Tacos El Gordo, a fast food chain, closes a site because they can't find skilled taco chefs...

[haele]

https://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local/Tacos-El-Gordo-Forced-to-Close-One-Location-Due-to-Lack-of-Staff-489177811.html

A co-worker's daughter worked there as prep and register and is now trying to find an after school job that pays as well as they did.

When I found out, I told her I could have taught her how to make Baja style grill and griddle Street Tacos the way they do, and she could have gone from the register to the grill and maybe help keep the location open.
A long time ago, a neighbor from Ensenada whose family owned a corner for their fish taco cart business showed me how to do them on our big back yard grill for the block parties, along with a wide range of sauces and moles.

Haele

[LisaM]

1. Can't they train someone?

I find the fact that businesses don't want to train people on the job rather disturbing. This may sound loosely related, but this is why the tech companies are pushing STEM curricula at the expense of the liberal arts and humanities....they want workers to show up on the job fully trained, not to put in the time and effort to do it themselves.

I'm glad I've had employers who were willing to train me. It sounds as if your co-worker's daughter would have been an able pupil.

[haele]

3. Fast food places don't typically have enough time to do more than show them how to use the grill.

There's a skill to doing street tacos without loss when you're dealing with more costly quality ingredients, which ups the cost against the bottom line. Pollo Loco, Dell Taco or Taco Bell might be okay with a trainee grill cook making mistakes for the first week or so, but Tacos El Gordo is running a much tighter budget than they are per item, due to both the higher labor cost and the cost of ingredients - and the time constant to get product out. Their lines are out the door on a day when they have enough good cooks. A trainee slowing the line down even more will lose them customers.
If they need 10 - 15 grill cooks per location to keep it profitable and can't find enough people that can do what needs to be done consistently within the first day of hire, then they close.

Consistently good street tacos that are fresh are not easy to make unless you're familiar with the techniques.
Heck, I'm a pretty good cook who learned historic and outdoor cooking techniques for re-creation organizations, and it still took me a couple days to "get it right" when I learned from my neighbor.

Haele

[underpants]

4. I appreciate the insight but I really didn't know it was that hard to make a taco

Just saying.

[haele]

5. It's not hard if you've got time - and the right pants.

Just sayin'


Haele

[Capperdan]

2. Ice

A raid on one of my glass suppliers in Central Calif, resulted in over 30 arrests. I am now looking for a new source. They had to close.

[JuJuYoshida]

6. dang! that place was good too!

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

7. I am likewise puzzled that they didn't take the time to train a new chef.

Maybe the location wasn't really very profitable to begin with, and this provided a convenient excuse to close.

[haele]

8. They couldn't keep up with the customers.

I went to the site that closed on a Wednesday at 2pm to pick up a very late lunch after a meeting on my way back to the office, and the line was out the door just to get in to order. Needless to say, I had to pass.

The site could have been very profitable if they could find high school or college kids who could be trained on cart style open grill and griddle cooking quickly without produce loss. It's rather like working at a steak house than at a fast food place.

My co-worker told me they had plenty of prep workers and people who could make the side dishes, but it was the cooks they lacked.

Haele

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

9. Wow. With that amount of business

you'd think their priority would have been to expand, hire, and train the help they need. Oh, well. I've never even worked in a restaurant of any kind, let alone own one, so there are going to be so very much I haven't a clue about.