CNY Business Journal (1996+): Interns cooking at casino

VERONA - Turning Stone Casino & Resort has found a way to employ a top-notch cooking staff - lure them while they're still in school. The resort currently has eight interns from schools such as the Culinary Institute of America working at the facility.

"Absolutely, it's a recruiting tool," says Vincent Farrar, food and beverage director at Turning Stone. "It gives us an idea of what kind of workers they are."

For the past five years, Turning Stone has recruited culinary students to work at the different restaurants located within the facility. Farrar says that many schools have "extern" programs that require students to earn credit off-campus. In the beginning, Turning Stone had to work hard to find students to come to the Mohawk Valley. Now, the facility offers students free housing at The Covered Wagon, an off-site hotel, making it much easier to recruit applicants.

"Once we offered housing, [the program] took off," Farrar says. "Right now, they're looking for us rather than the other way around."

The eight interns currently at Turning Stone hail from schools such as the Culinary Institute of America, Paul Smith's College of Arts and Sciences, Syracuse University, and the Connecticut Culinary Institute. Dustin Caster, a student at the Connecticut Culinary Institute, says the experience he is gaining at Turning Stone is invaluable.

"You learn a large amount of things," Caster says. "If you were just [interning] at one restaurant, you would just learn the items from that one restaurant." Caster notes how just recently, he helped make a sauce to go with a veal meal, and it was renamed "Veal Dustin." "It was a real hit with customers," Farrar adds.

The rotation among Turning Stone's eight restaurants and its catering business not only helps the students learn new menu items, but also helps the business when it needs extra hands. "It's a twoway street" Farrar says. "It gives us extra team members to work with."

Caster says that he had taken a look at various places to intern, but the rotation aspect at Turning Stone was a major deciding factor.

"I was offered a position at Wait Disney," says Dustin. "There, I'd be working at [either] a restaurant or a hamburger stand. Here, you get so much more. I'm getting what I came here for."

Rotation is an option. Farrar says that one of the current eight interns works strictly in the bakery since that is her major.

Turning Stone offers its intern program all year round, and it lasts anywhere from 12 weeks to 18 weeks, depending on the school. In Caster's case, he needs to complete 660 credit hours. Though students are earning college credit, Turning Stone also pays them the "prevailing rate" of at least $8 per hour.

Farrar says that the Food Network has helped raise students' interest in the culinary arts. "The Food Channel has been a good thing for us," he notes, adding that payment at Turning Stone also attracts students. "If they work for someone like that [on the Food Network], they don't get paid."

Two of the facility's former culinary interns now work full time in Turning Stone's restaurants, and Farrar says that he and Caster, an Olean native, have talked about the possibility of that. "I love it here," Caster adds. In total, Turning Stone employs 19 chefs.

Farrar says that recruiting culinary interns is a competitive playing field, but adds that when he goes to a school's open house or a tradeshow, many other facilities are hotels with only one or two restaurants, so Turning Stone has the advantage.

"When students go back to their respective schools," he says, "they get the word out that their experience was very good here, because of the diversity of food we make.

"It's good to be well-known in a culinary environment," he notes. "Today, everybody is looking for an edge."