Are there any mums on here who work as chefs/in a cafe or deli? Talk to me!

[Honesttodog]

I love cooking, have worked as a commis chef in a few places and helped out on catering jobs, I bake cakes but hate decorating them. Love food, talking about it,would happily ?rite about it.

Dc will be at school next year till 315 next year, and i want to start thinking about a job. Can you tell me about juggling hours, what time you finish, do you have help with schoo,runs or do they do afternoon clubs etc? Do you find it very tiring? I want to be able to support my kids with projects, subjects they struggle with etc but I also want to work. Any unusual food related jobs I should research?

Last job was as a PA but I don't really want to go back to that. I would ideally like to supply cakes to cafés or caterers, or work part time in a cafe kitchen.

Bump!

Not me myself my my Dad was a proffesional chef and my DM worked in catering for years too.
Honestly it is a very anti-social job, the vast majority of school hour jobs are likely to be dull working in a small cafe or canteen but even then you might not be able to fit it in school hours and will be expected to work till 5-6pm.
If your doing a breakfast mean expect to be in at 6-7am. Not forgetting you might have to take a weekend shift too.

If you want to be a trained Chef its long anti-social hours (a lot of evenings till very late) and you will work most holidays.
There is also a huge culture of alcoholism and drug taking at the higher end too due to the pressure.
My dad left in the end because he wanted to see more of his grandkids growing up than he ever did his own kids.

You would probably be better placed opening up your own small food business where you could hire others allowing you to nip home for the school run etc.

There are many catering jobs that you can fit around children depending on what sort of thing you are looking for. You could work in a school kitchen ( some of the private schools have very good kitchens and great menus), there's also care and nursing homes that usually provide a cooked meal for lunch times.

I trained as a chef and worked in many places before having kids, the hours were not great ( split shifts ) but the pay was ok, since have the dd's I worked in a small bakery for a few years before becoming a stay at home mum, I'm hoping to go back to work in the next year or so, I will be looking for a job that fits around school hours.