Hey, it's my roommate's birthday today. That's nice.
I work at this Bistro in the maritimes, so we do the regular fare. We have some beef, pork, chicken, seafood, a vegetarian thing, you know. We also have some pizzas and pastas. We have an oversized menu and then a group of 3 or 4 sub-menus. We have a walk-in that doesn't necessarily accommodate these menus. We also have a private dining room in the back that seats 50 or so people and requires a minimum spending of a thousand dollars for usage. Our atrium seats probably a hundred or so, at capacity. We're part of an umbrella company. Our orders start with an owner, and her executive chef/owner son, down to our chef and sous-chef. At which point it's directed at the line cooks. I'm one of those dudes. Often times this chain of command doesn't necessarily fire in that direction, but it should.
I guess we're trying to make a lot of money here. That explains the motive behind most of what goes on in our restaurant. It's weird because when you read about food and the people cooking it, you want to have this kind of idea of some honour and pride behind it, because that's what makes it a shared experience between the patrons and the people preparing the food, producing the food, supplying it, designing it, etc. That's the difference between some chain restaurant serving you reheated shit and a restaurant charging you more for something better than that. Something hopefully fresh, possibly neat, and at the very least tasty. That's how people talk about it, at least. These ideas do thrive in some places, and for certain there are restaurants in our area doing these wonderful things. Knowing the farmers that supply the food, and keeping quality alive in the kitchen. But there's this shady elite of sort of middle-aged douche-bag guys that are running a lot of the restaurant industry and in my experience, they're usually putting on a front.
In the restaurant I work in everyone is obsessed with money. Even the people who don't want to be. To a certain extent this is just the reality of the industry, and you do have to be keenly aware of the money situation at all times. But there comes a point when you're sacrificing employee wages and quality and therefore turning your back on the entire concept of what you're doing. Especially when you call yourself a 'locally inspired Bistro.' In my kitchen you're witnessing lies and deceptions and cheats and just fucking cheapness. You're bending over backwards and working ridiculous hours one week, only to be given part time hours later when business is slow. The idea of a raise is almost unthinkable, or even laughable, and everyone talks about someone else behind their back. But I don't want this to be a bunch of bitching, and I'm not trying to shed negative light on the kitchen scene. So I'll tell you about last Sunday first, and try to illustrate why I love this job so much.
Saturday sucked so when I got to work in the afternoon on Sunday I was ready to be pissed off and have a terrible shift. You should really never go into a shift with that attitude because you're only fucking yourself, not whoever you're pissed at. Anyway I walked into work, put on my whites and went about finding out what work I should be doing. We had the atrium booked for a wedding with 56 people and the private room booked for a bus tour of 52, I think. At about 5pm, the kitchen was our chef and sous chef, myself and two other line cooks, so we split into teams and served the parties. Everyone assumed it was going to be something of shit show, but it wasn't. We prepped for a few hours, then cooked and plated, and it went smoothly. We were very busy in that perfect way, where everyone is working together, people are still telling jokes, and you feel satisfied with the work that you're doing.
At around 9 we all got a beer. That's how you know it's been one of the good nights. We all go out for a cigarette together some time later and everyone talks about the evening and how it was, and points out shit they thought was funny and you feel like a team. In our restaurant there's a gaping divide between front staff and kitchen staff. Sunday night was the first night where I truly felt differently about it. At about 9:30 I jumped into the dishpit and starting pumping out dishes so our dishwasher could go for a smoke break. He's one of those guys that just looks at you with this frazzled, drowning look in his eyes and states confidently, 'No thanks man, I gotta get this shit out man, blahblahblah,' so you have to do the ol, 'It's yer turn man, I don't even care, I love the pit.' type thing. Although sometimes, I truly do love the pit. It's a job completely about speed, organization, and labour, and I dig that.
I had servers in the pit on Sunday, which is another thing that never happens here. Our servers are largely untrained and unmotivated and so they quickly sink into this rut where they don't want to work, and it's hard to convince them to. But I found that with a lot of energy and enthusiasm, people are a lot more willing to do shit. So I had these two servers taking out compost and filling up glass trays and shit, and enjoying it.
After the shitstorm, servers, cooks, dishwasher dude, et. al., pile into the smoking area and chat. We have a smoke, we drink some rum, and we talk shit. Later we smoke some weed. Before I left that night I went up to the line to check on the sous-chef and see how he's doing, and he's leaning on the pass, grinning at the dance floor and all these middle-aged people in suits and dresses are dancing to Bryan Adams and he just looks at me and goes, 'They're about the throw the bouquet!'
Nice.
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