Mike and Katrina
I just took a recent and much needed vacation to St. Louis for a dance event, but it's funny how my professional life found a way to come into the picture. First, I got to spend a good amount of time with a restauranteur friend from my college days, Mike Johnson. Mike has been in the industry for over a decade, getting his start by working for Emeril at Commander's Palace and eventually settling near his family in St. Louis. I met him when he was on his first venture in St. Louis, Cafe Mira, which quickly became my third space when I was living there.
Now? Mike's gone through six restaurants in the past six years, keeping the ones he likes and that are profitable enough and closing the rest. He now has a stable of four successful and thriving restaurants: Cyrano's (American style tapas), Momo's (Greek style tapas), BARcelona (Spanish style tapas - the original tapas) and Boogaloo (Cuban style tapas). Notice the theme? He's hit upon a format that works extremely well in the St. Louis area and I was glad to pump him for information. This was the first time I had seen him since I had gotten into the industry and it was instructive to talk with him about operating costs and how to run a profitable place. But I think even more important was the opportunity to spend some time in the kitchen of his newest restaurant, Boogaloo. Just looking with a watchful eye of how the place was laid out, how it was staffed, what went into the menu and the food costs, it was wonderful to see. Mike is the kind of guy that I would love to work for - personable, energetic, always opening up a new place. There would always be new things to do for him, which, to me, is very exciting.
I also happened to meet the former executive chef of Brennan's, New Orleans (another Mike, actually). For those not familiar with the Brennan family, they run a small group of select restaurants in New Orleans that are among the top restaurants in the country. I was able to sit with him for an hour and just talk shop with him, pick his brain for information about advice to be successful cook. It was instructive, reinforcing the statement in my previous post that interpersonal skills are paramount in becoming successful in the business. It was also sad to see a fellow cook with such skills just thrown out of the business. This is a guy that is used to running a classic French brigade-style kitchen producing some of the finest food there is. And now because of Hurricane Katrina? Slinging pasta for banquets in an Italian kitchen in St. Louis. Ouch. I'm sure he'll land back on his feet eventually, but I doubt that will be in St. Louis. Too much meat and potatoes, not enough demi.
The Problem with People
The problem with people is that you just can't escape them. They're everywhere, kind of like this weird mutant breed of roaches that doesn't scatter when you turn on the lights. But you don't do time when you kill a roach.
Part of the reason that I got into this business was because of the fact that I was going to be in back of the house. I didn't have to deal with people or customers. The problem that I'm quickly learning is that in this business line skills count for a lot, a good deal, but line skills only get you so far. How far? About as far as I've gotten - working any position on the line. The days of the tyrant chef are over ... no longer can you be an ass and still have people come into your place. Somewhere in the past twenty to thirty years soft skills became much more important.
I imagine that's because of the competitive nature of the restaurant business. Although, yes, Americans are dropping a lot more cash on dining out, they are becoming much more picky in what's become an increasingly crowded restaurant market. Honestly, how many people a decade ago cared about the differences between varieties of heirloom tomatoes? Or the fact that you can get baby iceberg lettuce (a trendy new luxe item ... makes a nice composed Cobb salad)? So there's a heck of a lot more risk involved ... every detail needs to be paid attention to and no longer can you get by on one aspect alone.
And that's where people skills come in handy. You need a good front of the house crew. You need a good back of the house crew. You need a good marketing crew. You need a good management crew. And you need all of them working together towards the same goal.
Modern management points towards a much more touchy-feely style of business. The fire and brimstone approach is definitely out. Incentive based approaches are in. Direct insults and debasement are out. Constructive criticism is in.
Part of me really hates this reality because it's geared towards a skill set that I am very poorly based in. I do well in having definite standards and living up to them. I don't know really the first thing about motivating people, about getting them to work for you. I have an extremely critical eye and high standards. I tell you once, it's normal. I tell you twice, that's okay. I tell you three times, we have problems.
I guess that's why I like Gordon Ramsay so much is because, on the line at least, he can say whatever the hell he wants to. But for him, what happens on the line seems to stay on the line. Outside of work, he seems to be something of a very different person. I'm not as able to divide up my social interactions as much. I value competence and an ability to get things done. That comes first. If you can do that, then maybe you'll be worth getting to know. If you're incompetent, then why would I want you on my line let alone get to know you?
But in reality, you might have someone that is a horrible line cook, but they might have some great insight into the industry. You just need to find the right fit for them. Now, sometimes that fit is in a completely different industry. Or at a McDonald's. But you need to be able to identify the difference.
I question whether management at where I work is able to identify those differences. Or, if they are, do they care? The exec where I work talks a good talk about wanting to raise the standards of the restaurant and to get good product out and, eventually, open up a larger part of the restaurant for evening sales. Yet he tolerates having one person on the line that, personally, I view as one of the sloppiest "cooks" I have ever seen in a kitchen. This guy can manage to cross-contaminate something with a substance from three or four inserts over, always works dirty, never is able to work at line speed, sends food out that looks like ass, and, most importantly, can't seem to think the necessary three steps ahead it takes when you have five tickets in the window at once. Working in a kitchen is all about competence and, quite frankly, this guy isn't competent.
Yet management keeps him around.
As instructive as it is to learn the right way to do things, it's also instructive to learn the wrong way to do things. They should fire him, Washington is an at-will employment state after all, but they aren't. Which creates another object lesson of how to deal with someone that you may not enjoy being around. So in the meantime, I bite my tongue and try to learn how to deal with the people problem. This'll be useful. One day. In the meantime I wish I could videotape this so you could laugh at me for my appalling lack of people skills. I should probably pitch it to a network as a reality TV show.
The Night Shift
I am now officially the most versatile non-management cook in the kitchen, and, in a sense, one of the most loved by management. Being down a few cooks, the exec and the sous have had to take up a lot of slack and usually they have ended up working the night shifts and the brunch shifts. With the return of a cook from a long (and much deserved) break ready to take back the breakfast shifts, I've been freed up to work more nights. So now the chefs can go home to their wives at night and instead I get to fly solo in the evenings. So I get loved because they're able to get some luvin'. Fair trade-off.
It's another challenge, and a welcome one. I'm the kind of person that always needs something new at work to keep me interested. Mastery of new skills ... well, hold that, I don't know if I'm necessarily shooting for mastery, but learning something new is always something that interests me. Combine that with the fact that nights are relatively slow, large moments of inactivity punctuated by blurbs of intense speed, you get a chance to do some fun stuff. For example, the other night I spent some time making cheese, something that's a bit esoteric for a cook, but interesting nonetheless. It was only a batch of feta, but I've got plans. Hard cheeses need to age in a temperature controlled environment. Red Bull has these tiny fridges they use in bars to display their product. Well, we have two in our establishment, one in the bar, and one in the offices because the light is busted. So Red Bull and cheese go hand in hand. That'll probably start working the next night shift I take.
It's not all fun and games, though. It's work too and in some ways working at night is one of the most challenging times on the line in that kitchen. Not only are you responsible for the most diverse number of dishes at any time of the day, but if you're busy, it's only you there. Out of something and you need it now? Get your ass downstairs and back up again to get some more ... I can do the trip in about 30 seconds, which may not sound like much time, but at line speed, that's an eternity. It's fun when you've got five tickets in the window totaling about 20 different dishes and, well, shit, they're all different.
Oh, and that timer going off? Yeah, the cheese you're making on the stove is ready to be pulled off and gradually taken from 85 to 95 over the next hour in a bain marie that needs to get setup.
Now that's a challenge. That's a cook's life.
No Complaints
So, in the restaurant industry, one of the busiest days of the year is Mother's Day. In fact, for brunch, the benchmark is Mother's Day. This past year on Mother's Day we did 150 covers with 3 cooks.
But for some freakish reason one recent Sunday we did 190 covers for brunch with our normal staff of two cooks. It was balls to the wall for the entire day. Literally, at 8:30 I put my head down and the next time I looked up it was 12:30. Absolute nutso. I didn't even have to complain about the wait staff because they didn't have any time to do anything else but run the food.
Doing 190 covers is a pretty good accomplishment in and of itself, but there were two things that made this day exceptional for me. The first is that I was working with a cook that, well, to be honest, wouldn't be the first choice of who I would want working on a day like that. Nice guy and all, but he's dirty, sloppy, doesn't work smart, and just shouldn't be there. Give him a small number of tasks to focus on and he does fine for now. But just don't let him have the blueberries near the goat cheese ... you'll have purple cheese by the first pancake order. But I dealt with it because I had no other choice. There wasn't even really any time to be mad ... just have to keep on pushing out the orders. Supposedly he has more practical experience in kitchens, but in reality I have had more time in our kitchen, I can run every station in the kitchen (he knows only two), and I'm consistenly trusted to open and close the place. So basically I was lead that day.
The second interesting fact about doing those 190 covers is that we did not have a single comped meal that day. That means there was not one single signficant customer complaint about the food. Mother's Day? We had plenty on Mother's Day, but on that recent Sunday, when I was leading the line, there were no complaints. And I think that comes back to the fact that I hold different standards than my employer. The difference? If I don't like it, I refire the order (and with my compatriot that day, I had him refiring a good number of orders).
No complaints. Now that's an accomplishment.
