Behind the Apron: Interview with Helen van Ommeren, former GM of Tannat

part of a periodic series highlighting workers in the restaurant industry

Helen van Ommeren is quite simply the finest front-of-house professional I have ever worked with. From the early days when we sat alone in an empty restaurant, choking back tears of frustration and despair, to the height of pre-pandemic revelry, Helen helped define Tannat, and over the past five years she has become one of our dearest friends.

I first met Helen and her future husband, Chris, as a customer at Le Chéile, a new wave Irish pub in Washington Heights. She was warm and charming; I always liked sitting in her section. Years later, Sarah and I asked her to work an ambitious two day pop-up event, an 11 course tasting menu with wine pairings, at a spacious coffee shop that we hoped would introduce my cooking to the neighborhood. Helen single-handedly transformed what could have been a gut-wrenching, soul-devouring disaster into merely a chaotic night of exhausting fun. When Sarah and I decided to open Tannat, hiring Helen was literally in the business plan. Helen has the twin gifts of memory and connection. She was able to store the smallest bits of information about everyone who came in and recall them even years later. She made every customer (well, nearly) feel welcome, cared for, and listened to while working a room of thirty-six people all by herself. I have witnessed feats of warmth and grace in her service that should inspire songs in restaurant Valhalla. Helen left Tannat the year before we closed to give birth to her daughter, Zaya. We know that much of the loyalty and community we continue to enjoy was cultivated by Helen and are thrilled to have an opportunity to pass along her words to you. We talked about her history in restaurants, the pandemic, worker safety, and restaurants as anti-therapy.

Wm: How and why did you get into the service industry?

Helen: The service industry was my first official job in college. It was a restaurant in Hudson, New York, right across the street from my house. I was working front of house as a busser and back server. I was anxious about all of the customer facing stuff, so when I got an opportunity to be the dishwasher, I jumped on it. I got really close with the whole back of house. I did that until we moved.

Afterwards, I was working as an executive assistant for years which I felt was really soul crushing, so I left. I was out of work long enough that I needed money quickly. At a restaurant you start getting paid in your tips most of the time right away. I got a job at Le Chéile right as they were opening and and that brought me back into the industry. Le Chéile was a real neighborhood spot. I met my husband Chris there. I made all these friends. My whole world became the family I made at the restaurant.

Wm: Is there anything unique about how Le Chéile was run that helped you feel so at home there?

Helen: When when I first started working there, the manager was Willie. He came from Mexico when he was in his early 20s and immediately started working in restaurants. And since his family was still there, he built new family, from the age 19 on, in restaurants. And so that's the energy that we started with, with the general manager creating intimacy.