A Day in Food & Beverage with Aidan Van Doren

Chart Your Own Career Path in Hospitality

“Nonlinear paths are definitely the name of the game in the hospitality and food service industry,” says Aidan Van Doren. “I don’t know anyone who’s had a quote-unquote ‘traditional’ path.”

That’s certainly the case for Aidan, whose own path took him from Grand Rapids to Denmark and back again, with detours to a Mexican jungle and a design college along the way. Throughout his journey, he learned the power of passion, process and persistence.

Aidan discovered a passion for food and what it can do to bring people together at a relatively early age. “I did most of the cooking in my family since I was 14, 15 and on,” he recalls. “I just always had a good palate and really liked the process of cooking.”

His first professional job was at Love’s Ice Cream & Chocolate in the Grand Rapids Downtown Market, after visiting the just-opened shop with his dad. “I sampled the ice cream and for some reason I just fell in love with it.” The then-16-year-old convinced the shop’s owner to hire him on the spot.

Seeing the Joy

Aidan says that “seeing what joy can be brought to people through a small interaction like ice cream” opened his eyes to the potential of a hospitality career. He worked his way up through multiple roles within the company, learning first-hand how product quality, customer experience and strong operations come together to build something people truly care about. Over time, he became deeply involved in growing the business.

He decided to pursue a professional degree in the field, earning an Associate of Arts and Sciences in Culinary Arts/Chef Training from the Secchia Institute for Culinary Education at Grand Rapids Community College. As he was finishing school, he took a vacation to Mexico that proved pivotal to his career.

He discovered that Noma, a five-time world’s best restaurant award-winner based in Denmark, was planning a pop-up eatery in Tulum, about an hour south of his location. “I knew that I wanted to do an internship somewhere,” he says, “so I figured, well, I’m just going to go down there and see if I can find them.”

He did find them, eventually, following a trail through the jungle to the restaurant, which was still under construction. The head chef was in a meeting there and Aidan waited until he could introduce himself.

Aidan told the chef that he’d love to intern for him. The chef responded that they were only accepting native Mexicans for internships at this location – but he invited Aidan to intern for him at the new restaurant Noma was opening in Copenhagen.

“So a year later, I went out to Copenhagen in the middle of the dark winter and opened the new restaurant with them. I met people from all over the world while the whole world was watching us open. It was an incredible experience.”

Always Learning

Aidan came to realize that fine dining wasn’t necessarily what he wanted to do. But it was a lesson in being open to what the universe puts in front of you. “You do something for four or five months, gain the experience, meet the people, and then that kind of refines your approach in what you want to do next.”

Next for Aidan was continuing on his food service path in Grand Rapids. “I gained some experience in the real world and decided to do more work in larger systems … sort of like the next evolution of my time in hospitality and food service.” He enrolled in the collaborative design program at Kendall College of Art & Design.

“I was surprised by how much food service and design are related,” he says. “Everything is a design process. And that can be applied to hospitality. How do we optimize (the guest) experience and get them to come back again?

“And now I’m looking at the larger picture, at food systems and the importance of preserving our environment, of breaking down barriers and making the dining experience more accessible for folks.”

Aidan brings this holistic perspective to his current role as a server at Terra GR, a farm-to-table restaurant in Grand Rapids’ Uptown neighborhood. “We have a really great team here,” he says. “A lot of career hospitality folks. So a little bit older of a service crowd, which I found to be incredibly helpful for me as a server, just kind of bouncing ideas off of people, learning from other folks and seeing that different styles of service are all welcome. That camaraderie and that team-building spirit are so much fun. I mean, I laugh at work every single day. If you're not laughing at work, why are you working?”

Building Relationships

Aidan acknowledges that hospitality can be long hours and hard work, especially when you’re just starting out, but “it’s so much more than that. There’s so much flexibility within that. You're working when people are going out, but in a way, you're going out with them. If you want to pour yourself into that and build relationships with folks and facilitate people's good times, it's incredibly rewarding.”

Hospitality can also set you up for anything else you might want to do in life, because it teaches you “how to be relatable, how to meet people where they’re at, how to read the room” – soft skills that can only be gained through experience and are applicable to any job in any industry. That makes hospitality a good jumping-off point, according to Aidan. When and if you transition to a new field, “you’d be surprised how many friends you already have in that sector through your time in hospitality.”

Hospitality is a craft, a mindset and a gateway to endless pathways. What starts as “shooting your shot” – like talking your way into an entry-level job at an ice cream parlor or pitching yourself to a Danish chef in the middle of a Mexican jungle – can turn into a lifelong, people-driven career with global reach and local impact.