Jan Rohr demonstrates it again briefly, then Felipe Gomes Teixeira has to use a fork and spoon to balance pieces of butter on the bread plates of the guests in the Lafleur restaurant.

The prospective hotel specialist is one of 368 trainees from the hospitality industry who have been learning everything they could not practice at the Palmengarten Society House since Monday because their training companies were closed for up to nine months due to the Corona crisis.

Also that of Gomes Teixeira, who is completing his training at the Frankfurt Marriott Hotel an der Messe.

Patricia Andreae

Editor in the Rhein-Main-Zeitung.

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He is happy to be able to catch up on the practice for the exam, because he has to show that he knows how to start serving with the oldest lady at the table and from which side the drinks are poured.

But he hasn't been able to practice that since the beginning of his training: "I was partly on short-time work or in the office and at the reception." Even if he wishes to continue to work more in the administrative area of ​​the hotel in the future, he will in the examination at the end of the training, they also have to prove their knowledge of perfect service.

lack of experience

It's a similar story for Yannik Schindehütte, who is at home in the kitchen of the Palmengarten Society House, so to speak.

At Tiger & Palmen-Gastronomy he completes a special cookery course, in which high school graduates learn not only the kitchen practice but also management in two years.

Like most of his colleagues, however, he was not able to gain enough practical experience in cooking, roasting and chopping because the restaurants in the Tiger Palace and the Palm House were closed and no events could take place.

Robert Mangold, head of the company and also on the board of the Hessian industry association Dehoga, calls this the "Corona special victim of the industry".

However, because he, like the President of the state association Gerald Kink, knows about the need in the industry when looking for skilled workers, the Gesellschaftshaus is one of the 13 companies in Hesse that hold the twelve-day crash course in Hesse, which is financed with around half a million euros by the state of Hesse offer the Easter holidays for future hotel and restaurant professionals.

State Secretary Philipp Nimmermann (Greens) from the Hessian Ministry of Economic Affairs emphasized that the trainees were supported in this way last year.

The young people could have caught up with it, reported IHK President Ulrich Caspar, the tests had shown that.

Like Kink, he predicted a good future for professionals in the catering industry.

Therefore, as many as possible should start an apprenticeship in this profession this year.

This could also be supported by the fact that the best training rate nationwide is paid in Hesse, said Mangold, and that specialists from the hospitality industry also have good opportunities in other sectors - but above all in the catering industry itself, even if there have been 15 percent fewer companies.