Since opening in 2017 Rocktown Kitchen has been one of the booming businesses that brings Harrisonburg together as a community.
Anna Spirollari, the dining room manager at the restaurant, has been on staff for four years.
Spirollari came to the U.S. in 2014 to attend James Madison University, a Division 1 school with about 22,000 students, where she majored in hospitality management and minored in business.
While studying at JMU, Spirollari frequented Rocktown Kitchen often and became acquainted with the owners. After graduating, she started working there as a food runner and server and has since moved up to the position of dining room manager.
“I love working with people,” Spirollari said. “I love providing service, especially when it’s in a place like Rocktown Kitchen.”
Spirollari described the staff as not only coworkers, but also family. They’ve built a community in their kitchen.
“We help each other out outside work whether somebody is moving, needs help picking up the furniture from the store, or just hanging out for a birthday party,” Spirollari said. “We definitely are very close with one another. I think that’s important, it makes working together much easier.”
Another unique aspect of the restaurant, Spirollari said, is how seriously the employees take their jobs.
“We take big pride in our training. I think making good servers is hard work. I don’t think you just walk in and you know what you’re doing. We have expectations like our customer has expectations,” Spirollari said.
She explained how even with extensive training, to be able to work in this business applicants can’t just rely on the skills they’ve been taught.
“It is easy to teach a person how to do things, but you cannot teach the person to have heart,” Spirollari said. “Just being a hard worker is not enough, you got to have heart to be in a business like that and succeed. So I can teach you how to buss tables, I can teach you the menu, I can teach you how to talk to your customers. But if you don’t have the heart and that personality, I cannot teach you that. ”
The heart of Rocktown are the owners, Kristo and Mira Papa. Kristo is the executive chef and Mira is the general manager.
“I cannot emphasize how important this is that the owners know what they are doing,” Spirollari said. “They are so well educated in this area and how to do this. That failing, failing is not an option.”
