Tell me about working in a restaurant

In My Humble Opinion
1

A local restaurant - a really good one - is in the market for a sous chef. We’re in a teeny tiny town, and the way the advertisement is worded makes me think that they’ve given up on the idea of finding someone actually qualified to do the job and are instead willing to train the right person. French chefs in tiny towns in the far north are few and far between, if you know what I mean.

I’ve spoken to the owners before, and we get along quite well. I think I’d have at least a chance at this job, if I wanted to do it. Therein lies the rub - I’ve long toyed with the idea of making my cooking hobby a profession, but I’m absolutely clueless about it. This opportunity could be really good - on the job training in the French technique.

So tell me about restaurant work. Does it all suck?

One of the big drawbacks that I can see are the hours - they’re open only for dinner, and I suspect that means I’d be working from about 3 in the afternoon to 11 or 12 at night. Mr. Athena works a traditional 9 to 5 job, albeit out of the house. No more dinners together. No more going out to eat with friends, as I suspect I’d be working Tuesday through Saturday. This strikes me as a hard schedule. How do restaurant workers manage to maintain relationships with people on the 9 to 5 schedule (as most of my friends and family are?) It must be difficult to be married to someone who is away 5 nights a week - anyone out there doing that now?

What about the work itself? I love to cook, and cooking professionally in a really good kitchen is extremely appealing to me. I’m the first to admit, though, that I’m clueless about the how it really is. I may despise cooking professionally. So tell me what it’s like.

Answer all those questions I don’t even know to ask, please.

2

Oh, and lest you think I’m completely unqualified, I’m actually only almost completely unqualified. I’ve taken about 50 hours of cooking courses from an actual cooking school, including French Techniques 1 & 2. That puts me at more formal training in cooking than I did with software engineering, and I managed to pull off that gig for 15 years, so I figure it’s not completely out of the question that I could do it with cooking as well.

3

friend athena,

go to your local library and find a copy of kitchen confidential by anthony bourdain. most of your questions will be answered.

(side note: i heard that tony’s book has been optioned and a pilot is underway to turn it into a fox sitcom)

4

Already read it, long ago. Looking for more real-life experiences.

5

Athena:

I second the Bourdain book.

Having worked as a line cook in a relatively nice place (2 stars Mobil, in Chicago) during my college summers, I can tell you what I saw of our Sous-chef. And no, I’m not Ecuadoran (read the book).

First, unless you’re completely naiive, you know that you won’t have the time to “create”. You will have an incredible level of stress during your “rush”, and you will grow to absolutely hate cooking anything. That’s the first 6 months.

After 6 months? Well, that’s where the line diverges (and our Sous-chefs would either leave screaming and defeated or stay on). In four years of summer helping, I had 4 different Sous Chefs. However, the very last one I knew is now the Exec chef at another 3-star Mobil in Chicago.

I don’t want to tell you to never strike out to be a chef, but you have to be prepared for the stress and the feeling that you’re a machine. If you can get past that part…I have a friend who wouldn’t trade his job for anything.

After thinking about it, if your place is a 3-star or something similar, you may have more latitude to create, and fewer machine-duties. You will most certainly stil have the stress.

6

Working in a restaurant can be a very tough job. It’s one of those things that you really have to love to stick with it for very long.

Yes, the schedule is difficult. When I’ve worked a dinner shift, it left Sundays as pretty much the only day we actually saw each other awake. Perhaps for some couples, this isn’t so bad, but it wore on our relationship. Don’t forget that you’ll also be working holidays that your husband may have off. I didn’t get the chance to hang out with friends on a Saturday afternoon. Family gatherings were often missed. I didn’t last long working that schedule. I found a catering job that gave me a much better schedule.

Just a few things to consider:

What are you expecting for pay? Have they mentioned what a trainee would be paid? Are you willing to be paid just above minimum wage for a physically rigorous job? Your average restaurant (not counting big famous places) makes their profit in nickels and dimes, not in dollars, and it shows in how their workers are paid. You will certainly not be rolling in dough working as a sous chef.

What are your physical comfort levels? Are you able to be on your feet 8-10 hours a day? Imagine the warmest, most humid day in the middle of August, and can you still see yourself in front of a stove with all burners running and the oven at your knees cranked up to 500 degrees?

How well do you handle stress? When 7 PM Saturday night rolls around, can you handle the 12 different orders that land at once, and every one needs to come out not only perfectly cooked, but looking beautiful? I don’t know if your classes covered that kind of time management, but I’m sure your training would cover it. Knowing how to time your dishes so everything comes out cooked properly and hot at the same time is an artform and absolutely necessary when working on the line.

And, when you’re slammed that Saturday night, and you give yourself a 2nd degree burn, will you able to keep on going until 10 when you have 3 minutes to stop and take care of it then?

Cooking as a hobby is fun. Cooking professionally is tough. You might like it, you might not.

7

Wow…after reading Java’s post, I remembered the single most important piece of advice…

Find a pair of shoes that support you and feel good. then, go buy several pairs.

No, I’m not being faceitous…buy 5 pairs if you can afford it.

8

The “we” being my then-boyfriend (now husband) and I, of course.

9

Yes. A hundred times, a thousand times YES.

It took a few pairs of clogs until I finally found something that I could stand in all day long, which happened to be Birkenstock clogs. When I found them, I swore I heard angels sing.

10

Mine were a pair of Reebok Club Classic tennis shoes, but I wasn’t in a greasy-floored kitchen.

If you’re in a restaurant that has greasy floors, do not get low-profile ruber soles…they slip.

So…what type of cuisine? What’s the name of the restaurant? Is your specialit French? Saucier-in-waiting?

11

You all are confirming what I’ve been telling myself for the past ten years… .cooking at home is FUN. Cooking for a living, meh. But still, I’m curious. Maybe I would be one of those people who loves it.

>>What are you expecting for pay?

Nothing. I mean, I know it’ll be something, but basically I’m looking at this as getting paid a meager amount to learn how to cook. I live in a town where I can’t possibly get a job in my field (software) and thus I’m open to a lot of different things.

>>What are your physical comfort levels?

I don’t know. I’ve always worked desk jobs. It’s intriguing to me to have a job where I’m on my feet all day. Do I know if I’ll like it? No clue. This is uncharted territory to me.

>>How well do you handle stress? When 7 PM Saturday night rolls around, can you handle the 12 different orders that land at once, and every one needs to come out not only perfectly cooked, but looking beautiful?

I do pretty well with this at home, but then again, I never cook for 12 at home. I handle job stress pretty well, I think, but like I said - this is all uncharted territory for me.

>>After thinking about it, if your place is a 3-star or something similar, you may have more latitude to create, and fewer machine-duties. You will most certainly stil have the stress.

Um, isn’t a 3 star restaurant pretty damn high up there? Trust me, Michelin has never even heard of this town. So no, it’s not a 3-star place, but it is pretty damn good. It compares with some very swanky places I’ve been in large cities around the country. Frankly, I’m surprised it’s here. It’s only been open 6 months, but appears to be doing quite well. It’s tiny - I don’t know if it seats 30 people.

I’m leaning towards not doing it, the main reason being the hours. I just don’t know that I want to put that kind of stress on my relationship.

12

I’m going off the Mobil scale…3 stars is pretty fantastic. I don’t know where you are in the UP, so maybe there’s some touristy gem-place.

If there are only 30 tables…maybe you should try it. Have you asked if you could try subbing in for whomever is handling the Sous-chef duties? If there isn’t anyone, I’m sure they’d welcome the free help.

Do you have your restaurant lingo down pat? My favorites were:
[ul]
[li]“Hine-ja”[/li][li]In the Weeds[/li][li]'86[/li][li]On the Fly[/li][/ul]

Wow…I’m almost getting nostalgic. Emphasis on the word root “algic”.

I say get some good shoes and try it out. You’ll never forget the experience.

13

Which can be switched with with the borderline-sexually harassing ( :wink: ) “hot behind” if you’re carrying a hot pan. You always want to let a line cook know you’re walking behind him–dramatically cuts down on accidental stabbings and burnings in the kitchen.
And, I hope I didn’t totally scare you off, but I was being totally honest–it’s what I’d ask anyone who was thinking about going into restaurant work without any previous experience.

14

I worked as a cook for about two years, more or less continuously, from an “Applebee’s”-level corporate place to a four star resturant. I have to second everything JavaMaven1 said, especially about how hard it is and how much you really have to love it to stick with it.

A few points of note:

You mention the job as being a “sous-chef”. Most of the places I’ve worked for a sous-chef is the Number One, first lieutenant, executive officer, whathaveyou to the executive chef. In other words, your job is to keep control of the crew, maintain morale, pick up the pieces, make certain the porters aren’t stealing too many steaks, keep the baker from snorting up during work, et cetera. You’ll do your time on the line, to be certain, but there’s a whole 'nother set of people management skills that has nothing to do with cooking.

Someone mentioned clogs. Get a good, comfortable pair that will protect your feet. You will drop things on your feet. If you are wearing sneakers, you will break/crush your feet. Sometimes I wished I’d been wearing steel-toed boots.

Kitchens are dangerous. Big slicing wheels, knives all over the place, hot grease and burners, scalding dishwashers, et cetera. It’s a surprisingly dangerous environment to work it, and I’ve seen many people suffer some ugly (though fortunately minor) injuries. Are you willing to take these risks? Are you a person who maintains safety awareness under pressure?

I don’t mean to demean your cooking school experience, and I’m sure you learned a lot about cooking stuff in those classes, but in terms of a commerical kitchen, you don’t know jack. How good of a cook (in terms of specific knowledge of meats, spices, et cetera) is secondary to how good you manage multiple tasks under extreme pressure. You may know how to mix a good roux, but what do you do when you get slammed at dinner with ten tables running in orders at once? How do you prioritize? What happens when your fry guy suddenly gets fed up/has a drug siezure/is “called up by the Reserves–uh-huh” at a moments notice? It sounds counterintuitive, but about the last thing you actually have to worry about is how good of an actual cook you are. Practically anyone can master the skills necessary to be a good (if not great) cook, but it takes a certain set of talents and disposition to keep a kitchen running.

Finally, as has been pointed out, it’s bloody hard work with strange hours and (often) low pay. If you aspire to be an executive chef some place, it may be good experience (depending on your exec. chef), but more and more resturants are insisting on food-school graduates.

I love to cook, and wish I had more opportunity, but I’d never go back to doing it for a living unless there were no jobs available for digging ditches. I got some good skills and some great stories from it, but on the whole, I’d rather eat red-hot charcoal briquettes.

Good luck to you, if you apply, and don’t let the job eat you up. It’s just food, after all.

Stranger

15

This is why everytime someone in my life says “you’re such a good cook, you should be a chef” I run screaming.

16

:rolleyes:

Bourdain is a character (or at least he comes across that way) and I’m sure that working in a massive number of New York eateries he’s seen a lot of crazy shift, but gaw, hasn’t he milked it his rep as some kind of pirate chef enough? I have to wonder how much he embroiders his stories–some them seem way too far over the top–and Org, do we need another sitcom about beautiful people working in a set that will resemble a working kitchen about at much as Yogi Bear resembles a wild grizzly?

I picked up one of his mystery stories while browsing at the bookstore a couple weeks ago, and…well, Tony, don’t quit your day job, 'kay?

Ah, well. At least he’s not yelling “BANG! Let’s kick it up a notch!” every thirty seconds like some kind of culinarially-obsessed Tourette’s sufferer.

Stranger

17

friend stranger,

tony bourdain used to frequent a couple of aol chat rooms and message boards before he was famous. quite a few of us just knew him as QJWIN. he was pretty outrageous even then.

18

No offense taken; I am only too aware of how little I know about actual restaurant work. Thus this thread.

A few things:

  • first off, this place is TINY. I said above “30 people” and someone said “30 tables.” It’s 30 people this restaurant will fit. They have maybe 15 tables, most of them 2 tops that can be pushed together to form 4 or 6 tops as needed.

  • I may be wrong on this, but I suspect that the head chef will be doing most of what, in a larger place, the sous chef would do. The place just ain’t big enough to have a head chef who isn’t very much in charge of the kitchen and the people. The ad didn’t mention anything other than cooking, either.

I know that besides the head chef/owner, they have a garde manger from the few times I’ve sat down and had a beer with the chef. I think he also had someone else as a second cook, and I’m thinking that’s probably who he’s having to replace.

Like I said previously, you all have confirmed what I’ve known for a long time. I may satisfy my curiousity by approaching him and seeing if they need someone on a part time basis - I’d work cheap, and maybe they could use someone who was able to show up if someone was sick or had to take vacation. That’d probably be about as much as I really want to do.

19

I’m glad you didn’t take offense; on review, my wording looks a bit harsh to me. :o

That’s probably a great situation to start in; the only thing is, if you don’t do it regularly or with training, you may find yourself overwhelmed. On the other hand, if it is such a small place and the clientele is mostly locals (as I suspect) there probably isn’t so much hazard of the much-feared “slam”.

Sounds like a good deal, really, to dip your toes in. What the hell; whadaya got to lose?

Good luck to you.

Stranger

20

Yeah, like I said, he’s a character, and Kitchen Confiedential is a great read, and a pretty accurate portrayal (overall) of the food service industry. But (and to give him credit, he does state this conditional in the book) not every kitchen is like the madhouses he describes. We did some silly stuff, but nothing like the drug-fueled orgies he describes.

One anecdote of his, though, hit right on the money for me. He describes how he ordered some produce–tomatos, I think–for his restaurant, Les Halles (prounounded “Lay Hal-lAeh”, after the famous French market). The supplier sent the order to Layla, another Manhattan restaurant named after the Clapton song, in confusion with the near-homonym. He vowed next time when talking to the supplier to prounounce it in Anglicized fashion (“Less Halless”) to avoid confusion. It’s exactly the sort of dipshit thing you expect a supplier (for many of whom English is a second or third language) to do. Classic.

Catch you later, friend longhair75. :slight_smile:

Stranger