For most people, the pot and the assembly line must be washed first in the morning. For Sophia Velador, he runs the vegetable pit at Alder & Sage at Long Beach’s breakfast and lunch order, which is therapeutic.
An unwashed sink filled with the beginning of her workday. That’s how she’s making a living for the past decade. She had no other way.
Velador, 40, traveled over an hour to work on Alder & Sage’s head dishwasher from his home shared with his mother in Santa Ana.
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The often overlooked story of restaurant staff making and serving our food.
Sometimes former colleagues who move to other restaurants will try to poach for her new institution.
“No, thank you,” she told them. “Where I’m good.”
For outsiders, the dishwasher job is a bottom summary of a restaurant, a creepy, tough and ultimately unwelcome job. But this can be said to be the most important role in catering venues.
Without a dishwasher, the plunge will stop and the restaurant will stop.
Washing dishes is often mistaken for easy admission to a job in a restaurant. But Kerstin Kansteiner, owner of Alder & Sage, said it was fast-paced hard work and needed to understand the parts of all the features in the restaurant – from craftsmanship to machinery.
“No one talks about these unsung heroes,” Cansteiner said. “Dishwashers are often overlooked, but we should all understand that they work with the front and back of the house and try to juggle everyone on the team – from chefs to servers to guests.”
Back-home workers like Velador are the foundation of the catering industry. But they rarely receive honors that are usually reserved for chefs or owners. To identify one of these less obvious job requirements, we made a transformation on a recent Thursday.
6:55 am
Black, hair is pulled up in a black turban, lips are dyed bright red, lipstick is dyed bright red, Velador looks like a modern chicana version Rosie rivets. The earplugs of wire bounced around her neck as she walked quickly, taking the first bus around the corner of Euclid Street and West Katella Avenue in Anaheim.
Sophia Velador took the first of three buses to work as a dishwasher in Long Beach. She will clock in about an hour and a half.
(Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Times)
The stop was several blocks from her father’s home, who had Parkinson’s disease. She spends two nights a week taking care of him. She sorted out his place and spent time with him.
Velador’s shift starts at 9 a.m. and she wants to leave plenty of time to go to work. On the bus, she sticks to herself most of the time and listens to music. Others do the same. A man is fighting and worrying. Another listened to the loud show without earplugs. Rumble passes through strip malls, apartment buildings and walled apartment buildings.
It wasn’t until she got on her second bus that she chatted with the woman she called “bus friend”, Zhanette Kazanzeva, who had just wrapped up a cemetery shift and had a front desk at a nearby hotel. Kazan Wa often walked on her third bus in the morning with Velador.
On the second round of her bus commuting, she was a dishwasher-based Long Beach, Sophia Velador left to chat with her “bus friend” Zhanette Kazanzeva, who was returning home from her hotel’s overnight work. To catch up with their next bus, Velador, left, walk with Kazanzeva to their connecting station. (Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Times)
Sometimes, Velador wants her to have a car without having to ride a bus to work and back off, which will suck her three hours a day away.
But then she thought it was better. She used to have a car, but it always seemed to collapse. Parking in Long Beach was rough and parking tickets piled up.
She was glad her boss Kansteiner worked around her bus schedule. Velador may find a job closer to home and save himself from a long commute. But she remains loyal to Kansteiner because she says she feels valuable to Alder & Sage.
Velador, one of Alder & Sage’s four dishwashers, began working with Kansteiner of Berlin bistro 10 years ago until the restaurant closed in 2022.
During the pandemic, Velador does not work. Despite this, the Berlin crew provided her with some tips.
“They don’t have to do that,” she said. “That’s a lot.”
7:58 am
Velador drove the bus into thick fog.
During the seven-minute walk to the restaurant, the fog dissipated. She follows the vintage walkway corridor of Long Beach into Alder & Sage, a airy and light-filled neighborhood restaurant located on Cherry Avenue and 4th Street. This restaurant is paired with local roasted coffee and small-made wines, and its farm-to-fork breakfast, lunch and brunch.
After taking three buses to Long Beach from Anaheim, Sophia Velador arrives at Alder & Sage’s dishwasher.
(Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Times)
Velador hung up her schoolbag, took off her jacket, and tied it up on a black rubber apron. She removes the trash and then uses a test strip to check the liquid in the commercial dishwasher to make sure there is enough disinfectant.
“We’re fine,” she said to herself.
The Velador hangs on the portable speaker and turns it on. Hall & Oates’ “You Make My Dreams” explodes into the plate pit.
She heads to the prep line, grabs some dirty cutlery, washes them and places them in an industrial dishwasher, which mixes the right amount of chemicals to disinfect all chemicals.
After a few seconds, she turned on the faucet in the puddle and then opened the hose from a pot that looked like a third of her size. Water splashed on her and some floors.
The chef came to say hello, the bragging bowl lined with some leftover potato chips.
“Thank you!” he yelled.
Velador will spend most of the day standing in front of the plate pit and sitting around the corner of the restaurant.
She scrubbed various kitchen utensils: trays, pots, cooking sheets, plates, frying pans. She carefully integrated it into a plastic crate. Sometimes it’s like Tetris’ game, putting it in the dishwasher as much as possible. Velador closes the latch and lets the dishwasher run.
She wiped the water off the floor.
8:48 am
Velador looks down at an assembly line: a stainless steel mixing bowl, mixer pitcher, mixing, dishes, pots, etc.
She said that in the typical transformation, she washed at least 500 dishes.
Most people will be bored with the job. “I think it’s a treatment for me,” she said. “It’s very satisfying.”
Sophia Velador is in the dish pit of Alder & Sage in Long Beach. She often had to lift her heavy dirty glasses. One of her jobs is to make sure the fluid level in the dishwasher is correct. (Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Times)
Velador does not wear gloves. She doesn’t care about them because they have a hard time handling the dishes and can cause her to accidentally put down the utensils. She only wears gloves when using degreasing agents, which can be corrosive, but is necessary for a real cleanup of a particularly dirty pot or pan.
When the dishwasher is finished, the pots, plates, glasses and cutlery are particularly hot.
Some dishwashers report pain in hands and even arthritis after working for a long time. This is not the case with Velador.
Not long ago, her foot began to be injured. She started wearing orthopedic insoles to relieve the pain. Now, she wears three insoles. She bought shoes that were larger in size to make them all fit.
10:25 am
The Velador has a front seat when it comes to food waste.
When she reaches her, some plates will be cleared. But sometimes, when the restaurant is particularly busy, she sees a lot of leftover food on the plate. Eat half-eat quiche. A snippet of the burger. Lettuce from almost no touch of salad.
“It’s sad,” she said. “I’m more than I want.”
Velador grew up in a working-class family. She graduated from high school, but never went to college before. She didn’t see the key points of giving too much to sit in the classroom and learn. Her first job from high school was in a Spirit Halloween store. She has worked in clothing stores, warehouses and call centers ever since. She said that apart from her current job, she felt like the “main work” of all of these jobs.
She said initially, washing dishes was difficult, but she was used to them.
“This is my first job that I don’t think is hard or stressful,” she said. “Also, my colleagues are great people.”
She started in the summer of 2015 at the Berlin Tavern and just stayed. Velador earns $17.50 per hour, as well as tips for a portion of the server, about $50 every few weeks.
A typical dishwasher is a position that treats a position as a staff member, prepares the chef and then cooks.
Kansteiner tries to provide her with all this work. Velador rejected them.
Kansteiner said someone has been unusual for a decade as a dishwasher. She said that despite this, she learned to respect Velador’s decision.
“Ten years are incredible in my eyes,” she said. “Sofia is an important part of our working family. I’ve never experienced her in a bad mood and she set the tone in the kitchen.”
3:30 pm
At the end of the Velador shift, she was wet and dirty. But she said all her work had obvious results: clean cooking utensils.
Velador catches the day and goes out to take the bus. It would take her more than an hour to get home.
Sometimes, Kansteiner said she would find Velador at the dining table in the restaurant to help because she knew the restaurant staff was overwhelmed.
Kansteiner said no one had to ask her for help. Velador did it.
Velador said she would be happy to wash dishes for the next 10 years. She doesn’t want to do more.
Velador said she believes society might think she didn’t have “too many displays” in her life because she doesn’t have a car, owns a house or desires to get married and have children.
She saw it differently.
“I’m very happy,” she said. “My family and supportive family and friends make me happy. I’m lucky. I wake up and I’ll be happy even on bad days.”
