Good presence, languages, hospitality courses, flexibility in shift hours... are requirements that are usually associated with countless job offers to wait tables in bars and restaurants. Places that often remain vacant, especially as a result of the enormous flight from the hospitality sector after the pandemic, in search of greater stability, economic improvements or more possibilities for reconciliation.
Much less common is to come across the indispensable condition that Kim Díaz, businessman of the Barcelona Bar Mut, demanded when in 2015 he announced a job offer for waiters and waitresses who had experience and, above all, had turned fifty. He wanted to make up the staff of the gourmet sandwich shop Entrepanes Díaz that he planned to open and that continues to operate successfully thanks to the work of a veteran team.
On that cold January day, a queue of about a hundred candidates formed, patiently waiting at the entrance to Bar Mut. Inside, directing the two small groups of people doing the interviews, were two friends of the restaurateur: Edu Sánchez, an expert in casting, and Antxon Gómez, art director on numerous Pedro Almodóvar films and who had helped create the decoration of the restaurant. new sandwich house. Among the candidates were people with decades of experience behind emblematic bars in the city, some disappeared, others with less experience but the same enthusiasm. An excellent team came out of there, some of whom have already retired or are about to do so.
Kim Díaz remains convinced that that call that originated when he himself was around half a century old, was one of the great successes of his career. “I was sad to receive so many candidates when I could only offer eight jobs, but I would like to encourage colleagues in the sector and other fields to follow the same initiative,” explains the businessman. “Something as obvious as taking into account people who have accumulated extensive experience and who deserve to feel valued at a stage in life when great professionals are too often cornered must be normalized. They are people from whom I have learned countless professional lessons and also life lessons.”
For this reason he wanted to repeat now that he is preparing the opening of a new location, a simple Italian one that will be called Enrichietto, in honor of one of his partners, the entrepreneur Enric Rebordosa; the others are Miki Pucho Gari, from Mantequerías Pirenaicas, and Alberto Casado. The place is located in Plaza Monterols de Sant Gervasi, where those who want to be candidates for one of the positions as waiters or managers can come next Wednesday, from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.
Seven years of experience in the sandwich business allow him to evaluate that first atypical selection very positively. Díaz wants to highlight those who are or were once part of the team not only for their professionalism, but also for their involvement: “many of them still have their children at home and are paying for studies or still have a mortgage.” Furthermore, he finds it sad that those waiters with extensive experience who love their job and empathize with the clientele are being lost. “Waiters who know what regular customers usually drink and whether you like a short cut of milk or sparkling water without ice or lemon.”
The one who vehemently defends this bet of his boss is Javier Llorca, who describes himself as the waiter, image and public relations of Entrepanes Díaz, to whom many clients send postcards or bring a gift when they go on vacation. He did not arrive because of the casting, but because he showed up at the door of the establishment with a bouquet of daisies, a smile and the argument that he would love to work there, because the establishment where he tended the bar was in decline. “Since then I have been living the most beautiful stage of my professional career.” Pure sympathy, he considers himself from the old school and assures that he knows the hardness of the job, but he believes that working in a good environment changes everything and that feeling valued is not paid for with money. “More than one businessman would need a new leadership manual. Because that saying 'You don't need to think, work' is from Franco's time."
