A Night At Casablanca Restaurant

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A Night At Casablanca Restaurant

• A Photo Documentary
• By Michael West

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Thursday night at Casablanca Restaurant
starts out like any other, with the staff
preparing for the unknown. Thursday nights can
go in any direction. It can be so busy that by
the end of the night it feels as though a train
has roared through the restaurant. Or the night
can be so quiet that every spoon is polished,
every surface wiped, the cooks have scrubbed the
kitchen walls, and there are still hours left to
wait until close.
There are thirty reservations, a quiet
night, but that means little in Harvard Square
where people walk in off the street looking for a
good meal and a drink. Emma OConnell, a
bartender, server, and life-long Cambridge
resident says, Many of our regulars come to
Casablanca because they know it is the only place
in the square to get a proper cocktail.
The North African/Middle Eastern inspired menu
doesnt hurt either, though for the past thirty
years, the restaurant has been obscured below
street level in the Brattle Theater building. It
is not uncommon for Bostonians to come in
claiming to have only just stumbled across the
restaurant for the first time.
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Though the dining room is left set up from
the lunch shift, each server is responsible for
their section of tables, and takes some time
before opening to clean and polish their area.
Jessie Stonberg polishes wine glasses in the
dining room and neatens the tables. She recently
returned to work here after a year spent in San
Francisco unsuccessfully searching for a job in
green design. Restaurants are known for
substantial turn-over among the staff, as people
graduate school, move on to other careers, or
move to different establishments for a change of
scenery.
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At 500 the wait staff sits down for a
family meal of chicken fajitas and french
fries, cooked by Todd Sarmenian, the sous-chef.
Six servers, a hostess, a busser, and a bartender
make jokes, and listen to manager Nicole Bernabe
give the details for the night. She tells the
dining room servers who will get the bigger
parties from the reservations, at what times, and
at which tables. Sarmenian describes the
specials split pea soup with fresh goat cheese,
and grilled skirt steak served with fried polenta
and arugula salad. At 525 everyone
cleans up, and the dining room opens at 530.
Unfortunately, the evening starts out slowly.
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Casablanca Restaurant is a Cambridge icon
owned by Sari Abul-Jubein. It has been in
Harvard Square since 1955, starting out as a
place to get drinks before a movie at the Brattle
Theater. In 1971 Abul-Jubein joined the
restaurant as a waiter and bought it in 1976. In
1979 he moved it to a larger space in the Brattle
Theater building. He offered a full service
dining room but kept the casual atmosphere with a
large café and bar area. Murals of Casablanca,
the movie, adorn the walls, with portraits of
Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman in the dining
room and a restaurant scene of Ricks Café
Americain on the back wall of the bar.
The casual atmosphere permeates the restaurant,
as the wait staff jokes with each other and
intermingles with the regular customers. Despite
the popularity of the fine dining and tapas menu,
the hamburger is still the most frequently
ordered menu item.
Abul-Jubein has a strong presence in the
restaurant and stops in to say hello at the
beginning of the night.
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The manager, Bernabe, originally from
Hawaii, came to Boston for school seven years
ago. She has been working in restaurants for
over ten years and managing for five. I
enjoy managing its different from serving. I
do get tired of telling people what to do. But
with this crew it is an easy job. They are all
fairly self sufficient.
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Camilo Diaz, the chef, has been cooking for
fourteen years. He immigrated from Colombia when
he was sixteen to make money for his family. He
began working as a dishwasher in Nashua, NH and
soon after moved to Boston to cook. Diaz
says, I worked hard and followed the pay raises
into better cooking jobs. Nearly ten years
ago he got the daytime sous-chef position at
Casablanca. With a son to support in Boston
while still sending money home to Colombia, he
worked at Casablanca during the day and
line-cooked at other restaurants at night for
eight years. In 2006 Abul-Jubein promoted him to
executive chef. Now only working one job,
he says, I finally have time to spend with my
family. Diaz has tonight off, leaving
Sarmenian to run the kitchen. Sarmenian has over
a decade of experience working in restaurants.
He came to Casablanca nearly a year ago from a
restaurant in the North End where he worked
eighty-hour weeks. Right now he enjoys what is
usually a forty-hour work-week with Fridays and
Saturdays off. Sarmenian takes
advantage of the slow start to the evening to get
the butchering done. He prepares lamb loin,
marinating it in garlic, allepo and oil. He then
joins his cooks on the line to wait for the
orders to come in.
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Meanwhile, Francisco Beboya, prep cook at
the restaurant for over a decade, weighs out
hamburger patties. Octavio Garcia, the
dishwasher, prepares meze plates, three dips that
come with fresh baked crackers, olives and grape
leaves stuffed with herbed rice. Ovidio Mantoya,
the second sous-chef, is working the grill.
Wilmar Sepulveda is manning the sauté station.
Andres Mejia is on the cold appetizer station.
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• Sepulveda runs out of tuna for the sashimi
  with green beans and deviled eggs. Sarmenian
  steps off the line and cuts more tuna loin.
• Sarmenian says of his role in the kitchen,
  Usually this is a really easy job. Unless its
  really busy, I just stand back and let these guys
  cook. They are mostly all from the same town in
  Colombia and know each other well. Im usually
  in the way unless Im running a station.

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The orders trickle in. This is a good time
to straighten up the kitchen. Sarmenian takes
over the grill while Mantoya organizes and cleans
the walk-in cooler.
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The night finally begins to pick up speed.
The cooks had been joking with each other but
begin to pay attention as the orders start coming
in with more regularity.
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• Sarmenian begins taking tickets for orders
  off the printer and barking commands down the
  line to Sepulvida and Mejia. The cooks help each
  other when they have a free moment. Sarmenian
  helps Sepulveda plate a striped bass with tomato
  relish and kale.

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Sarmenian looks at a ticket and says to
Sepulvida, I told you to fire that sole. Get it
going. Sepulvida quickly drops the sole in
a hot pan and covers it with a lid. He then
sautés spinach, arugula and watercress for an
order of wilted greens.
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Bernabe stands on the restaurant side of
the kitchen window, matching the plated food to
tickets for tables that are ready for their next
course. She hands the plates to servers to carry
to the diners, or brings them herself.
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The rush doesnt last long. When it
becomes obvious that it isnt going to be busy on
a given night, the manager will send servers
home. This way those who stay can make more
money and those who are sent home can enjoy a
surprise night off with friends. Tonight Bernabe
cuts Ulisses Trujilo and Stonberg by 800.
Stonberg goes to her boyfriends house to watch
the Celtics game and Trujilo walks out the door
sending text messages, looking for friends to
meet up with.
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Mantoya finishes cleaning and comes back to
relieve Sarmenian from the grill. Sarmenian
picks up a clipboard and leaves the kitchen for
the office to place the orders with the food
providers for tomorrows deliveries. As the
night winds down, Bernabe tells the kitchen that
the dining room is closed, meaning they are only
serving food from the tapas menu for drinkers in
the cafe. The cooks begin wrapping up
their stations, taking a moment to cook the few
remaining orders as they trickle in. It is now
time for the cooks to eat. Sarmenian comes back
from the office with a beer and cooks himself a
rib eye. Mantoya makes himself a roasted lamb
roll up. Sepulveda sits down on a low counter to
eat a plate of fried calamari. Mejia cooks
himself a striped bass.
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