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One of our owners was almost falling-down drunk tonight. During what was ostensibly some kind of business dinner. It's sort of embarrassing.
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Jun 15, 2014 07:44
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Kimitsu posted:I work in a sushi place, the kind that would look down on Japanese Chipotle, but what kind of knowledge are you asking for? I'm a host/cashier, but 40 minutes for 3 California rolls (if that's all that's being ordered) is pretty lovely by any standard. Im mostly wondering how to get in, what the vibe is like and if it's "worth it". Like I said, our restaurant is a chain and Im tired of serving sushi I wouldn't eat if it wasn't cheap/free for me. Every time a coworker or customer says I make the best sushi I get equally sad as I get happy. But my manager said he worked a stint at a high end place and that you have to be an apprentice for two loving years before they let you make rolls. And I may be young, but that doesn't sound rewarding. Unless apprenticing is way more than he made it out to be because he wants me to replace him so he can get out of this town. In other news, our kitchen manager is leaving in a week because of family matters and he only works two days next week. How we're going to replace him I have no idea. Then the week after that another BoH guy is leaving. That would put us at 3 BoH people 
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Jun 15, 2014 08:56
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That's really the traditional way of things, and holds pretty true for a Japanese-run place. What I've seen happen with new sushi chefs hired where I work is that they spend a couple of days learning our set plates and signature sushi pieces (I work at a place known for having toppings on nigirizushi pieces), then usually they're put on roll-making duty for at least half a year. Usually they get "promoted" to making nigirizushi orders and set plates when the next new guy comes in, but even those with more experience will be put back on maki duty depending on who's working that day. Prep work - preparing the fish when we get it, making sushi rice, cooking the egg omelet, preparing the sauces/toppings, etc. - is usually assigned to a different chef each day, but a new chef would take over fish cleaning and sushi rice making for a while if they're just starting. (Except for tuna. Tuna is always left to the head chef.) Since I'm in New York, a lot of the Japanese newspapers will usually have classified ads for Japanese restaurant workers. The major problem is that they're usually in Japanese (since they tend to have a us-and-them mentality), but we also recently hired a Korean guy with very little prior experience. It's also entirely possible to work at a "less authentic" but still high end place without being/knowing any Japanese; my coworker's Malaysian husband is a sushi chef at Catch, Hung Huynh's seafood restaurant. In those cases getting in shouldn't be any more different than usual: answer an ad, or walk in asking and ready. Kimitsu fucked around with this message at 15:25 on Jun 15, 2014 |
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Jun 15, 2014 15:23
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Murkyhumor posted:How do you afford to stage for six months on a line cooks wage? do you usually work two jobs? My issue is that i'm already working 50+ hours at my paying job, and I can't imagine a fancy place wanting a cook for just 20ish hours a week. It's still way cheaper than going to culinary school.
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Jun 15, 2014 15:56
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When hiring two live-in chefs for 5 direct clients and 5 non-cooking staff, is it reasonable to offer roughly $80k in salary, plus free private room and all meals (provided any meals are self-cooked), per year in NYC? The idea is that one of the two chefs are on-call at any given time, 24/7, without holidays. Is this something the chefs would be able to work out among themselves, or would they need to be scheduled? Is there an usual/accepted way to trial chefs in that sort of an environment without committing to the paperwork of a full hire (that is, 1099 style?)
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Jun 15, 2014 22:48
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Jesus. What are you running, an embassy? A prison?
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Jun 15, 2014 23:08
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UHNW household. They like to be fairly hands-on with the hiring of staff, so they mentioned some of the numbers to me, and I was curious.
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Jun 16, 2014 00:28
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How the hell do you find a chef up to "UHNW" (yes, I had to google it) standards who would agree to be on call or working twelve hours a day 365 days a year? Like, maybe a really brilliant chef got into trouble with a Mexican drug cartel and they're holding his children hostage and are willing to accept installment payments on the ransom? Or is there an order of celibate chef-monks I don't know about?
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Jun 16, 2014 00:55
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Wroughtirony posted:celibate chef-monks
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Jun 16, 2014 11:30
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80k seems awfully low for those kind of hours and a complete lack of holidays for someone with the kind of chops to cater to extremely rich people even with free room and board. It works out to about $18.30/hour at 12 hours per day, 365 days a year, although I'm sure there would be times where both cooks are needed for dinner parties and special occasions. The closest thing to a comparable job that I can think of is an exec chef job in the oil sands that payed in the low six figures with a 2 weeks on, 1 week off schedule that I considered applying for a few years ago. See if your clients will drop the 24/7 requirement as long as there's always something ready to snack on in the fridge or consider hiring a third cook to give everyone a little breathing room. I'm sure that there are staffing agencies in NYC that specialize in this sort of thing. Maybe give a couple of them a call to see what the going rates are.
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Jun 16, 2014 18:23
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He meant 2 chefs, at least one of whom is always available, i.e. they have complementing schedules. In a broader sense though that only makes it very slightly better.
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Jun 16, 2014 19:07
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It's not a twelve hour day every day position though. It's a family that wants there to be someone on site at all times to feed them whenever they want. I'd say 80k is too low even considering room and board are included. They are essentially signing their lives away. If they're looking for a little Fillipina lady that might fly but if you're trying to get someone trained and able to execute at a high level (five course plated dinners for twenty on the fly) it's a stretch. The scheduling seems like something that would be worked out better between the two chefs in any case though. Realistically I'd imagine you could be "on call" and still asleep, just able to jump out of bed and get to work.
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Jun 16, 2014 23:36
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Encourage the rich to eat themselves.
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Jun 17, 2014 00:22
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Kenning posted:One of our owners was almost falling-down drunk tonight. During what was ostensibly some kind of business dinner. It's sort of embarrassing. Our dish pit guy was beyond hammered last night. Like yelling and screaming, breaking several glasses, kicking them vs picking them up. Naturally, management ignored it vs dealing with the insane guy. The joys of working at a lovely chain restaurant
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Jun 17, 2014 05:27
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baquerd posted:When hiring two live-in chefs for 5 direct clients and 5 non-cooking staff, is it reasonable to offer roughly $80k in salary, plus free private room and all meals (provided any meals are self-cooked), per year in NYC? The idea is that one of the two chefs are on-call at any given time, 24/7, without holidays. Is this something the chefs would be able to work out among themselves, or would they need to be scheduled? Is there an usual/accepted way to trial chefs in that sort of an environment without committing to the paperwork of a full hire (that is, 1099 style?) I hope that's 80k per chef... but still a bit ridiculous for 24/7 on call without holidays. If they're really ultra high net worth, either up the pay or be reasonable in the lead time (IE 12-24 hours notice with vacation time able to be scheduled or something) that said, I'm sure if you were paying someone 80k, you could find someone willing to do it - just probably not someone with much self respect. edit : anecdotal - I deal with a lot of rich people - not UHNW, but solidly multi-millionaires in Atlanta. what they do for their 'help', is just actually pay the people they want to do work for them - so that they in turn can have nice lives and afford nice things. There's one guy in particular I'm thinking of - really nice 50 year old guy - who is essentially 'split' between 4 or 5 households. He does everything from gardening to getting a bunch of his friends together to help cater parties, to helping move house, to odd tasks, whatever - and I think each household pays him around $25-50k a year. I'm friends with the dude since we both are doing a lot of work for these rich folks, and he's self admittedly like 'straight out the ghetto' - yet he drives a car about 10x nicer than mine, has a giant mansion down south of town, etc. He's got it figured out man. I just mention this because if this is acceptable for a non-UHNW household, if you actually got money, just pay people! mindphlux fucked around with this message at 07:58 on Jun 17, 2014 |
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Jun 17, 2014 07:49
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Filboid Studge posted:Encourage the rich to eat themselves.
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Jun 17, 2014 08:18
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What's wrong with you fucks, have you all gone soft in my absence? How can you possibly spend 12 hours a day cooking for 10 people unless it's ultra ridic bullshit every day. You know it's probably hubby/wife and some bratty loving kids, and live in whoevers. Also realize that you're probably getting decent digs, in manhattan, so we're talking 1500-2500 a month in free room, throw in free utils too Im sure, as well as eating whatever the gently caress you want, so yeah with two chefs you're getting 80k to spend on blow and whatever on your time off.
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Jun 18, 2014 07:16
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Just went out and saw Chef with the girlfriend tonight. Not a bad movie. Favreau had a few decent scenes where he seemed genuinely passionate about the food, and while it certainly glossed over a lot of the industry it wasn't really blatantly 'wrong' on a whole lot. Anyone else seen it yet?
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Jun 18, 2014 08:33
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Turkeybone posted:What's wrong with you fucks, have you all gone soft in my absence? How can you possibly spend 12 hours a day cooking for 10 people unless it's ultra ridic bullshit every day. You know it's probably hubby/wife and some bratty loving kids, and live in whoevers. Also realize that you're probably getting decent digs, in manhattan, so we're talking 1500-2500 a month in free room, throw in free utils too Im sure, as well as eating whatever the gently caress you want, so yeah with two chefs you're getting 80k to spend on blow and whatever on your time off. You don't get that though, because you need to be ready to work/cater for large groups at no notice 24/7. Which presumably means never being drunk or going anywhere.
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Jun 18, 2014 11:13
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If you could do 2 days on/2 days off alternating with the other guy maybe it'd work? Unless these rich dudes are having parties all the time that would necessitate having two chefs at all tjme.
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Jun 18, 2014 12:37
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Filboid Studge posted:Which presumably means never being drunk or going anywhere. 
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Jun 18, 2014 20:38
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See if that was a live in bartender position I'd be there yesterday.
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Jun 19, 2014 21:14
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wow. one week of working in a real kitchen instead of a diner where literally nobody, customer or owner, cares about what im doing, and i already feel my brain telling me to drink it off. this could be a cool career!
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Jun 20, 2014 03:59
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Over the past few days my Chef has handed in his two week notice as well as one of our veteran lunch guys, a weekend casual dishwasher has told me that he's leaving in a few weeks and another of my main guys is taking August off when his son is born. Since giving his notice, Chef has become a giant prick. He threw a massive tantrum on line last night to the point that I should've sent him home or kicked him off the line. He was still angry about it today and when he found out that the GM wanted to talk to him, Chef told me that if he finds out that I sold him out that he would never forgive me, prompting me to pull him into the fridge and tell him in no uncertain terms that if he ever accused me of something like that again I would kick his rear end, throw him out of the building myself and then kick his rear end again. I think it kinda shocked him since I'm a really level headed guy otherwise. He apologized, we're cool and he was a lot easier to work with afterwards. Now I'm left with the task of hiring at least 3 cooks, a dishwasher and an executive chef. The GM has told me that as much as he likes my work, he thinks I'm not quite ready for the job yet which is fair, but it won't stop me from putting the squeeze on him for a few more bucks if I'm going to be the acting Chef for the foreseeable future.
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Jun 26, 2014 05:10
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Rockzilla posted:Over the past few days my Chef has handed in his two week notice as well as one of our veteran lunch guys, a weekend casual dishwasher has told me that he's leaving in a few weeks and another of my main guys is taking August off when his son is born. Sounds like quite the situation. I've got to say I kind of miss a heated exchange of views in the walk-in as a valid workplace conflict resolution technique. Out of curiosity, why isn't the GM hiring the new exec himself? Not that I don't think you're up to the task, it's just a little strange to be put in charge of hiring your own boss.
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Jun 26, 2014 11:20
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Wroughtirony posted:Sounds like quite the situation. I've got to say I kind of miss a heated exchange of views in the walk-in as a valid workplace conflict resolution technique. Being able to threaten your boss with physical harm and then going back to quoting lines from Billy Madison with him five minutes later is seriously a big reason why I never want to have a real grown-up job. The GM is going to have final say on who we hire as Exec but he'll be looking to me to find someone who is going to be the right fit for the team. This'll be our fourth chef in 3 years which is a turnover rate that I'm not too happy with. Seeing that our other property has been looking for a Chef for over three months, there's an outside chance that I'll just end up getting the job by default anyway.
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Jun 26, 2014 16:03
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Rockzilla posted:Being able to threaten your boss with physical harm and then going back to quoting lines from Billy Madison with him five minutes later is seriously a big reason why I never want to have a real grown-up job. Yeah, that's kind of a warning sign that something's broken, either your hiring methods to keep choosing poor candidates, or your system to keep driving them out.
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Jun 26, 2014 17:00
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Liquid Communism posted:Yeah, that's kind of a warning sign that something's broken, either your hiring methods to keep choosing poor candidates, or your system to keep driving them out. The problem is that upper management is looking for someone with fine dining skills who can still navigate all of the office politics that come with a corporate environment. The chef who's leaving now is a protege of our previous chef. He came in with all of the culinary and administrative skills for the job but none of the people skills, just like the chef before him. This led to the two of us forming a kind of good cop - bad cop dynamic where he would scream bloody murder on the line and then I would smooth things over later with the FOH by making a nice family meal after sternly, but nicely talking with the servers about what went wrong during service and how we'd like to see things handled or something. It didn't help that for whatever reason, the entire building decided that they hated the new chef the second he set foot in the door, probably because of his relation to the previous chef. It's hard not to act like an rear end in a top hat when everybody's already decided that you're an rear end in a top hat. It's a shame too since he can be one of the nicest, most generous people that I know when he's not under pressure from the job. It would seem that it's more important in this place that people like you, culinary skill is secondary. Our residents are going to complain about the food no matter what. They're seniors, it's what they do. Marketing is going to put ridiculous demands on us, that's what they do. Every administrative staff member who fancies themselves a "foodie" is going to tell you how things should be done because that's what foodies do. Making good food and keeping on budget is easy enough but it's how you respond to all of the idiotic requests without making enemies will make or break you here. With all that being said, if anybody's lurking here in Vancouver with a Red Seal and some fine dining experience, send me a PM. I'm still hiring two full time cooks, I can get you $18+/hr, health benefits and a very cushy schedule.
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Jun 27, 2014 19:16
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first friday- holy gently caress, what have i done
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Jun 28, 2014 03:19
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You know whats a bad idea guys? Drinking that Franzia chardonnay you use for cooking. I am going to have such a hangover headache in the morn. I started a butt on the smoker at 4pm, and it still isn't done, so I stayed up, but I have this urge to refill my glass to stay awake while I watch SGDQ speedruns. e: if only I could get Taylor cellars finest 5gal boxes at my local grocer/liquor store, then I could pretend the Franzia is my fancy wine. Chef De Cuisinart fucked around with this message at 06:41 on Jun 28, 2014 |
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Jun 28, 2014 06:36
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Rockzilla posted:With all that being said, if anybody's lurking here in Vancouver with a Red Seal and some fine dining experience, send me a PM. I'm still hiring two full time cooks, I can get you $18+/hr, health benefits and a very cushy schedule. you haven't really sold this place as somewhere that people should want to work, at all, yet.
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Jun 28, 2014 06:45
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EAT THE EGGS RICOLA posted:you haven't really sold this place as somewhere that people should want to work, at all, yet. Emphasizing that "at all", I wouldn't take the job. Hourly pay isn't the end all be all for a lot of us. I've been offered more at shittier hotels, but gently caress that, I just ordered a $5k smoker, and am planning a $45k renovation to my hot line, I don't care about $5k more a year, wife makes all the money anyways!
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Jun 28, 2014 06:50
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To be fair, $18/hour in Vancouver isn't a ton of money anyway. I make close to that and my living expenses are probably half (or less) of what they would be in downtown Vancouver. That said, I do miss the ocean and the mountains...
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Jun 28, 2014 06:52
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Chef De Cuisinart posted:I have this urge to refill my glass to stay awake this is a failsafe sign that you are doing the weekend right
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Jun 28, 2014 07:06
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hello industry thread. i have been doing fine dining full time for one week now and one-line shitposting here but i have some questions regarding my situation! I have only worked diners and fast casual before and have seen many forms of small-scale employee abuse. The kitchen I now find myself in now however is one with a very talented executive chef who is very intelligent. The staff is small and consists of ALL new hires, as it is a small kitchen. In the week that I have been here now, I have seen the executive chef throw pans, scream at anyone and everyone. Yesterday he sent the longest-tenured new guy home early in a rage and it is believed his time at the restaurant is over after 3 weeks. Yesterday was my 2nd non-training day where I was doing more than just watching, and he brought in another new guy with no culinary experience. We got slammed very badly, and it was quite literally ten times busier than my first non-training shift. Naturally this meant that I was slower as I have not lied on my resume and am not an exceptional talent. The entire shift was full of pans being thrown, yelling profanities in six languages which was pretty impressive, threatening to send everybody home and at one point making me sprint a half kilometer to the grocery store and back in a thunderstorm as we ran out of vegetables. My relative buffness was able to allow me to complete that task "faster than he's been able to drive to that store", and earned me a respite from being yelled at for the remainder of the shift! My question is pretty simply this. I have heard that the industry is a brutal one, and have been dicked around on the lower rungs of it for a long time. I have never dealt with an environment like this however! Is this the norm, or is it a sign that very bad things are in store? I find the work interesting and relatively rewarding because I come from an abusive background and have spent time in a mental hospital. If this sort of thing is normal in fine dining I feel I am able to adapt if need be. His culinary skills are legitimately awe-inspiring for me and I don't take the yelling personally at all, as the first eight years of my life were spent being told I am not good enough and am a source of sorrow for my parents. If it is a sign of dysfunction however, I would like to know now so I do not spend the next two weeks in a no-win scenario before being eventually sent home early for a 90 minute commute and forced back into the job hunt! Thank you in advance, thread, and I've enjoyed reading about your exploits! edit: i dont mean the kitchen staff is all new, I mean the kitchen staff is all new, as well as the dishwasher and a couple waiters! Simoom fucked around with this message at 00:02 on Jul 1, 2014 |
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Jun 30, 2014 23:48
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How new is the chef? Running out of not just prepped veg but total stock mid-rush means someone somewhere seriously screwed the pooch on inventory management. Is business usually so variable that you don't have enough stock to handle being actually busy, or is the waste that abysmally bad?
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Jul 1, 2014 00:23
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Thank you for the quick response! I don't have any fine dining friends so I'm kind of hosed here! Well I had one, but that was the new guy who got fired! I've only been there for...six shifts, 4 of them observing/kitchen hand, so I'm not sure how variable business is. The executive chef has owned restaurants since the early 2000s and is highly, highly accomplished. He was a saucier at a prominent french hotel back when I was learning to read, and is an extremely intense man! He has put me in charge of inventory management for my stations as of last night, but he was doing inventory the day before. He told me aside of the other guy last night that it was an unbelievably busy evening, but the entire ordeal has really put the fear of God into me! Not only is he a culinary expert able to berate you in many languages, he has transformed his face into a weapon. I do not mean he is bad looking but rather that he can form a stare that channels pure, unrestrained hate directly into your heart. You can feel his disgust simply by the way he manipulates tiny facial muscles, it's very cool. I can't say I enjoy it so far- it's very interesting and I would like to stick with it, but his threats of sending us all home on what is my 2nd day and pulling friday numbers on a sunday (apparently) kind of concerns me. I really don't want to work in a place where I know that a single moment of rage could mean I'm going home with half my hours worked, but I don't know whether or not that thought is a Bitch Thought to have because I don't know what is normal at this level! A coworker at the diner showed up very extremely drunk one day and was not even sent home, so to see the other chef sent home for a string of mistakes is worrying. He was a culinary school graduate with much more experience than me and I don't know if this level of pressure is normal or not! If there are any other details I am not saying that would make it easier to discern this, please ask!
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Jul 1, 2014 00:40
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I would be getting the hell out of that kitchen as fast as possible if I were you. That sounds like a completely dysfunctional kitchen and not being able to keep cooks for longer than three weeks is completely unsustainable. I mean, the industry has crazy turnover, but that's insane even by restaurant standards and is a sign that something is seriously broken about the situation (hint: it's the chef who is throwing pans and yelling all of the time).
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Jul 1, 2014 01:51
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Simoom posted:Thank you for the quick response! I don't have any fine dining friends so I'm kind of hosed here! Well I had one, but that was the new guy who got fired! I've only been there for...six shifts, 4 of them observing/kitchen hand, so I'm not sure how variable business is. The executive chef has owned restaurants since the early 2000s and is highly, highly accomplished. He was a saucier at a prominent french hotel back when I was learning to read, and is an extremely intense man! This all sounds like 60% of the kitchens I've worked in. Is it a bad sign of things to come? Yes. Is it normal? Unfortunately, sometimes, yes.
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Jul 1, 2014 02:00
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| # ? May 11, 2024 22:24 |
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Your chef is getting angry at a situation he himself created, and taking it out on the staff he himself hired. "Normal" in a restaurant is generally "whatever works", but this doesn't sound like it works. I would be embarrassed to yell/scream/throw things during service and doubt my staff would work any better if I did.
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Jul 1, 2014 03:55
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