Coming Home
Returning staff bring fresh experiences, perspectives and skills to the Club.
Whether it’s returning to one’s home country after years away or reconnecting with a long-lost friend, coming back to something after an absence allows us to see ourselves in a new light.
How much we’ve changed, grown and learned can become starkly apparent.
The same holds true in the working world, as INTOUCH found in conversations with four Club staff among the many who have returned after gaining new skills and perspectives from other jobs.
Jose Salazar, who manages Rainbow Café, Splash! and Café Med, found his time away rich and varied. After two years as an associate server at American Bar & Grill, he left in 2014 to manage an Italian restaurant in Tokyo. This proved a rewarding challenge, he says. “I was working crazy hours, and I had to be in charge of the numbers, costs, vendors and everything that goes into managing a restaurant. And because it was a Japanese company, I had to do it all in Japanese.”
Salazar then moved to a company selling condominiums in Southeast Asia to Japanese investors before managing a newly opened chain of restaurants around Tokyo.
He came back to the Club in 2020 as assistant manager of American Bar & Grill and later became assistant manager of the newly opened Nihonbashi Club.
These diverse experiences have inspired Salazar to try new approaches. “It made me more open-minded,” he explains. “I think that if we can bring a bit of a twist to what we offer, it can lead to more satisfied Members.”
Maintenance technician Christian Jensen also found that time away broadened his horizons. Hailing from London, he has lived in Japan since 2011 and first came to the Club in 2017. He left three years later to work in building maintenance, furniture-making and antique restoration.
All these jobs were in fully Japanese environments, providing unique opportunities for growth. “My Japanese got really good, and I also learned a lot about Japanese work etiquette and the value of being very komakai [detail-oriented].” This serves him well when working with Japanese coworkers and Members, he explains.
Since returning in 2023, Jensen has appreciated the variety of the work. “Here, I might be making furniture one week, then fixing doors, painting or welding. It’s a bit of everything.”
While he appreciated his time away, Jensen says it made him recognize how much he valued working at the Club. “Sometimes, you have to leave something to realize how much it meant to you.”
Ivan Melendez de la Cruz, a service attendant with the banquets team, first came to the Club with a varied background that included international marketing, restaurant service and property management. From 2021 to 2023, he worked at Rainbow Café and American Bar & Grill, as well as with the banquets team. When presented with an opportunity at a fine dining restaurant in a luxury hotel, he saw it as a way to develop his skill set.
“The environment and management style were very demanding,” he explains. “But the kitchen, floor and management experiences were invaluable and gave me a chance to grow.”
Melendez also appreciated the chance to improve his communication and team-building skills. “Before I left, they were good, but when I came back [to the Club], they were even stronger. Now I feel like my team and I are sometimes able to communicate even without talking.”
Mitsue Minami, a service attendant at the Nihonbashi Club, has a history with the Club that goes back nearly 30 years. She first worked at the former Azabudai Club’s American Room, training in fine dining service and food hygiene used by Japanese hotels. She would return several times, gaining experience with international clientele at upscale restaurants around Tokyo between stints at the Club.
As Minami explains, working at these restaurants allowed her to understand the needs of international customers. “I got much better at predicting what they might want and adapting quickly. I also learned a lot from my foreign coworkers about how they handled service opportunities.”
When Minami married, she stepped away for many years, only occasionally working at family restaurants near her home. But after a former coworker told her about five years ago that there was an opportunity to return to the Club, she spent a month in English conversation school refreshing her language ability before applying.
And while she appreciates the professional development she’s achieved over the years, Minami most treasures the Club’s international environment and the feeling of community that is nurtured between staff and Members. “It feels like family. It feels like home.”
Words: Alec Jordan
Top Image of (l–r) Ivan Melendez de la Cruz, Christian Jensen, Mitsue Minami and Jose Salazar: Yuuki Ide
March 2025
