Michaela Krampert

I truly attribute my success to the fact that I absolutely love what I do. The drive to continue learning is huge for me - there's plenty to do and learn within the hospitality sector to continue furthering your career, and there are a couple different directions you could go. Yeah, truly, it's the love for what I do that I think drives me. I think a lot of what you learn in hospitality is just doing - working in restaurants and learning from the people that came before me and all the servers. Frankly, I still am learning. There are people that work for me that have 10 plus years over experience than what I have, so getting to talk to them and getting to just work together to come up with the best way to take care of people - I think that's the biggest way you learn. It's fun to see people's reactions when they ask a question and you're able to just tell them right off the bat, and their jaws drop. That's a good driver because then you're like, oh dang, that felt cool, let me keep going with that one.

I earned my degree in Hotel and Restaurant Management from Northern Arizona University, but I often say that some of my greatest lessons came directly from working alongside experienced professionals in the industry. Hospitality is one of those careers where growth never really stops. There is always something new to learn, whether it’s service techniques, wine education, spirits knowledge, guest psychology, or operational strategy.

Just listen and observe. A lot can be learned by just listening to the people who come before you, and the guests. A lot of the times, the guests will actually be more well-dined than you are, so they actually have more experience. Just mostly be humble - yes, we're in a sales job, but it doesn't need to be sales pitchy. Just have fun with it, because that's really what it is, is it's a fun, interactive job. And if you don't like it, it's probably not worth it. When stumper questions come up and you don't know the answer, you go defer to somebody who knows more, whether that be the chef or another team member, and then you go back and tell the guest. There's so much to know, and like I said, a lot of the times, the guests actually are more well-dined than we are. Each person in our restaurant has different passions - one of our bartenders is super passionate about Japanese whiskey, so if somebody wants to talk Japanese whiskey, I send him over, because I could give them the general information, but if they're super passionate about it, and he's super passionate about it, then they need to talk.

I think dining as a whole has turned almost transactional. People are not really there for the experience, and the side of restaurants that I work in is fine dining, right? So we do a dance, and there's a story behind the food, and a story behind the tasting menu, but I think that a lot of people are there for business meetings now, and they're not really paying attention, they don't want to hear us talk about the food, which is a shame, because we find it very interesting. And then, it's expensive, and the world is expensive right now, so I think people are being a little bit more conscious of how they're spending their money, so more expensive restaurants are having a little bit of a challenge with getting people in seats.

There are so many values that I bring from my personal life into my work life. We were raised with my dad's saying, 'if you do it right the first time, you don't have to do it again,' and that is so true in life and in work. Keeping yourself organized is super important. But then there's the memorization of stuff - people think that you don't really have to study after you get out of school, but I mean, studying wines, studying foods, our team is expected to know where the peach came from, which farm it came from, what variety it is. Continuously learning is a big one that transfers over across all of it. Outside of work, I have a dog who I absolutely love. He's 3 years old, so a lot of my free time goes towards him, taking him on walks. I love the beach, he loves the beach, so doing stuff like that. And then spending time with my family and my partner - we do a lot of cooking and entertaining ourselves outside of work, bringing the families together. That's a big part of my pastimes, and then just being outside. A lot of just being outside, because we spend so many hours indoors at the restaurant, so to be able to get some sunlight is massive.