Spain’s El Celler de Can Roca Now Offers Therapy to Restaurant Staff

Spain’s El Celler de Can Roca doesn’t just serve award-winning food. It also takes care of its staff.

The restaurant, currently in the top spot on the World’s 50 Best List, is helping its staff deal with the stress-inducing demands of their jobs by offering on site psycological services. Psychologist Inma Puig, a therapist specializing in “teamwork morale”, will attempt to “defuse emotions” through weekly sessions with employees.

Joan Roca, one of the restaurant’s three brother owners, says the sessions have already had a positive impact. According to GrubStreet, the therapist meets with the owners, kitchen staff, and front-of-house staff in different combinations, allowing everyone the chance to hash out their problems effectively.

As Puig notes, El Celler has “a lot of people working at high speed, very close to each other — and with a knife in their hand.” It’s, thus, no surprise that the staff has issues to work out.

Roca also notes that the owners implemented the therapy as a way to move past the antiquated notion of restaurants being made of “pure discipline and toughness, sometimes almost bordering on mistreatment.”

A study published last year found that working in the restaurant industry is one of the most stressful jobs and is detrimental on one’s mental health. On the other hand, anyone who has ever worked in a restaurant will attest that it teaches you to work – really work – and to always treat service people with respect.

Three cheers for El Celler de Can Roca and restaurant workers everywhere.