taco Tim, like it was yesterday.

Another memory was inventing the Taco John’s chimichanga. After experimenting, I took a flour tortilla, filled it with meat (either beef or chicken) and cheese, rolled it so the fold was under the burrito, then deep fried it. It was topped with mild sauce (later it was salsa) on top, then more cheese, lettuce and tomato. The result was much like a restaurant chimi, but without the molé sauce. We served it with refried beans with cheese on top, and nacho chips to dip. I think it was a "super" item for a couple of years, and they took it off when they revamped the menu.?

And -- in case you were wondering if I ever forgot my TJ's training -- I still make all my tacos and burritos the Taco John’s way when I eat them at home.

I looked for foodservice workers when hiring.? When I became responsible for hiring editorial employees at the Sun Prairie Star (where I was managing editor for 33-plus years), I looked for potential hires with foodservice experience. My brief career with Taco John’s served as a basis for that.?

More specifically, I looked for waitstaff and cashiers who had dealt with difficult customers and asked them how they dealt with them. Generally this gave me a guide about how they handled difficult people, so that when they received the complaining phone call about an error in a story or photo caption, they could deal with it appropriately.?

So if you think that experience slinging tacos, serving food or working the drive-through isn’t worth mentioning on your resumé, think again. Be proud of it, explain your roles where you worked, and proudly boast to the human resources manager or your future boss how it helped form your professional career.

In my case, Taco John’s spurred me to finish my journalism news editorial-print degree at UW-Eau Claire. Taco John’s was a great part-time job, and a fantastic learning opportunity, but I didn’t want to make it a Tacoriffic career. I turned in my polyester shirt in to the Water Street Taco John's management in early 1988 after I graduated in December 1987 and took my first job as a reporter for the Clark County Press in Neillsville, Wisconsin.

In honor of National Hard Shell Taco Day, reflecting on my experience just goes to show how much you can learn about yourself by slinging tacos -- and how it can impact your career decades later.?

Chris Mertes is owner and Chief Innovation Officer at Sun Prairie-based 608 Beacon Enterprises LLC, which helps small businesses and non-profits with content creation such as photography, website content, short and long-form stories and press releases; learn more at https://www.608beaconenterprisesllc.com/ . He is also a freelance writer for the Middleton Times-Tribune in Middleton WI.?