How can i get jobs in restaurants?

I am 15 and going to be 16. I have experience in cooking, but not professional. I want to learn more about cooking. Because of my ethnicity, my cooking is limited to asian. Is there anyway i can work at different restaurants for little pay or for free (part time)? I go to school of course.

With any industry, you'll be proud to say one day that you started at the bottom. I spent my 15th year as a dishwasher in a "fine dining" establishment. Hot plates, heavy garbage cans, hot-tempered chefs - the experience gave me priceless insight on the inner-workings of the kitchen, without being part of the serving line. After a quick year of sweating it out over the dishwasher, I was promoted to busboy and then fry cook. Without the experience of being a dishwasher, if I was hired first as fry cook, I would have quit after the first night.

Best of luck.

Ooh, yikes. At your age, the only thing they'll hire you for is dishwasher. I'd recommend starting in fast food, as crappy as it is, but it will get you started. Once you've been doing that for awhile you can look for jobs elsewhere, because experience is key. Even cooking in fast food will be enough to get you started somewhere somewhere else if you stick with it for awhile and show you can hang onto a job. But no restaurant will hire someone your age because you can't legally do things like handle slicers (or handle cash), and teens are notoriously irresponsible in the workplace. And you can't work for free because that's against the labor laws.

So I guess you could check your local classifieds and craigslist for dishwashing jobs, but I can't promise you'll have much success. Fast food is your best bet. Remember, it's just a starting point, and there are so few places that will hire 16 year olds. Besides, fryers and grills are the same everywhere, so it will give you some valuable experience. And if you get a job at a fast food joint now, a year from now if you apply somewhere else at 17 with a year of experience behind you, your chances of getting a kitchen job will be much greater.

First thing you need to do is to get your food handler's certification. You can't work in the food industry in the US without one.

My job at 15/16 was at Taco Bell as a cashier. Like said, they will use underage/high school students for cashiers, bussers, and dishwashers. Until you're a specific age (depending on where you live), your experience in that industry, demands/hiring wants, etc - you just gotta push and live with a job at the bottom for a while.