Manager Interview

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        On February 16, 2016 I had the opportunity to meet with the manager of a popular banquet hall, Allegra Banquets located in Schiller Park, Illinois. Tony Maciuszek has been in the restaurant business for over twenty years. He began his career in London in 1989 as a waiter at a small restaurant. While working, Tony completed attended college with a concentration in business management. However, he never had a chance to finish his secondary education due to starting a family. London convinced him that he belonged in the restaurant business, which led him to immigrate to the United States in 1991. Tony started off working at Mirage Restaurant as a waiter once again, and after a year and a half rose to became the manager. He later advanced to be a manager at a nearby banquet hall, Allegra Banquets where he currently works and does everything to keep the business thriving. Tony stated, “Working at a banquet hall requires lots of sacrifices, unregularly hours, and working in teams to create a good working atmosphere to bring success in this type of industry”.

        As Tony mentioned that being a manager at a popular restaurant requires a lot of work and hours, he currently works between 50-60 hours weekly on the job. The large number of work hours oblige Tony to handle client inquiries and complaints, prepare staffing, assess stock levels, plan menus and a variety of other responsibilities that his position calls for. A typical day for Tony varies from day to day. Each day Tony is responsible to set up the schedule for all the employees and make sure they are assigned their job duties. There are three different ballrooms, which can also be separated into smaller sectors with sliding walls. Every party event has a number of assigned waiters depending on the size of the event. If an event calls for a bar, then a bartender is needed as well. Tony says that sometimes it is difficult to distribute the waiters, waitresses and bartenders between the ballrooms. He mentioned that some of the workers are good friends with each other, which at times may lead to more talking with each other than actually working. Therefore, he tries to accommodate himself with all the workers to see blend the workers that are good friends with those whom the workers are not as close with.  The banquet hall is the busiest on the weekends, since people host weddings, baptisms, birthdays and other type of parties. He says that there are around 12 to 20 waiters and waitresses that he has to manage.

        One of the challenges Tony deals with are intoxicated customers. The banquet hall manager states that after people have a few to many drinks, they begin to ask and expect so much more out of the business. There have even been fist fights, which Tony himself had to break up. Dealing with rude customers is hard, but dealing with intoxicated customers and guests is even harder. I asked Tony what things does he worry about the most and he said that one of his biggest worries is a ruined event or party. While managing such a large restaurant there are a lot of things that can go wrong. He said that his second week of working at the banquet hall, the air conditioner went out for 300 person wedding in the middle of a hot blazing summer. Tony remembers that it took 2 hours for a company to bring in portable air conditioner units to cool down the building. Another worry that Tony has for every event is the food. Everyone usually looks forward to the menu and food at a restaurant like Allegra Banquets. If the cook makes a mistake in a recipe or overall in the kitchen, Tony has to be there to help guide and fix any problems that might occur. It happens more often than people may think and therefore Tony is the go to person if the host of a party has any questions or concerns that may arise.