Southerner on the set
For Jann Robinson, competing on national TV for a position at a decades-old New York restaurant didn’t feel that different from another day at the office.
Robinson’s six kids grew up in her restaurant, Dave’s Deli, just like the kids of the family behind Palm Restaurant Group did. The fine-dining steakhouse has been owned and operated by members of the Bozzi and Ganzi families for 87 years and has 25 locations across the continental United States, as well as international outposts in Mexico City and London.
“It was almost like having a Southern experience with the family community restaurant dynamic,” she said.
Robinson will represent Mountain Brook as one of five contestants on new CBS show The Job as she vies for an assistant manager position with Palm. The episode will air Friday, Feb. 8 at 7 p.m. The show, hosted by Emmy Award nominee Lisa Ling, has candidates participate in several rounds of elimination challenges before a panel of executives from Palm. In addition to the episode’s featured company, representatives from three guest food companies in New York will have the opportunity to make an on-the-spot offer to one of the candidates who mustdecide if they will accept the offer or remain in the running for the highlighted job.
Robinson owns Crestline-based Backstage Catering and Jann Robinson Culinary Living, close to her children, now in kindergarten through 11th grade.
“I will never not have kids at Crestline Elementary,” she said.
Robinson found the casting call posting for restaurant professionals on the CBS website last fall. Following an HR interview with Palm, she traveled to New York for screenings, where they narrowed the field to five contestants.
It was Robinson’s first time to New York City, and she said she loved its vibe.
“I fell on the first day wearing heels on the sidewalks — it was wild and crazy,” she said.
She returned to film the show around Thanksgiving. Her fiancé, Boomer Sirmans, kept the house running, attending teacher conferences and the like, freeing her up to travel for this step in her career path – one she said was positive, fulfilling and nothing like reality TV.
“I was pumped the whole time. It was exhilarating. It was all up in the air.”
Robinson said she felt prepared for the scene with her diverse background with food service clients in Birmingham.
“Service and tradition is very important to [Palm] like it is to us,” Robinson said. “Coming from the South, I felt that gave me a leg up over everyone. I knew no one else had that. This is what we do on a daily basis here.”
Robinson, 38, competed against Anthony Hollinrake, 26, from Mounalua, Hawaii; Maggie Nachman, 29, from Chicago, Ill.; Ryan Pickett, 32, from Rigby, Idaho; and Alex Carabano, 31, from Brooklyn, N.Y.
Robinson kept all of her travels under the guise of a “work” trip as far as her six children knew, until she got to share her news with them in late December. Her kids are accustomed to seeing their mom on local TV, where she has a twice-monthly midday spot on Fox 6 sharing diabetic recipes, but once the press release came out, they were floored that they and their mom would appear on national TV.
The “hometown” piece of The Job shows what she brings to the show, Robinson said.
“It gives a small snippet of who I am everyday — the homework, grocery shopping, carpooling. Being a mom of six kids, it will give the nation a clear understanding that this is what I do every day, but it’s not the easiest game in town.”
What Robinson thinks will stand out is not her sharing her story as a mom, but her story as a widow.
“I think my fulfillment will come in showcasing me and people like me, the women who lost husbands to war or cancer. Most times you see mother with husband and kids, but for me there is another set of women.”
In 2006, when she was pregnant with her sixth child, her husband, Dave, was diagnosed with lymphoma. The couple had moved to Mountain Brook in 2001 to be near their Crestline business, and it was the people in Mountain Brook who stood by her family during her husband’s illness.
While she was spending most of her time in the hospital, the family never went without meals. Someone was always bringing a casserole to the door.
“That made my children feel more secure and that they were cared for,” she said, tearing up as she recalled this chapter of her journey. “Although Mommy wasn’t there all the time, they didn’t go without a meal cooked by another mom. That meant a lot. I don’t think I could have had that anywhere else. Many of those people were our customers or friends or neighbors or classmates. That is who our community is. We care about people. We care about each other. And I needed that in these years of transition.”