I wrote this piece several years ago as a concept for a magazine. They told me they wanted an 'Anthony Bourdain style column' and this is what I wrote. Some time between getting those instructions and submitting this piece, they had changed their minds and instead wanted a simple recipe column, so this piece has never seen the light of day. I post it now for your enjoyment...
In the course of my career, I have meet some strange characters, but the ones that are the most baffling to me are the ones that say to me “You own a restaurant – I always thought that that would be a great idea.” My reply tends to be a smirk and something along the lines of “Have fun with that.”
Restaurant work is not for the faint of heart, mind or body. Anyone who spends a few years of his or her life slaving away in a food establishment deserves at the very least a gold star. Anyone who is crazy enough to open their own restaurant deserves the Medal of Bravery, and anyone that can keep the doors of their restaurant open for more than a year deserves to have their name immortalized in verse along with their signature dish. There is only one other occupation I am aware of that in the course of a day you risk getting burned, sliced, bludgeoned, maimed, yelled at, flooded out, lose staff, do what angry people tell you to do, shut down, then be expected to return the next day to do it all again – but joining the army never had any appeal for me.
For those of you who have had this whimsical thought from time to time but have never worked in a restaurant, let me impart unto you, as best I can, some things you could expect to see in the day-to-day operations. In the kitchen we work with open flames, sharp metal edges, fragile ceramic plates and we juggle delicate food items in such fevered conditions that would make the average individual think they had entered an insane asylum. Hell, we already have the white jackets – we’re half way there. It doesn’t help that when two Chefs talk about food, the discussion can get as fanatical as a religious debate, or as heated as a political slander campaign. I’m not sure which is more frightening - watching two chefs scream at each other, one with a French Knife in hand, the other with a Cleaver, arguing over the best way to prepare lamb shank, or being one of those Chefs - and yes I have been in both positions.
On the floor (that’s what we call the dining room in a restaurant,) not only do you have to deal with the crazies in the kitchen, you have a room full of them you have to take care of. Balance drink orders, food orders, check and table numbers, people’s likes, dislikes, allergies, aromas, quirks and moods while keeping a smile on your face. At least you have to option of yelling at the nut-bars in the kitchen – heaven forbid you lose your temper with a patron!
At the end of the day, if you are lucky enough to have any full time and committed staff, you have the privilege of having a take home pay substantially less than theirs – if you are able to take anything home at all – for as least the first three years. So, do you still want to own a restaurant?
I personally love working with food, and I’ll probably work with food in some form or another for the rest of my life. I know that I could spend a lifetime working with and studying food, and still not know everything there is to know, and on a very basic level that excites me. For now I have my little restaurant and I take the good with the bad. I’m still looking for a good poet to write the Ballad of Chef Sean though. Any takers?
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