Hi, my name is Jefferson Haynes
How long have you worked for Corner Kitchen?
About 4 years
What is your favorite dish at Corner Kitchen?
I have some difficult dietary restrictions. I feel so fortunate that our amazing kitchen staff prepares some fantastic variations of our dishes to accommodate various dietary needs. And they do it for me just like they would do for any of our guests which means a lot. One of the things they have created is a delicious hybrid of our Harvest Bowl with some other elements of the Latin American bowl which I eat so much it has been nicknamed the “Jefferson Breakfast.” Yum!
If you could travel anywhere in the world where would it be?
Tough. So many places I’d love to go. Backpacking through the Alps or New Zealand, India for food and culture shock, or Hawaii for… well, it’s Hawaii.
What life lessons has working in the service industry taught you?
1. When it comes to teamwork, the total truly is much greater than the sum of its parts.
2. It doesn’t take much to bring a little joy into people’s lives.
3. Patience and kindness go a lot farther than their alternatives do.
A story about a favorite regular…
One of our weekday breakfast regulars comes in several times a week and sits at the bar. One day he came in and was having a particularly tough day with work and was feeling down. Our servers chatted him up and got him talking about it, which made him feel a lot better. But more than that, the management team decided to treat him to breakfast “on the house,” just to let him know how much we appreciate him. It really lifted his spirits and we were able to send him out on a much higher note. There’s nothing that feels better than being able to take someone’s crummy day and making it better.
Human(s) of Corner Kitchen is a continuing blog piece we run each month about a staff member in our restaurant.
