Being a pastry chef for a restaurant isn’t all whipped cream, frosting, sugar and spice, it’s a tough job believe it or not. Pastry chef jobs are filled (pun intended) with challenges, including high job demands, working non-traditional environments, and non-traditional hours. Ask any pastry chef if the job is challenging and requires hard work and the answer will always be ‘yes!’. These issues are only part of what contributes to pastry having a high turn-over rate, one of the highest in fact. According to an article from BecomeAPastryChef.com, its stated saying, “Pastry Arts has one unusual element that impacts the overall job outlook…This industry experiences an unusually high rate of job turnover due to working conditions, physical demands
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A pastry chef is also a baker, but a baker isn 't necessarily a pastry chef.” (Baker vs. Chef, 2016). A problem for pastry chefs within a restaurant is, although they are a “boss”, they always work alone, self-managing, with little time to complete tasks and prep for dinner service. Baking takes a lot of time and they don’t have a whole shift to complete all baking like bakers do, but instead only have a couple hours before evenings service and be on-the-line to plate up orders. Although it sounds nice “being a boss”, the pastry chef still for the most part are micro-managed answering to the executive chef, and if the executive chef is only culinary trained this can crush creativity, lead to poor structuring, lack of communication, high demands, and high expectations due to their not understanding the processes that go into baking. They will ask to have a dessert whipped up on a moment’s notice in the middle of service for when VIP’s decide to dine, then get upset if the pastry chef gets behind on either task at hand. To sum it up, many restaurants lack structure leading to pastry chefs feeling cut off from the team. They also give little thought to infrastructure of pastry department, leaving pastry to share spaces/areas/equipment with other departments and not …show more content…
They’re the last to finish up the evenings service and leave, are responsible for creating menu items for occasions, yet, rarely given credit with their names on the menu due to the main items being decided by the executive chef, and to top it off they are often underpaid. Even for the very rare executive pastry chef that has a staff to manage, has their name on the menu, plans the menu, and is responsible for inventory & ordering still makes less than executive culinary chef. In 2010, the online culinary magazine, StarChefs.com reported a national average of $74,891 for restaurant executive chef salary and $47,024 for restaurant pastry chef salary (Chef Salary Report, 2010). Today, as of February 22, 2016, Salary.com reports for executive pastry chef’s working production kitchens (hotel, casino etc.) ranges between $48,979 - $73,327. Those numbers certainly encourage pastry chefs to leave restaurant work. This is not to say that pastry chefs are more important than culinary, nor is it a problem that culinary chefs make more than pastry chefs, it’s a problem that pastry chefs in restaurants can’t make as much. hey don’t They don’t have help or a department to run and so will never be paid more for needing to manage others. With nowhere to move up and earn
A pastry chef is also a baker, but a baker isn 't necessarily a pastry chef.” (Baker vs. Chef, 2016). A problem for pastry chefs within a restaurant is, although they are a “boss”, they always work alone, self-managing, with little time to complete tasks and prep for dinner service. Baking takes a lot of time and they don’t have a whole shift to complete all baking like bakers do, but instead only have a couple hours before evenings service and be on-the-line to plate up orders. Although it sounds nice “being a boss”, the pastry chef still for the most part are micro-managed answering to the executive chef, and if the executive chef is only culinary trained this can crush creativity, lead to poor structuring, lack of communication, high demands, and high expectations due to their not understanding the processes that go into baking. They will ask to have a dessert whipped up on a moment’s notice in the middle of service for when VIP’s decide to dine, then get upset if the pastry chef gets behind on either task at hand. To sum it up, many restaurants lack structure leading to pastry chefs feeling cut off from the team. They also give little thought to infrastructure of pastry department, leaving pastry to share spaces/areas/equipment with other departments and not …show more content…
They’re the last to finish up the evenings service and leave, are responsible for creating menu items for occasions, yet, rarely given credit with their names on the menu due to the main items being decided by the executive chef, and to top it off they are often underpaid. Even for the very rare executive pastry chef that has a staff to manage, has their name on the menu, plans the menu, and is responsible for inventory & ordering still makes less than executive culinary chef. In 2010, the online culinary magazine, StarChefs.com reported a national average of $74,891 for restaurant executive chef salary and $47,024 for restaurant pastry chef salary (Chef Salary Report, 2010). Today, as of February 22, 2016, Salary.com reports for executive pastry chef’s working production kitchens (hotel, casino etc.) ranges between $48,979 - $73,327. Those numbers certainly encourage pastry chefs to leave restaurant work. This is not to say that pastry chefs are more important than culinary, nor is it a problem that culinary chefs make more than pastry chefs, it’s a problem that pastry chefs in restaurants can’t make as much. hey don’t They don’t have help or a department to run and so will never be paid more for needing to manage others. With nowhere to move up and earn