Restaurant practices – time, planning, knowledge and dreams

Abstract

This paper contributes to research on restaurant work, which plays an important role in culinary arts research. The aim of this study was to make visible and elucidate the daily work practices in eight small restaurants in a seasonal tourist destination on the Southeast coast of Sweden. The central methods used were observations and participant observations and interviews, along with an e-mail questionnaire and examination of published information concerning all the restaurants. By means of practice theory, three central elements were used to identify and understand the configuration of the activities involved in daily work in small seasonal restaurants. These three elements, knowledge/ competence, technologies/materiality and creation of meaning, formed four practices. The practices identified in this study were managing time and seasons; planning, strategising and controlling; knowing and having skills; and dreams and lifestyle. The conclusion of the study indicates that small restaurant practices may be conflicting, as they involve an extremely timeconsuming workload, vague planning and lingering knowledge growth in contrast to the ideas of creativity and development that are a part of the restaurant owners' dreams and lifestyle. ARTICLE HISTORY

Tourism practices and experience value creation: The case of a themed attraction restaurant

“…Beardsworth and Bryman, 1999; Johns and Gyimóthy, 2008), as well as practice studies of restaurants (e.g. Wellton et al, 2017) by providing new knowledge of employee–tourist co-creation practices in themed restaurants.…”

“…These elements frame the practices of tourists, tourism companies and their employees. Wellton et al (2017) analysed small restaurant owners' practices in a similar perspective to Pantzar and Shove (2010), showing how they were related to materiality and technology, knowledge and competence, and creation of meaning. They found certain conflicting practices, for example, between being a good host and efficient time management practices.…”

“…Only a few studies have investigated practices in restaurants and other food venues. These have mainly focused on restaurateurs' practices, for example, regarding sustainability issues (Alonso et al, 2018) and small business management (Wellton et al, 2017). One exception is a study of the social network practices of visitors to Viennese coffee houses (Chen and Wu, 2019).…”

“We are service people, and we stay until the job is done”: enactments of professionalism in restaurants

“…time remaining to prepare a dish and personal presence in the kitchen space), which Demetry (2013) has confirmed. Among those practical matters, a major part of kitchen activity is the continuous, time-consuming handling of objects (Fine, 1996(Fine, /2009Jönsson, 2012;Wellton, Jonsson, Walter, & Svingstedt, 2016), and the norms and standards of the culinary craft include the artisanal requirements of the products that chefs compile (Fine, 1996(Fine, /2009. In turn, as Balazs (2002) has observed, those creative work processes make daily work joyful and are crucial for keeping knowledgeable, experienced employees in the industry.…”

Sustainable culinary tourism and Cevicherías: a stakeholder and social practice approach

“…Concerning the present research, an investigation conducted among small seasonal restaurants applied practice theories (Wellton, Jonsson, Walter, & Svingstedt, 2016). The research considered three elements (knowledge/competence, creation/meaning, and technologies/materiality) to understand and identify configurations of activities associated with daily work.…”