Meet Hossain, Corentin and Bahaa, treasured employees at Damascena, who play a part in making your experience everything it is!
Hossain
This is Hossain, he’s 27 years old and from Rome, Italy. We knew as soon as we met him that he’d fit in with our team perfectly! He’s a very smiley person and loves to build good relationships with customers and colleagues alike. To him, greeting people with a smile is part of his character, which makes him a treasured employee here at Damascena.Having always worked at independent coffee shops, Hossain’s first ever job was at a famous coffee shop in the heart of Rome City Centre. Names Bar Paparazzi after the famous Italian photographer Barillari – he says he learnt a lot there about making coffee and great customer service. When he joined us, these skills certainly showed!After moving from Italy to Birmingham 2 years ago, Hossain had been in search of an independent coffee shop as passionate about coffee as him. He was in luck when he stumbled across Damascena Moseley around 8 months ago. After an interview with Zeynab, we made him feel welcome and told him about the possibility to grown a career with us. He’s proved he’s up for the job and has already learnt so much about our service and exciting menu! He’s also now a fully qualified barista after completing a training course with Coffee Masters Company.He says he is proud to make great coffees with care and love. He’s also incredibly proud to be part of the team that won an award at the Midlands Food and Drink Awards 2019! For him, working with a team that works incredibly hard and teaches new things to one another is great. Alongside this, our lovely customers make the days enjoyable as they stop by for a friendly chat.Though Hossain arguably loves all of the food and drinks on our menu, his favourite dish is the Salmon Soft Cheese Fatayer – showcasing it’s great combination of flavours!
Corentin
‘Bonjour, my name is Corentin, but I’m known as Coco.’ Yes, Corentin is French! With a passion for travel, he loved to explore the world as a backpacker. He’s also passionate about aviation and his dream is to pilot an airliner!!He came to the UK to improve his English skills and ended up here at Damascena! He’s a waiter at our Moseley branch, and says this is his favourite community in Birmingham. Upon joining us, he had the opportunity to meet new people and to discover new food and cultures – the best part of Damascena! We not only have a great deal of culture ourselves, but our team are all pretty worldly people, with great stories and histories to tell.Corentin says the French are known for their bad accent which can sometime lead to funny situations. The one day, he ended up swapping waiting on tables to give a French lesson to a girl who had an exam the day after!He thanks us for not only encouraging his language skills to flourish, but for allowing his confidence to grow in waiting and customer service. He comes to work every day with a smile on his face and enjoys working with colleagues that tell such inspirational stories.Our Middle Eastern food is made by chefs who have a passion for sharing traditional Syrian cuisine to Moseley and beyond! His favourite dish is the Fatet Hummus as it gives an explosion of flavours. He says this dish nicely represents Damascena standards. ‘Merci and bon appétit!’
Bahaa
This is Bahaa and he’s a head chef and kitchen manager whos been with us for around 2 years now. Working ‘behind the scenes’ he deals with our kitchen orders and our food prep.He starts his day by saying ‘Good Morning’ to Mr John who delivers our fresh fruit and vegetables daily. He’s a great head chef as he enjoys keeping our teams competitive and thriving to be the best they can be. Though he says they seem to just get angry at him!Like the time he said Harborne had the best Christmas tree and everyone got mad! Each day is a giggle and everyone gets on really well which makes working at Damscena so great!Bahaa’s favourite dish is also the Fatet Hummus, ‘because it’s hard to make so must be recommended to all!’ Bahaa’s final input about working at Damscean is that it is ‘more than just a coffee shop’…Check out previous blogs and our #SpotlightWednesday social media posts to get to know more of our team!
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