Joshua Ciafullo, Sous Chef

Alright, so I haven't really mentioned anything about this for weeks cause I didn't want to jinx it.

JOSHUA IS NOW A SOUS CHEF 

AT THE MARRIOTT!!!!!

He has worked so hard and I'm extremely proud of him for sticking with it!

So how did this all come about?

When Joshua came to Wisconsin, he became a server then met me a year later. To impress me, he cooked me an elaborate dinner and then he realized, maybe I could do this as a job. He got a cooking job at a French restaurant through a friend of the owner where he was serving. He learned a bunch of stuff there but wasn't that happy. Luckily while waiting for me to get done at Old Chicago one night, he met a guy there who was a Sous Chef at the Marriott. They got to talking about what they did and lo and behold, the guy was leaving and they were looking for a cook. He told Joshua to go apply and he would vouch for him. And that's how he ended up at the Marriott.

Joshua worked as a rounds cook for the first two years, becoming the Associate of the Year in 2007 then he got promoted to Lead Cook. In 2009, he volunteered and got volunteered to go help open a Marriott in Bloomington-Normal, IL. He was helping so much that they wanted to keep him there. Joshua then got Associate of the Month in Nov 2009 after helping to open.

This year has been the most interesting year for Joshua and cooking opportunities. The Marriott in IL offered Joshua a job in April and it was a tough decision but we decided to forego it. Joshua got a second job at a catering place that does both sit-down and catering. He only worked there for 4 days in a two week span and they offered him a head chef job but the environment was so bad that Joshua wouldn't be able to do his best work there so he decided to forego it. In the meanwhile, he applied at a different restaurant and they loved him, of course, and told him to call back when he got back from our Smokies vacation.

And the sous chef position finally opened up at the Marriott so he applied for it. It took a couple of weeks but Joshua was a finalist of three. Then they each had to make a couple of dishes using specific ingredients kinda like something you would see on a cooking show. And just last night, the Marriott offered Joshua the Sous Chef position! It's a slight increase in pay, more responsibility, more chance for overtime hours but same benefits. More importantly, it's the title. So after all these years of putting hard work into the Marriott and turning down multiple jobs, he finally has the job he has been working towards since day 1 at the Marriott.

And all this without a culinary degree!

Joshua, Sous Chef