Love and Management

Saturday night....

In a 9-5 job it's the best night of the week, time to party and a day to recover from the hangover before hitting the reset button and having another Monday in your face. For the Mad Chef, it's the bottom of the 9th and we're down 5 runs...gotta be on point all night. My chef opened today so I was able to run the kitchen tonight. It is rare that my chef opens on a Saturday, but I guess he was tired of his sous chef getting off work before 9pm on a Saturday night at a restaurant that is closed on Sundays!!!!

280 on the reservation list to start, not including a banquet of 70 at 7pm. So thats what...350 covers by the end of the night? Sounds busy huh?? Ehh I guess it was, but I pushed out the banquet around 7:30 just before we began to get the evening rush, so it could have been worse.

I love running the kitchen on a busy shift, so long as the line is stocked properly. I love being able to correctly expedite an entire shift with no long checks, lost tickets, or returns of food. All of which were accomplished this evening. We won the game.

I have to give props to my former teacher in this aspect. Boo Young Kim, the GM of Acadiana taught me well. He is the fastest and most efficient expo at all of the Passion Foods restaurants (Ceiba, DC Coast, Ten Penh, Acadiana). I feel like I learned well, I follow his lead in every kitchen I run, and I aspire to be as good as he is. He's my Obi-Wan...although Darth Vader eventually beat him in the end, right??

It's an important thing being able to run a kitchen through a shift, it commands the respect of everyone around you. I am the final eyes before the food hits the table, I am the person responsible for keeping all in line. When shit hits the fan, the Mad Chef is the one who keeps things going.

In a famous scene in the movie Patton, Gen. Omar Bradley and Gen. Patton are talking about the final push to claim Sicily from the Nazis and Italians. Frustrated with another impossible request from Patton's always scheming, forward-looking mind, he labels the man more perfectly than history could ever prove: "There's one big difference between you and me, George. I do this job because I've been trained to do it. You do it because you LOVE it."

I love a well functioning kitchen. What can I say??