In an industry where half of the employees are younger than 30, staying gainfully employed in restaurants as one gets older can be challenging, especially in the high-pressured, fast-moving back-of-the-house. Never mind the recession, chef Paul Green III noticed a slowdown in job offers more than 10 years ago when he turned 50. This spring he took matters into his own hands and started a business from his home in Tuftonboro, N.H., intended to help himself and other experienced chefs keep wearing their toques. Green started a website called
Are your chefs mostly looking for temporary jobs or full-time work?
Most want temp work. When you’ve been a chef your whole career, you continue to eat, sleep and breathe food. But it’s a lot of hours; a lot of the days are tough on your personal and family life. A lot come to realize they want to get out of the kitchen, but they do not want to give it up completely.
Is there much of a market for temp chefs in today’s economy?
I think the idea of a per-diem, high-end employee is much more attractive than hiring someone and paying the bonuses and benefits and taxes that go along with it. It’s less expensive to do this.
This is an industry of young people, especially in the restaurants. What’s the advantage of hiring an older chef?
As you gain experience and time in the business, you learn and become more and more efficient. I have the drive but not the energy I had when I was 30. I have something that replaces that—talent, experience and maturity, which makes you effective in decision making and makes you more efficient. There is an eternal bias [toward youth], and I’m not sure anything can be done about it. People will recognize the value of experience or they won’t.
