Just moved to a new location of a very high volume chain.

They don’t follow heath code regulations. They are dirty. Everything smells like the mop sink.

I’ve tried to put proper cooling/fifo regulations in place in the 2 months I’ve been here. Been preaching during out weekly manager meetings, leaving notes in our shift logs…. But every week my exec. Tells me to do something else.

This other manager has made my life hell. Her and the gm are best friends and I’m being micro managed.

There’s no integrity in terms of food quality. They LITERALLY MADE CROUTONS IN THE FRYER. no seasoning, no Parmesan… just fried bread.

I’m in a contract for moving out here. I have to pay fucking $4000 to pay the moving truck off. I’m really thinking about asking for a loan because I can’t keep working somewhere that bo one fucking cares about.

All senior citizens. We watched it unfold.

So this was about 10 years ago. Busy, high end Italian place, there was a grill dude, pantry, myself on pasta/saute and then the chef/sous on expo/calling wheel or whatever.

This particular Thursday saw out utterly fucking braindead sous puts a giant stock pot with about 15 little cans of condensed milk and water on the back of the stove just before service to make "dulce de leches".

Not a big deal normally, but he failed to tell either me or grill dude that he'd done so and proceeded to forget about it entirely. It gets super busy, and in the middle of the shit hear a bunch of very loud "POP PoP Poppps" and suddenly can lids are flying like ninja stars and there's a hot caramel like substance EVERYWHERE.... Like on the fairly tall ceilings, hoods, stove. The water had boiled out entirely and heated the cans until pressure was too much. To this day I dunno how nobody was injured. I am not exaggerating when I say they flew like ninja stars.

Yeah I know, my stove I should be aware, but dude slid this shit on a back burner when we were offline before service, and it was a pot big enough you couldn't see over the top. Figured it was stock, and then was just too slammed to remember about shit I didn't personally start.

I'm 26 years old. I've been working in a hospital cafe for almost 5 years. The company is Compass Group and the support service is Touchpoint. It's the first and only job I've had. This job was cool when I first started but after being here all of this time I've realized it's really a crappy workplace.

1. We don't measure ingredients for our recipes. Our prep sheets have ingredients but no measurements, supplies, or directions on how to prepare dishes. This is a problem because we keep running into this issue where our food has no consistency. Each week it's always a problem where our food is either too salty, too bland, it doesn't taste right, it's not cooked all of the way, etc. Every time someone makes a dish, it's different between each person. Every time we make a dish, it's different. If we followed a strict recipe that had measurements, supplies, and directions we wouldn't have this issue. This also helps control food costs. They've been getting on us about spending too much money.

2. The company doesn't feed their staff. I feel like as employees we should at least get one free meal a day or at least an employee discount. No, we have to pay full price just like everyone else.

3. There's no portion-control. What happens a lot as well is we either give too much or too little food and they're all getting charged the same price for it. I feel like what could help alleviate this problem is having the food pre-portioned or charge by weight.

4. They've been cutting hours. We were working 37.5 hours a week: 7.5 hours a day. They're now cutting hours down by 1 hour to make it 6.5 hours a day.

5. There's been bullying and sexual harassment. There's been bullying and sexual harassment that goes on that managers do nothing about.

I've come to realize this job is really a piece of crap and I hate that I put up with this for the last 5 years. I am in school right now and I am hoping to get into Nursing school next year.

Sorry for the rant, but I just needed to get this off my chest.

I have a full time job that pays a pretty decent amount but I have free time after work that I would like to monetize. The tough part is I need it to not interfere with my main job (work hours from 6:30 am to 5pm). I’m happy to do any job in the house so long as they pay me in USD but I would need certain weeks off (for on-call weeks and vacations which will all be scheduled 3+ months in advance), and no weekend shifts. I’m eager, a quick learner, and am willing to get any certs I need to.

Is that possible in a kitchen or am I being entirely unreasonable in my expectations?

Edit: sounds like my schedule wouldn’t be a good fit in a kitchen. That sucks, but the search for paying off student loans with something besides Uber continues I guess.

Good morning, Chefs! I'm a Cook with 13 years of experience, and tomorrow will be my first day in a Fine Dining kitchen (you could say it's designed to earn a Michelin star), and I'm extremely nervous! I've always worked in restaurants with Mediterranean or traditional cuisine, and due to a recent offer, I'm now entering the world of fine dining. The restaurant's theme is fish and seafood, which I'm comfortable with, but it's the service itself that worries me. Moreover, the head chef has very high expectations of me and has even expressed the desire for me to become his sous-chef.

I'd like to ask those who have had this experience or those currently working in such restaurants for any "tips" or insights into the differences in this type of service compared to others. If there are any books I can "study" or TV series that can shed some light on this type of kitchen, that would be greatly appreciated.

I apologize if I sound silly, but this is something that has been on my mind, and I'm not usually someone who gets nervous in the kitchen, even during busy services. I'm not sure if it's because I admire the chef and don't want to disappoint him, or simply because this is something I've always wanted to do but never had the opportunity.

Thank you, Chefs, for taking the time to read!

What is the best food processor used in restaurants?

I'm a transgender man, and I've been in the industry for 4 years now, and usually everyone has been very kind and accepting of me. Older kitchen workers will sometimes ask me some mildly invasive questions, but it's usually all in good faith and just wanting to learn more about trans people.

However, at my current job, I'm a chef, and my head chef has been awful to me ever since he sat me down when he was still just a normal chef like me and asked me some really gross sexual questions about my gender and sexuality. I answered the more tame ones and refused to acknowledge the ones asking about my genitals and sexual preferences (I'm a gay man and he seems to assume I'm just a lesbian trying too hard). Now that he's head chef, he's been going behind my back telling other kitchen employees that I'm not a real man, and he won't acknowledge me as one because I "haven't had bottom.... stuff... done yet". This is my first experience with someone this weirdly obsessed with my orientation and gender presentation, and the fact that he's my superior now has made it so much worse. At least he's keeping it behind my back, but it's almost like he's trying to get me to quit. I don't know why he thinks that's a good idea, because I'm the only regular chef right now because they haven't hired a replacement for him yet, and if I quit then he's gotta cover all the opens and closes himself.

Anyways I just wanted to hear others' experiences with shit like this and how they handled it. I'm working with my supervisor to try and get something done, but we're probably not going to hear anything back until Monday.

If you remember me, I was the one who quit their job after 2 years for not getting a raise after doing a chef's job as a dishwasher/prep cook. I also wrote about starting a new job which is why I'm here today. I quit my line cook job and I think it was a good decision.

The week before quitting, I started having panic attacks again and my college work was building up because of the late hours and understaffed workplace. Now, I blame myself for biting off more than I could chew with the homework, but this new job was a lot more than I bargained for. I wasn't told about the hours, long term expectations, and drama.

I told them I couldn't work full time because I'm a student and what did they do? They gave me full time hours, made me work doubles and even do work related errands on my breaks. Mind you, I only held this job two months so it wasn't too bad but it was enough to start the panic attacks. I remember one night I was so overstimulated that I couldn't think or sleep the rest of the night. I was also told that I was apparently supposed to assume the position of sou in a very short amount of time and learn EVERYTHING by then even though the head chef wasn't even doing as much as me because they were always on the phone. There was also the constant drama which was unbearable and unnecessary and was often stirred up by the chef, for example, a lesbian coworker was accused of being a predator by the chef for giving a 17yr old coworker a birthday card. It felt like the job I quit from all over again.

Now I've decided I want to take a break for a few weeks and work on myself and finish school. I want to make it clear I don't hate anyone in this situation. Although I didn't give notice because I was literally having a panic attack while I quit a few hours before my shift, I was respectful through text even though the chef was being unprofessional and petty. Everyone is to blame. I shouldn't have jumped back into the life so fast after quitting and they shouldn't have dropped so much work on me after I expressed my very little availability. I asked the guy dishwasher I smoke weed with after work if he could bring me my things and he told me he quit the day after when he dropped my stuff off. This man is hardworking and even though he's in his late 40s, he's a bad ass little Mexican dude.

I can already feel my mind untangling a little bit and my life is slowly composing itself again. I'm going to focus on taking care of myself more. Infact, yesterday was the first Saturday in two years of being a full-time college student and part-time/full-time cook that I had off and I had a day outing and haven't seen life like that in a long time.

One last thing. I swear I'm not a job jumper or someone who seeks laziness or an easy life with an easy job. I could have chosen any other industry to work in during college but I chose culinary because I wanted to know what that life was like and I wasn't afraid to get my hands dirty and work. Many people who know me closely even know that when I quit or step back from something, it must truly be something difficult that is making me rethink things.

Do yall think I made the right call? Feel free to leave me your thoughts.

TL:DR Quit my new job after a month and I quit my previous job a week before taking this one on. I was having bad anxiety and conflict between the job and college. I'm taking time off now to work on myself a little bit and regroup as I finish off college.

We shouldnt spend our entire waking lives in these tiny kitchens feeling guilty about a totally normal and common thing that happens multiple times an hour. And of course I'm not gonna just not say sorry, coz I'm civilised, I just dont like the implication of guilt that comes with it.

Can we find a word to replace sorry for this context? Like if I stand on someone's toes I'd genuinely rather just shout "hoya hoya" each time than make some meek and insencere apology.

It's a quiet friday

So I work at a steakhouse, and today I fucked up real bad. I was at work today and was in the middle of service and was busy as hell and I had cooked some tempura mushrooms for a $400 steak platter, and the mushrooms happened to go on it. The plate went out and it was returned shortly after and the chef showed me what could only be my hair because I have the longest hair in the kitchen. He wasn’t as mad as I thought, but he said that the restaurant was gonna pay for it so it was going to come out of my paycheck. I was extremely mad but I knew that I fucked up. Has anyone experienced something like this?

I’ve told this story so many times and it’s lost on non-kitchen people.

I worked in the kitchen of a higher end retirement home a while back. They had multiple kitchens and this one was supposed to have a restaurant feel, so the line was open and there were fancy waitstaff, the whole deal. We had daily specials and on this day we had chicken wings on special. They WAY under-prepped for the night and at around 5:30 we threw as many frozen as wings we could fit in a giant metal bowl and put it under a cold tap in the prep sink, full blast. When we fully ran out of wings, the kitchen manager decided to step in. Keep in mind, he is the guy that manages the people who run the kitchens, he doesn’t serve a function in the operation of the kitchen. He approves purchases and walks through every once in a while.

This guy grabs one basket from each of the (2) fryers, brings it back to the sink, uses the baskets as colanders and dumps the bowl over them. Carries both HEAVILY dripping baskets straight from the sink and drops both in each respective fryer. No one knew this was happening to stop him, it actually took longer than I thought for the basin to bubble over into a frenzy that ended up covering the entire floor in oil. Full size flat-top, char, probably 3 other stations and 5 staff trying to dance around each other.

Full stop. During one of the busiest nights this team had seen together, we had to shut everything down and deal with the worst monster mess I’ve ever seen.

He was just trying to help and I don’t hold that action against him. But, after the chaos, he walked away and didn’t show his face for the rest of the night.

Something I’m grateful for now is it was a very new kitchen, wheels on everything, very little muck hidden to clean up along with the relatively clean oil.

Saw someone else share a grease fire story so here’s mine.

Working grill at a relatively new job, notice the Debris tray under the grill hasn’t been changed and has stacked up a bit of gunk.

Middle of service a small fire starts in the tray, I pull it out and the other line guys walk over dropping salt on it but it’s not going out and it’s getting bigger. I run and grab a cup of water, instinctively, I throw it on the debris and a poof of fire all blows up in our face

I'm wondering if I could invent a job as a Corporate Dining Service Consultant. Hear me out: My strengths are in organizing a kitchen environment and streamlining processes thereby making what you need to accomplish in the kitchen easier. (Please don't think I'm thinking I'm all that...I just love to make things run better and I think I'm pretty good at it.)

I have done this at every job I've ever worked at; example: making production sheets that actually reflect what is produced by job area or shift. I've organized sheet to shelf inventory systems and order guides. I make closing checklists and deep cleaning task lists for each shift and position. I've made training manuals for each position which include servers, cooks, prep, utility, as well as photographs and descriptions of the standards expected by each position. I just finished working on a tray tag system for my current memory care facility which enables the cook the plate the correct meal and the caregiver to easily identify the resident to serve the residents. I've also done a cheat sheet for State Inspections for each position so when the State walks in, we each know what we need to do as well as organize the temp logs, MSDS sheets and equipment maintenance schedules.

Every time I bring on a new team member and I train them, I'm told that I have made learning the job so much easier and I'm very organized and it helps them a lot. I hear a lot about how many food service directors are very disorganized and run out of food, don't have the correct tools, don't know how to communicate etc.

So I wonder if there is a market for people to pay me to come in, spend a month or so with the company and see how it works and help to make improvements. I know I'd have to avoid stepping on toes, but I wonder if there's a job like that out there or places who would be able to use my skills. What thinks you, Reddit?

my coworker left oil on the stovetop and I was sitting in the back chilling when one of the servers was like "what's in that pot? it's smoking a lot"

realized what was happening and went Oh Shit and raced over to fix the problem

carefully moved it off the burner and lifted the lid to see how bad it was and it fucking burst into flame

immediately dropped the lid back on and looked at the server next to me like Wow that just happened

my coworker then said "So we can't even cook chips in there?" NO. NO WE CAN NOT COOK CHIPS IN THERE RIGHT NOW.

fuck man we all make jokes about this place burning down but jesus christ that was a close one

Hello! Can you give me advice that worked in your kitchen, how can i get rid off the smell of my kitchen cabinets where i store plates, spoons, etc.

! I need really good stories kitchen. Thank you!!!!!