Tap Room worker Brandon Zavala shares what he says drives success at Long Island’s busiest restaurant

(photo by Tap room mangagment resources)

By Angela Lawes

ROCKVILLE CENTRE, N.Y. — Open seven days a week and now beginning to be seen as one of Long Island’s top hot spots, plates are always flying, seats are always filling up, and the energy is always lively. But have you ever stopped to think about what allows The Tap Room RVC to be as functional and high-rated through all the chaos? At the center of that organized chaos is Brandon Zavala, a head food runner and cater server who plays a key role in keeping service smooth and customers satisfied.

Zavala describes his job as a balancing act between speed, accuracy, and trusting his intuition when it comes to food orders. Zavala says, “Everybody try to do their stuff in very different way, but we always try to get the stuff done. So, yeah, working together would be pretty much the idea of working as a foreigner. So catering, catering server, is a little more relaxing, but at the same time, still, you need to be paying attention of what, how clean is the area, what a customer is asking, what’s the food that we’re going to serve? Because sometimes we get a question if something’s looking free or is there free? So we need to have some knowledge of it to make sure that the food that we’re serving are able people are going to be able to eat.” According to Zavala, menu knowledge plays a key part in the success behind the Tap Room at RVC.

When asked to recall one of his most memorable experiences at the Tap Room RVC, Zavala says, “When I was working by myself, some shift, we were street really, really busy here, and it was we were short staffed. We were supposed to have two runners sometimes, and both of them called out at the last minute. So I was pretty much the only one that was taking care of the orders down the kitchen. I was the one pretty controlling the entire kitchen by myself.” This was during the NBA finals a few months ago says Zavala. When asked how that pressure of being the only one — especially at a young age (24) — controlling an entire kitchen, Zavala says, “Was it easy? No, it’s not going to be easy.” Zavala also recalls his managers praising him afterwards and then later moving him up in the company because of the strong work ethic he showed that busy night.

When asked if he had any advice to give to others that may be looking into getting into the career of the restaurant nightlife, Zavala says, “Don’t like, get your other co-workers comfortable around you. Try to always tell them to get this stuff together. Yes, you’re there to help them out, but that doesn’t mean that you’re going to be able to do everything for them. Just try to be that extra pair of hands around them, because you’re going to get to a point of work on your life, then nobody’s going to help you. So always try to give help people that are truly needless. And I’m just not saying in your work environment or in your daily life, try to help about everybody.

If you see there’s something going on and you can’t help them out, just do it. Don’t wait for body to tell you what to do, the action and people going to — you’re going to be the examples to a lot of people in your life, not just your work area. You know, in your daily pace life, you’re going to be an example to everybody. And that will happen to me personally. Everybody’s been like, what are you do all of this? And I always try to, because it was I wasn’t pulling my life that nobody helped me out, neither does my family and everything.” Zavala says at the end of the day the key to success for him at the Tap Room RVC is about “being that shoulder where people can rest on.”