The Canteen is Hiring for
the 2024 Season!
Westerly Canteen seeks highly motivated and hardworking individuals who are interested in thoughtful hospitality and intentional farm to table cookery.
We are a uniquely “wear many hats” kind of team, but within that nebulous framework seek cooks and servers looking to advance in their hospitality and culinary tracks outside of sterile restaurant environments.
All positions are seasonal at this time and run from mid April through late November. We are looking to evolve Westerly into a year round endeavor, so there may be the opportunity to grow into a year round role.
The Canteen
Westerly Canteen is a *sort of* restaurant uniquely housed in a renovated 1971 Airstream. We serve dinner Thursday through Sunday and lunch on the weekends. We offer table service by night and window service by day. In that regard, we operate much like a restaurant as you might know it- with guests and cooks and servers, with menus and checks and dishes presented on our favorite ceramic plates. However, we aim to break down the literal and imaginary walls between service and dining and between where our food is grown, prepared and then served.
Westerly is rooted in the tradition of agritourism so we activate outdoor agricultural spaces and transform them into full dining experiences. Our service style aims to be playful, earnest, and caring to evoke a feeling of caretaking without pretention. We are lucky to partner with Tenmile Distillery and utilize their orchard and dining patio as our freeform restaurant.
At Tenmile Distillery, in Wassaic we prep out of their commercial kitchen, where we conduct all of our dishwashing and side work and then we treat the Airstream as our line and service kitchen. It is a unique and modular alternative that does require a good bit of walking between spaces, yet allows us to enjoy the best of the Hudson Valley landscape.
Our Team
We are a small team of just 5-7 individuals. During the peak summer we operate with 2-3 cooks, 2-3 servers and a dishwasher. In the slower season we manage with 2 and 2. Molly Levine is the owner and head chef and brings a distinctly feminine perspective to this untraditional restaurant space. Our team is majority women and queer and we are proud to have a friendly, safe, and welcoming work environment. We would be happy to welcome people of all identities to our team. Given the size of our team and the nature of the work, it is paramount that we maintain a close knit and positive work environment that centers trust, mutual respect, and teamwork.
Qualifications
Foundationally all qualified applicants must be hard working team players with excellent communication skills, and a passion for farm to table cuisine and hospitality.
While we strive to do things differently than restaurants of the past, a foundation of line cooking or restaurant work of some kind is preferred for all cooking positions. With just two positions on the line and heavy load of prep, basic restaurant etiquette and skillset is necessary for a smooth transition to the swell of the season.
For front of house positions, kindness and patience are key “people skills” we require to translate to hospitality. A willingness and ability to be on your feet for long periods of time and walk across the expanse of our dining space to the kitchen is a must.
Job Description
Canteen Cook:
All cooks at the canteen are expected to work both prep and service. Although some exceptions may apply. We work with beautiful local produce, meat, and fish that has been carefully sourced. Thus the handling of all ingredients must be done so with care and attention to detail.
Efficiency in our small team is essential, but never at the cost of thoughtful attentiveness to all projects. Cooks will learn the rustic and intuitive cooking style that defines Westerly Canteen. All Cooks are expected to manage the prep and set up of their station and work in a clean and orderly fashion. Teamwork and communication are paramount. Technical skills can be taught!
All cooks report directly to Molly.
Canteen Server:
All front of house must be willing and able to traverse distances across the property during the course of a shift. We are a unique set up in which the dish area, airstream, patio, and orchard are spaced out. Servers will be required to move between these spaces regularly - from carrying plates and water outside for set up to clearing back into the dish area to moving between the Canteen window and their tables.
All servers are expected to be the key representatives of Westerly’s guest experience, which is prioritized at every level. We aim for earnest, caring, welcoming and genuine hospitality. We want our guests to feel cared for without providing too much of a heavy hand aka we never want an air of pretension in the service we provide. Thus servers are expected to treat all guests with attentive care and translate our farm sourced menus into a full wholesome experience for all patrons.
Compensation
All positions start at $17/ hour base pay, commensurate with experience. All roles pool tips equally based on hours worked during service days. We prize all roles from dishwashing to serving to cooking in equal regard, understanding the necessary collaboration of them all to conduct our work effectively, thus tips are shared equally to ensure all members of the team make a living wage. The only untipped shifts are prep shifts on closed days.