It is with great sadness that on June 25, 2014, Miertek Polanowski passed away.. He was a 25 year employee but he was more then an employee he was a friend. He worked hard everyday he was here. Surely if you were here in the past 20 years you and Miertek would have crossed paths. It is a great loss to us, part of our family is gone. This last year was hard for him but he wanted to be here and the last time I talked to him he couldnt wait to get back to work. Rest in Peace, Miertek, It was an honor to know and work with you, and we will miss you everyday. The following article about Miertek was in The Record in March 2014. It is a tribute to him and his work ethic. Miertek Polonowski, Park & Orchard in East Rutherford Miertek Polonowski is not much of a talker. After all, English is not the Polish immigrant’s native language, but that hasn’t stopped the 65-year-old food runner and former busboy at Park & Orchard restaurant from chatting a bit with the diners at the 160-seat, 35-year-old restaurant. Indeed, the Clifton grandfather of two, who sports neatly parted light-brown hair and a matching full mustache, is known in the area because of his connection with the restaurant; he often is recognized in local grocery stores by some of the regular patrons of the East Rutherford restaurant. “‘Hey, you’re from Park & Orchard!” Polonowski proudly said on a recent Thursday evening, mimicking the customers’ reaction with a laugh. “I say, ‘Yes, I am.’ ” He could not have chatted when he first arrived in America, leaving behind his wife and two children (the family could not afford to come together), to try to make a better life for himself and his family. “I called them all the time,” he said. In his native country, he worked as a cab driver, though he had gone to cooking school. Perhaps that helped get him the job at the “internationally-eclectic” Park & Orchard; he was placed by a woman who specialized in matching Polish immigrants to restaurant jobs. At the time — it was soon after the collapse of communism — many Polish men and women left their country, and a good number ended up in North Jersey. Started as kitchen helper Polonowski was happy to have a job. He started out as a kitchen helper, chopping vegetables, cooking pasta — whatever requests line cooks yelled out to him. Though shy and profoundly insecure about his language skills, two to three years later, he asked co-owner Ken Gebhardt if he could be a busboy. “I guess he’d heard that it paid more or was nicer,” Gebhardt said. Polonowski was thrilled to be working in the dining room. It’s rare to go “from the kitchen to the dining room,” he said. He cut loaves of bread, filled bread baskets, stocked butter, sugar, salt and other staples for the waiters, sorted silverware, and cleared tables, so that food runners would not be caught holding a hot dish over a table overflowing with dirty dishes. For five years, he toiled as a busboy; during that time, his young family finally joined him. “I was so happy,” he said. A few years later, he was promoted to a food runner, ferrying food from the kitchen to the dining room, making more money and working “better hours.” (Frequently food runners are considered junior waiters or waiters in training.) He works from 5 to 10 p.m., Monday through Saturday and 2 to 9 p.m. Sunday. Polonowski’s is the classic American Dream story, Gebhardt said: He arrived alone, not speaking a word of English, and lived in a rented one-bedroom apartment in Wallington. Today, he owns a Cape Cod-style house, his two grown children (one of whom lives next door to him) are college graduates, and happily he spends his time off looking after his two young grandsons whom he adores. And Polonowski is still thrilled with his work. “If I don’t like it, I leave,” he said. If Polonowski wanted to move up, “he would have asked for it,” Gebhardt said. Polonowski knows that working in the kitchen — that is, cooking — means longer hours. “I like it here,” he said. “I like being around food.”
Posted on: Tue, 08 Jul 2014 23:32:59 +0000