When we ran into Dave at a recent event, we couldn't shake the feeling that we'd seen him somewhere before. Turns out, it's hard to remain anonymous when you lead walking tours around New York City. We finally realized that we used to spy Dave throughout Greenwich Village with groups of hungry tourists. The gastrognomes know from experience that walking backwards is no easy feat (if you'll recall, Dorothy and Taylor met as campus tour guides), and it works up quite an appetite. Dave is now spending most of his time in our fair borough, creating and leading Brooklyn-based brew tours. Sign up on Urban Oyster to get a front row seat.
What attracted you to a good food job?
There are two answers to this question. The first answer is that when we started Urban Oyster we were looking for a good tour to be our first one and we came upon the history of beer brewing in Brooklyn and it was just such an amazing story that we decided our first tour had to be about that. Plus, how can you go wrong creating a tour about beer? All the time our focus was on local business and local production because Cindy and I are both passionate about that and believe that's what makes great cities. The local craft beer movement was a perfect fit with our values, and thus our Brewed in Brooklyn Tour was born.
The second answer is that parallel to all this going on, my fiancé was introducing me to CSAs, Farmer's Markets, and Biodynamic Farms. We both read Michael Pollan's book and since then we've been trying to extract ourselves from the industrial food system, grow as much of our own food as possible, and support local farmers and the local food industry. A lot of this was driven by our desire to be healthy and to contribute to a healthy environment. That effort came to inform my work in Urban Oyster and probably helped push the company even more solidly into supporting good food.
How did your previous work or life experience prepare you for a good food job?
Well, I have been a management consultant for some time, so that was very helpful when we were starting and forming the business, as I had helped others do that many times. Plus I had founded a non-profit organization before, so I was already comfortable integrating a community driven mission into a business. What I wasn't prepared for was all the bureaucracy and legal paperwork that had to be done when forming a business in NY State. (Editor's Note: We feel Dave's pain.) There is a lot of silly stuff that you have to do which is really designed so that someone, somewhere can collect a check from you. I think that stuff trips up a lot of food entrepreneurs and it's a shame because it is not necessary.
The other thing that helped me a lot was that I had been a tour guide for a couple of years with other companies here in NY, especially Foods of New York, which runs great foodie tours. I learned a lot from working with them about what it takes to create and run great tours. I was fortunate because there are a lot of bad tour companies in NY and I was able to work for one of the best.
Finally, I read books, attended events, and just generally stayed informed and networked within the community so I was up to date on what the trends were and what new innovations were coming down the pipe. Food is such an exciting sector right now, and I really believe that all of the smart people are moving into food and it will probably be for the coming decade what dot-coms were for the 90s. (Editor's Note: We swear we didn't pay Dave to say this.)
What advice do you have for others in search of a good food job?
First, if you have the means, create your own job. Everything is so new and the field is wide open, why not jump in feet first with a good idea and try to make a go of it? There aren't a lot of ready-made jobs out there yet. Corporate jobs are going to pull you away from good food - for the most part - with a few exceptions. The other avenue is to look for some of these startups and get your foot in the door. Intern for them, do some free work, do some part-time work. There are lots of businesses, like us, that have lots of work to do that is interesting and will give you exposure*, but they don't have the revenue or budget to do a lot of full-time hires.
The other key is to get to the events and meet people. Even if you find a job through a job board, knowing people and having relationships can help get you an interview and a job. I know that I prefer to hire people that someone I know has recommended.
If you could be compensated for your work with something other than money, what would it be?
Well of course I'm going to say beer, but let me amplify that and say that specifically I'd love to work for someone that compensated me by sending me on trips to beer breweries all over the world. That's a dream job right there. They don't need to pay me, just get me a plane ticket and a couch to sleep on, and an inside peak at breweries in places like Germany and Belgium.
*Watch out for a new job opening at Urban Oyster on this Monday's Good Food Jobs email. If you're not signed up to receive our notices, get on the list.