Rick Stein encourages unemployed hospitality workers to move to Cornwall
The celebrity chef restaurateur says that the county is ‘busy and most definitely open for business’.
Stein has a portfolio of 13 places to eat and eight places to stay concentrated in and around the north coast town of Padstow, which is sometimes colloquially known as Padstien.
Occupancy at his restaurants with rooms, luxury cottages and self catered barns is close to full throughout the summer season, which is expected to extend throughout September and October.
The company has had to restructure in order to survive the pandemic and has closed a restaurant in Porthleven, Cornwall.
A second site, in Marlborough, Wiltshire, was also set to close, but has subsequently been saved with help from the restaurant's landlord.
Stein says that the roles lost were mainly in centralised areas and not customer facing, adding that a number of local staff have decided not to return to customer facing roles within the family run restaurant and hotel group.
“If you have found yourself out of work due to the Covid-19 pandemic, I urge you to consider coming to Cornwall. It’s thriving and with travel bans still in place there is great hope that the staycation will extend through to early winter and bring some much needed revenue to the locality," he says.
"We are looking for chefs, waiting staff, housekeepers, kitchen porters and reception staff, there are jobs available across the board. I would love to see new members of the team coming from more hard hit areas of the country, plus with a number of roles we even help with accommodation so there is no need to worry about that.”
Since beginning the recruitment process five weeks ago, the team have received over 3,500 applications, compared to the 5,500 received for the whole of 2019. One demi-chef position has received 111 applications, 10 times the amount that would usually apply for such a role.
Current vacancies include chefs of varying levels, waiters and waitresses, bartenders and housekeepers.
