Despite my username, I’m not a chef, just a really good cook. I enjoy the creativity and mastery of the art. My one experience in a commercial kitchen was when I was young and was a fry cook at a student union building. It convinced me that working in that sort of environment was way more stress than I needed, even though I mostly enjoyed it. Many people over the years have told me “You should open a restaurant!” Really? Based on what: that you liked the meatballs? I always just laughed and said “No thanks.”
I highly recommend Anthony Bourdain’s early book, Kitchen Confidential, for an inside look at what a restaurant career is really like. He had a lot of pretty gritty experiences before ascending to be executive chef at Les Halles.
(PS I am a home cook, have never worked in a restaurant.)
I did food service as a kid, one to the best jobs I’ve ever had. It was all “positive” interaction with people, and being 17, the money was fantastic! And the tips… 
I worked in restaurants from age 14 until I left college to join the Carpenter’s Union. I always enjoyed the kitchens, but the pay scale was pretty low. I still make my Italian salad dressing the way I was taught fifty years ago at a small Little Italy restaurant by a elderly Italian lady who spoke almost no English.
Note that a LOT of the heavy lifting in restaurant kitchens in the US is done by immigrant workers - documented or otherwise - for whom it’s presumably a better option than whatever they had where they came from.
are you going to share the recipe or just tease us?
I’ve only ever cooked in fast food, so that probably doesn’t even count in this thread, but I distinctly remember the great feeling when a shift just clicked and everything hummed along like it was just mean to be… I can see how that feeling could lead into a lifetime of food service.
Because there are so many people who think they can make money in the restaurant business.
First and Last Rule: Goods and services are not marketed so people can have them, they are marketed so the seller can make money. That is ALWAYS the ONLY reason why a business enterprise exists.
You have to remember too that Ramsay’s over-the-top swearing Hell’s Kitchen persona is just that, a persona. He truly is a chef, knows his stuff, and want to help. Watch an episode of either Master Chef or the UK version of Kitchen Nightmares and you’ll notice the difference.
My extended family sold their restaurant when they all knew they were on the verge of burning out. It’s that type of industry.
It’s also one of the few fields these days where a small, independent business had a niche. The Internet isn’t really competition, and if you can produce good food you can compete quite well with the chains.
Friend Cub Mistress Simplicity is always best. One part red wine vinegar to two parts olive oil. Add freshly a minced garlic clove, a heavy pinch of finely minced flat leaf parsley, another of finely minced basil, crushed red pepper flakes to taste and just s dab of powdered sugar.
I’ll take you a step further OP: Why do people even start their own businesses? It takes on average two years, from what I hear, to begin to turn a profit. My next thought is that I am grateful there are so many different personality types out there willing to do the things I am not.
In conclusion, I am baffled. I can tell that I lack some of the traits business owners have because I am unable to understand why they would go through so much.
Better wages, no boss, set own hours, creativity, provide employment, because I can.
I worked in two different short-order grill places. I really enjoyed the cooking/serving part of the job. What I hated was the dish washing and cleaning at closing time at the university grill job. The place used zero disposable dishes or flatware. Because of that, this was the only job I ever had that I truly hated. The other place was a bowling alley, but we served with no non-disposable dishes there. The cleanup, therefore, was much easier and I didn’t dread it.
I imagine the experience of working in a large restaurant would really depend on the tasks assigned one there.
I worked at a bakery/deli for about 6 months, and that was the part of the job I liked the most. It was simple meditative quiet time with no customers and no new orders queuing up. Just a pile of dishes and x amount of time to spend doing it.
Plus decent restaurants usually have those commercial dishwashers that can really crank out the clean (and very HOT) dishes. Only things you have to wash by hand are pots and pans.
I work for a startup Indian software company. These people (founders) have been going 18 hours a day, non-stop for 10 years. It’s their comfort zone – sort of. Ten years in and now profitable beyond a meager wage the five of them allowed themselves.
There are all sorts of businesses where the immediate return, the odds, and the conditions (started in a damp basement) suck, and there are hobbies and adventures with the same draw. Humans pursue challenges.
You either acknowledge that part of the human condition sets people up to take on challenges, despite the odds, or you don’t.
Thank Og for the people who don’t take the easy, carved path, who enjoy a challenge, who pursue things despite logic telling others to stay away, and who are just driven to try something.
Aside from all of the progress this part of the human condition offers all humans (because we are a group who benefits greatly for the sweat of our peers), all these crazy peeps pushing forward in the restaurant business pretty much guarantees me tons of choices and good eats somewhere!
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The downside of that persona is that a some people who only know commercial kitchens from watching those shows think that is how you *have *to talk to kitchen staff. During my two years cooking in a retirement home, it became pretty clear that the corporate managers (from the home office, not the local managers) truly believed that cooks are uneducated idiots who don’t understand anything unless you scream at them and treat them like they’re stupid.