Today, every student in my Documentary Photography class has to do a “Half-way show.” Since we’re exhibiting our work at the end of April, today’s presentation is a sort of first rehearsal. This is the text I’m reading and these are the photos accompanying the text. We’ll see what my classmates and professor think!…
When we go to a restaurant with our families, our friends, our significant others, we tend to focus on the food we eat
The drinks we have
The desserts we order.
However, we also tend to overlook that the food we eat, the drinks we have, and the desserts we order were made by people like you and me. In fact, one could say that behind every great meal, there are great individuals.
In Hillsborough, a 6000-person town in Orange County, North Carolina, there’s a restaurant where the food is amazing, the drinks are unique, and the desserts are homemade. It’s located on Nash St. and its name is Hillsborough BBQ Company.
A place where one would think that its X factor is their brisket, their whiskey drinks, their banana puddings. The things they make.
But if you start wondering who’s behind the products clients from different ages consume at this restaurant, you’ll find out that the people we don’t see (or that we barely interact with) like the cook, the guy in charge of washing dirty plates, cups and silverware, the bartender, the front-house manager, and so on actually represent Hillsborough BBQ Company’s X factor.
Compared to some workspaces where individuals are isolated from each other, and produce and produce and produce in a very solipsistic way, John, Herman, Alex, Whitney, Ticha, and any other worker will tell you that there’s one thing that makes this restaurant special for them. The staff is a “family-oriented group.”
Workers here talk with each other about their lives outside work, they make jokes, they have fun, they care for each other. As one of the staff members once said, “We can be annoying, loving, and irritating at the same time. Just like an average family.”
But there’s another secret that nobody highlights here probably because it’s just natural and obvious. Every worker has a specific function but is willing to lend a hand to the rest of the staff when necessary. And it is always necessary.
For instance, this is Whitney, the bartender, who was born in Wilmington and learned how to make drinks in New York. She found a job ad on Craigslist almost one year ago and since then she has been part of the restaurant staff. But not only does she make drinks.
Whitney writes orders down.
Whitney brings your food to your table and looks at you as is she were saying, “Take that damn photo quickly, I have to work!”
And she also brings the check while showing one of the biggest smiles one will ever see in a lifetime.
No wonder why people from different ages and different parts of the country come to this place. They all know that behind the food they eat, and the drinks they have, and the desserts they order, there are people who love their jobs, people who care for their coworkers, people who work hard to offer their clients both a special meal and a great time at Hillsborough BBQ Company.
