Of all the odd jobs I’ve had since I turned 15, country club lifeguard, data entry at a real estate company, and even a magician’s assistant, I never expected that the job I took on a whim at a local Mexican restaurant would change my life the most.

When I was 16 years old, I received a text from a friend of a friend that simply read, “Hey! Are you still broke?” As weird as that may seem, I was hooked. I was, in fact, still broke, and the idea of an easy job that let me work with one of my friends was enough to pull me in. I spent the next two years of my life learning the ins and outs of the restaurant industry, befriending the revolving staff (including Emma pictured to my left), and working every shift I could around the busy schedule of an over-committed high schooler.

One of the benefits of being a small girl, and the youngest hire when ‘Santo: Cocina and Cantina’ first opened its doors, was that both the owners and managers seemed to have a soft spot for me. On slow days I would help with kitchen prep, and slowly learn from our head chef how to prep and plate every dish on our menu. Though I was originally hired as a food runner, by the time I left I could pick up shifts as kitchen expo, bartender, morning prep, or even dishwasher.

The small, somewhat dysfunctional restaurant will probably always hold a special place in my heart, as I grew with the young business. I wrote college applications and IB essays at the bar during the awkward lull in between the lunch and dinner rushes, I watched movies and soccer games in the kitchen on a phone propped up against the edge of the cutting board, I designed the world’s most unresearched car that would (in theory) run only on water, and I sat around on old crates and empty kegs after close listening in Spanish and talking in English about the lives and families of my coworkers in Peru, Honduras, Columbia, and Mexico.

And though there were many non-ending shifts, customers that would scream at me for forgetting their tortillas, and Mariachi Wednesdays that have permanently ruined La Bamba for me, part of me will continue to miss the organized chaos and found family that exists behind the scenes of that unassuming restaurant.