Top 10 small staff awesomeness

10. the "sketch" isn't necesssary
9 reiterating rotation and FIFO with the prep guy means talking to yourself in the walk-in
8. shift meal costs are nominal @ best
7. Initaling the prep list is profoundly unneccesary
6. staff meetings can take place while you (pretend to) sleep
5. "who the f mised this line?" = you're talking to yourself again
4. never wondering who'll be there to receive produce
3. no one cares if your iPod is 94% live Phish
2. no one fights for the glorious title of Chief Blame Coordinator
1. "high" payroll is never mentioned in ANY conversation

new and different frustrations

  I'm backing to working lunch and dinner like the old days, but now I have a family that suffers because of it just as much as I do.  The punchline is that none of it seems to be working for anyone involved and there is nothing worse than coming home after twelve or more hours and feeling like an unaccomplished piece of shit.  Wait...there is one thing worse: being the aforementioned UPoS that has to go back in the morning and do it all over again.  Being understaffed can be fun for a minute and eliminates the confusion about "who did what," but it also gets old very quickly, especially when you get called out for not working fourteen hours instead of thirteen.


P.S. I haven't had ten thousand hits since the early 90's.

Guess what I am going to do next?

HINT: it took me less time than it did to upload this photo

don't forget to give your sous a reach around

Happy Valentine's Day "Weekend," Chefs.  I don't know who's open Sunday or not, but I know that some of you have four days of pain in the forecast.  Just know that (a) your menus are awesome, (b) you're going to get through it no matter what, (c) you are definitely badass enough to pump out as many deuces as they can fit in the f'ing building, (d) your poor servers will be able to prepay their rent for March and April  (e) it won't happen again for 360+ days and, most importantly, (f) it's okay to give your boy a card or box of muddy chocolate in front of the rest of the staff without it being officially construed as a "bromance."  Imagine how good it will feel when we wake up Tuesday morning....Wait, now I'm looking forward to Tuesday? (www.ImustBeFucked.com)

Sunday boardom

I had plenty of free time yesterday at work and decided to break out the meat glue. This bag of Activa RM has been here for a month and I have only made one dish so far with it, Sushi shaped shrimp cocktail. Chopped shrimp and activa spread out thin and sous vide to make a sheet, pulled it out of the bag sprinkled more activa and then pipped some cocktail gelee on it. Rolled it and sliced it. Anyway today I wanted to do more, I took pheasant tenderloin and mixed it with salt, curry powder, and meat glue. Rolled it, cooked it, seared it, sliced it.

Each piece of pheasant is distinct. Imagine if the pheasant was spilt-up and cured with different spices(colors), they would become a beautiful mosaic.

Here is the finished plate: pheasant, seared fennel mostarda, carrots infused with fennel seed butter, and reduced apple cider

Saturday Brunch. Enough said.

I make a conscious effort to always understand everyone's point of view. A good chef is observant and bias to no employee, only the guests. I'm certain my staff appreciates my respect for their interests. I do so more than any other manager in my restaurant. It's works best for me because I am also there more than any other manager in the restaurant. I am always doing my best to look out for the best interests of the restaurant. When I observe that something is not right I most of the time address it purely out of instinct.

We changed the brunch menu today. When I got to work today the kitchen crew was behind the ball. No big deal. I helped them finish their mise en place by service while we discussed ways to get it done sooner. I made a sample of one of the new dishes for the staff. I headed into the dining room with the dish 15 minutes after we were open and noticed the FOH scrambling to get set for service. They weren't even in uniform. Scrambling in their civilian clothes. I immediately asked the first server I saw (who is always chill) why he wasn't in his nice clothes and he snapped at me about being in the weeds getting set up. I immediately went to his manager and he didn't even notice his dining room wasn't set. or maybe didn't think it was important. This exact scenario played out last Saturday as well. Two Saturdays in a row we had guests in the building that had to watch us scramble. That is how highly we think of our first guests on the busiest day of the week.

My staff is never ready by service without my help. Why? Because as soon as they figure out how to get ready on time I throw something else at them. Today was a new brunch menu. Today was also a crab special. They had to break down whole crabs for service. Messy. Last weekend was shucking oysters. I keep them polished in the winter. They will thank me later.

I was trying to explain this management tool to the FOH manager today. He is a wonderful colleague and I really enjoy working with him. He is also a little green and doesn't always see the peripheral duties of management. He needs to keep a fire lit behind his employee's asses at all times or they will get lazy and mess up what we've worked so hard to achieve.

"We've got the rules down now, and we're done learning how to speak.

We're on top of a cliff, and we're wondering if we should leap."

Quote of the day... possibly the year

"Save it for the day crew" Ms Tangle.

This is what a seasoned server said about putting away soup at the end of the night. We have a small retail section which we stock with soups, sausage, pasta, and cheese. It is the FOH staffs job to put the food out for retail. They don't have to make the soup or heat it up, they just put it away.

I only was able to get a few hours sleep last night. I woke at one point and could not stop repeating that quote. As soon as my eyes close I see "Save it for the day crew" written on the back of my eyelids. I am ready to scream. What the hell is wrong with people? This isn't some untrained noob, she has a restaurant management degree, the same one I have. I must have skipped class on the day this technique was taught.

You could say his statement sums up the fundamental problems with society. No one cares about how they effect their neighbor, it is all about ME.

I am truly worried about my restaurant. With the owner opening another place who will light a fire under peoples ass'? It is obvious that employees cannot be left to do small tasks unsupervised.

Treading water

In late October we lost half of our four man culinary team. This was a huge blow to us, we all got along great and loved to work together. We could predict each other movements and help each other without even asking. People come and go in this business and I wish no ill will on either of these gentlemen, I still talk with them both frequently. The problem is who replaced them and why they are still employed.

Replacement number one was a house wife who is "sponsored" and does not need to work. She plays kitchen on a daily basis and needs to supervised to keep her from changing recipes and fucking up the whole place. She worked 9.5 hours on monday and made 12 salads and 3 soups thats it. That is five maybe six hours of work if you had one arm.

The other replacement was the sauicer from a hack French place about 30 minutes away. Mr Saucier, Slingblade, was supposed to work 3 days and two nights. Learning a new restaurants procedures takes time and hard work on all parties involved. He has no desire to work hard, his old restaurant was a " as long as it gets done who cares if it is any good" kind of place. Fucking McDonalds has better standards then this guy. Well he can't really cook to much(or make a sauce to save his life) and we have now changed everyones schedule to 4 nights and one day so he can be monitored. It was fine for a while but we are going to be getting busier and busier and I am not sure what the hell will happen. Someone needs to be on day shift everyday and get a flow going. Sometimes I prep dinner alone and the chef and slingblade will work on catering. I don't mind this now but it will burn me out fast when the spring time catering rush hits us and we have three huge catering orders a day. Plus we are denying some catering orders as it is because of the staff and we need that income now.

I am really sick of playing defense all the time. I want to be playing offense and knocking this shit out of the park but I can't. Being ready for problems instead of reacting to them when they pop-up. There will always be problems we can't predict but when there are ones we can we need to nip them in the butt. It sounds like a easy fix, fire everyone and start over. BUT... our new restaurant opens in two months and the owner will not be around to interview or approve any new hire. Oh, the housewife and the owners are friends so tight in fact that the housewives husband is doing work on the owners house. It is funny, he also works at a snails pace. He is of course sponsored too. Then there is Slingblade who happens to super tight with the EC. Gay references have gotten old with these two. Maybe I need to leave and work somewhere else, or I need to take one for the team and move to day shift. More then likely I will be working day shift. I don't mind it so much but I will miss dinner. I am much more confident in my abilities then I was six months ago. Day shift is much busier and definitely the hardest job we have. Slingblade of course will think he can cook better that is why he will be on nights. Oh well maybe this is a sign I am maturing as a person, getting to tired to put up a fight, or just getting dumber....