Making sushi beats flipping burgers for first after-school job

Some people may remember their first job as flipping burgers or mowing lawns. Heather Scott's first job is a bit more sophisticated — making sushi.

The 16-year-old spends several hours a day in the kitchen at Harry's restaurant in South Jordan, rolling ingredients such as ahi tuna, avocado, rice, nori seaweed and flying fish roe into edible works of art. It's the artistry of the job that appeals to her — "I don't like seafood at all," she said.

The restaurant, known as an "Asian-inspired" steakhouse, serves between 20 and 60 sushi rolls a day, making up 7 to 8 percent of the restaurant's business, said executive chef Bill Scott, who is also Heather's dad. "It's nowhere near what a sushi bar does, but when you have something driving that much in sales, you certainly want to expand on it."

Harry's is owned by the Latitude Restaurant Group, which also owns Ichiban, Mikado, Hapa Grill and Kampai restaurants, where sushi is a bigger part of the menu.

A junior at Jordan High School, Heather spends part of her school day working at the restaurant through the school's cooperative work-experience program. She has grown up in the restaurant industry. Her father has cooked in restaurants throughout the country, and her mother, Susan Scott, is a manager at the Harry's in Sugarhouse. Her 25-year-old sister, Shirley Card, waits tables at the Harry's in South Jordan.

As a youngster, her dad kept Heather busy by having her dice tomatoes with a plastic knife. "That must be why I'm so good at slicing the cherry tomatoes," she observed.

Last summer when Harry's in South Jordan opened, she worked as an expediter — the liaison between the wait staff and the cooks who set up the plates and make sure the food is ready.

"My main issue was that it's really hot up there with the cooks, and I like using my artistic flair," she said.

Under her father's watchful eye, she learned the art of sushi-making. "It took a great deal of practice and patience for both of us, but it's extremely fun to do once you get it right."

One afternoon last week, her waist-length hair pulled back in a pony tail, Heather demonstrated the Utah roll — ahi tuna, avocado and crab, with vinegared rice rolled on the outside of the nori (seaweed). It's accented with glistening, jewel-like orange tobiko (flying fish roe).