#05 - Professional Service

Sometimes, there’s more to an apron than meets the eye

When I was a kid, the service station at the junction of the Alaska Highway and Tagish Road advertised free ice cream with every tank of gas. It’s called Jake’s Corner and we’d often pop in on the way to our lakeside cabin. Jake liked my Dad, so he’d invariably deliver an armload of frozen treats to my family’s dusty station wagon, whether we bought gas or not. A lot of RV tourists weren’t so lucky, even after a huge fill-up.

Today, Yukoners and visitors alike can generally count on more consistent standards in the local service industry. But this progress doesn’t mean that the colourful characters have all disappeared. You’ll still encounter the occasional old timer cast from the same mould as Jake, as well as a strange breed of front-line service worker that adds a whole new dimension to the concept of professional service.

Consider Stephane Aucoin.

During the summer, the 31-year-old sells gourmet fish and chips from a trailer at the waterfront end of Whitehorse’s Main Street. While Aucoin’s customers appreciate both the fruits of his labour and his over-the-counter charm, most of them never realize just how professional his service is.

You see, behind Aucoin’s cooking apron hides a master’s degree in mechanical/aerospace engineering.

Granted, Aucoin is an entrepreneur who built his entire operation from scratch, including his unique recipes. But the reality is, he slaves away seven days a week, doing the kind of work that people typically hope to escape through advanced education.

“I work about 12 to 13 hours a day, and on crazy chaotic days, I’ll work 14 or 15 hours,” he says. “And then, when I’m closed the one day, I probably work about eight hours or so cleaning the trailer and getting things ready for the next week.”

Some might call him insane, but Aucoin is content in his relationship with the deep fryer.

“It’s kind of ironic, but I definitely wouldn’t trade it for an aerospace degree,” he says. “Obviously, I have the flexibility of doing other stuff as well, so perhaps that makes it different.”

If Aucoin’s experience offers a cautionary tale for fellow professionals contemplating a backbreaking service venture, 40-year-old architect Tony Zedda hasn’t heeded it. Kitty-corner from Aucoin’s trailer, you can sometimes spot him wiping down sidewalk tables outside a popular café that he and a partner purchased in 2007. A few months earlier, they opened a martini bar at the other end of Main.

Like Aucoin, Zedda had no previous experience in food and beverage. But whereas Aucoin approaches his job like a full-course meal, Zedda treats his service vocation as more of a side dish. From his firm’s architectural office—located above the café—he continues to oversee the design, construction and marketing of stylish downtown condos.

“We just thought there are a couple of things we’d like to jump into that are an extension of the design and development side, to make downtown a more interesting, liveable place,” he explains during a break.

Although Zedda expects his hands-on involvement in the café to taper off as he learns the business, he won’t hang up his wash cloth and apron altogether.

“With the office professional job, there are quite a few times when you don’t feel like staying there all day and there’s something nice about this,” he says, referring to his ability to pop downstairs and switch hats. “It’s a more direct kind of thing—when you’re feeding people and there’s a certain pleasure that they receive and you’re somehow part of that.”

As Zedda heads back to work, the engineer-chef across the intersection gladly serves a spicy cajun to another happy tourist.

And somewhere, much further away, the spirit of Jake probably stares down in disbelief.

This column was first published in the August/September 2007 issue of above&beyond magazine.

© 2007 Mark Koepke/Photo by Jesse Devost