This week will be the final post in our Busy Saturday Night Perspective series. We’ll be running series like this over time so I’d love to get your feedback and ideas. Share a restaurant or bar experience with me either in the comments below or through email (Rebecca@mckinneyanddoyle.com) and I’ll work to form a series around it. Your experience can be positive or negative, old or new. Whatever your story is, I want to hear it!
Anyway, today I want to take you back into the kitchen and onto the line. It’s a whole different world back there compared to what we see in the front dining room. Now I’ve never been a chef or cooked on the line myself, but I grew up in a restaurant kitchen watching in awe and eventually working as part of the team as a server, busser, hostess, and bartender. I also consider the guys that run M&D’s kitchen as family and know what makes them tick, stew, or blow up. Every chef is different but they’re all a little intense/crazy because in all honesty, they need to be. The hours are long, hard, hot, and completed on their feet. You won’t find a chair in a busy restaurant’s kitchen. The job is frustrating because as a chef you work hard to come up with the perfect menu item with balanced flavors and textures only to have a finicky eater pick it apart piece by piece and then complain that the meal is too simple, basic, flavorless, dry, etc. It’s an extremely competitive and difficult career but I think I speak for all of us when I say we are lucky some people are crazy enough to do it.
Now back to that busy Saturday night. If you’ve been following our story you know how the night started; smooth and steady. If you haven’t been following, check out parts 1, 2, and 3 to get some background. Anyway, today let’s cut right to the 6:30 rush and the reason behind why sometimes it seems like your food is taking too long to come out.
Seven tables have been seated at the same time in addition to those already seated and halfway through their meals. New orders are flying off the printer as servers are calling appetizers and salads, meaning seated tables are ready for their entrees to be fired and brought out. The head chef, as well as all of the other cooks on the line, is on his game because he’s used to this Saturday madness and knows the menu like the back of his hand. But then disaster strikes.
Table four has sent back a steak because she wanted it medium rare and the steak she was given has some pink on the inside. Now, we know that medium rare steaks should be a little pink, but that’s not really the point. The customer perceived that her meal wasn’t prepared properly so the chef needs to re-fire her order. It takes priority over new orders which sets our chef back a little, but nothing too crazy or out of the ordinary. He and his kitchen staff can handle it.
But now table eleven doesn’t like the sauce on his chicken. He wanted to try something new but unfortunately, it’s not his taste. He’d like to order the fish on special instead. The chef takes this new order as a priority rush order as well because he needs to move dinner service along and it’s never good to have one person at a table finished with their meal before the other even starts eating.
In the midst of correcting these orders and working to stay on top of the new orders, a dinner guest bursts though the kitchen doors (yes this really happens) to compliment the chef. A sweet gesture for sure, but the timing couldn’t be worse. The chef takes a beat to shake his hand and thank him for the compliment but it’s pretty clear he needs to get back to work. As the guest leaves, a waitress comes in asking the chef to hold fire on the entrees for table six because they want to sit and enjoy their wine before moving on to the next course. Of course this is fine but it does throw off the flow of the kitchen. Just another hurdle to clear is all.
These are just some of the things that can and do happen on any given night in a restaurant kitchen. In all honesty, the chef probably doesn’t even know about the struggles going on in the front of the house regarding reservations, table readiness, or server attitude. It’s not that they don’t care. It’s just that it isn’t something they can add to their list of things to think about and do back there. They handle the orders as they come in and put out fires (sometimes literally) as they start. Any reputable restaurant wants the service to be wonderful and for the food to come out perfect and in a timely matter but with the hiccups that come naturally, sometimes things can be set back a bit.
Rebecca McKinney
I wanted to create this blog for a few reasons. First and foremost, to share tips, tricks, and knowledge about the food and beverage industry in general but also to help people see a different side of the restaurant world. Every restaurant has a totally unique culture and world within it. I want to help open people’s eyes to more than how fast the service is or how easy or hard it is to secure a reservation.
So, thanks for stopping by! I welcome your ideas, input, and feedback and hope you enjoy!
Eat well & travel often,
Becky McKinney
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