My first job was at Islands Restaurant in Encino, when I was 16 years old. I started as a “floor host” which meant I bussed tables, then moved up to food runner, and finally, server. I loved everything about it, except taking out the trash. I was there for 5 years, then The Cheesecake Factory for another 5 years, where I learned how to tend bar. It was during that time that I graduated from CSUN with my BS in Business. After ten years in the service industry, I was over it, I quit! I vowed never to go back. I burned my white uniform and danced around its ashes. I got a “real job” and like so many others before me, I couldn’t stand it. The hours, the inflexibility…I found myself bartending again a few years later, which eventually led me to tend at a little bar called Off Kilt, which is the bar you now know as The Oaks Tavern.
