Your First Kitchen

I’ve seen a lot of requests on Facebook boards and such for advice for new Exec’s and K.M.’s regarding leadership in the kitchen and what to do when you finally get to the top of the mountain. Here is a general list of stuff to keep in mind. We are, of course, starting from the assumption that you’re going to make kick-ass, delicious food first and foremost…all of this comes after.

1.       Don’t be a Dick. If you came up with a Dick for a Chef, break the cycle. Do not rinse, lather, and repeat. It’s going to be difficult but resist the programming. You set the tone for your kitchen. If you are being a jerk, screaming, and throwing pans your cooks will either quit and peace out or think that’s okay and start screaming and throwing pans too and that’s just loud. Running around angry for the sake of being angry is stupid…trust me you will have plenty of things to get legit mad about.

2.       What’s broken? Make a list and start haranguing whoever has the checkbook right away. Owners do NOT like spending money. The sooner you discover what equipment you need, or what needs to be fixed the sooner you can get someone on it. Know your equipment, how it works, who can come out to fix stuff when it goes down and what it takes to get them to push you to the head of the line when your oven catches fire on Memorial Day. Because it will.

3.       Set your standards and live by them. If you don’t want people to be late…don’t be late. If you want your cooks to treat everyone with respect, speak with respect and call people out when they step out of line. If you want the cooler to stay clean and organized then help keep it that way. Put the sear on the steak the way you want it and show everyone what your expectations are right from the beginning so there are no surprises. Taste the food and insist they taste it too. No one likes change so the faster you can rip the Band-Aid off and enact whatever changes you’re going to make, the better.

4.       Get to know your minions. If you’re coming into a new kitchen you should work a little time next to everyone. Get to know them personally but also get to know the way they work. Are they fast? Are they clean? Are they going to set off every OCD alarm bell in your system just by the way they hold a knife? You need to know who has that fourth and fifth gear they can pull out of their ass when things get hairy and watching someone julienne a bag of onions is a good indicator of that. You may have a dishwasher that can out-prep your sous chef…you’ll never know until you talk to people. Also, find out how much you’re paying everyone and what kind of disciplinary actions have been taken in the past…this is vital information you need to know as there is almost ALWAYS some kind of pre-existing drama when you walk into a new workplace. Knowing right away who has already been written up for flashing his dick at the servers is all kinds of helpful.

5.       Tear up the floor. Cooking is maybe 1/3 of your job. Personnel and Financial are the other thirds. Check your prices and food costs on every dish…you could be paying through the nose for something random a food rep pushed on your predecessor.  Look at your house recipe file…is it a pile of greasy, marked up shreds of paper or properly costed out and laminated? Is everyone making everything the same way or is there tribal knowledge that needs to be accounted for? Also, your P.O.S. system has tools…use them. What are your top selling items? What’s on the bottom? Compare your production sheets with your sales reports and you can do the math to see how much product is going into the trash. Because it is.

6.       Watch your trash. I’ve had multiple Chefs who went through the trash looking for two things…1. Prep waste. The extra ounce of salmon meat left on the skin or the ends of the celery that could have been trimmed closer would always come back out as an example to do better. And 2. What didn’t the customers eat? They won’t always say they didn’t like something (Yelpers aside), they just won’t eat it. That can be a clue that something is off on your end…preparation, ingredients, freshness…or they just didn’t like the hummus. The fuck you gonna do.

7.       “Hey can you do me a favor?” This is my favorite phrase when I need to “casually command” someone to do something. It’s polite, but not an option. “Hey can you do me a favor and clean the cooler?”, “Hey can you do me a favor and help the dishpit out for a while?”, “Hey can you do me a favor and shut the fuck up??” It’s insanely useful.

8.       It’s Your Kitchen. Setting the tone is important and that means not asking them to do anything they haven’t seen you do already. Take out the trash, organize the coolers the way you want them, help out the dishpit, sweep under the line…do everything you want your staff to do so they know what the expectation is…and by doing these things you can also see when they are actually being done. Kitchen staff can be insanely loyal or make your life a living hell, it all depends on their care and feeding (The secret is Weed, Whiskey, and tender affirmations).

In addition to being a Chef you are a teacher and if you want to be able to take a day off without your phone ringing off the hook you need to teach your crew as much as you can so they don’t need to depend on you for every little thing. Don’t hoard information or worry about people “stealing” recipes. Share them, teach everything you know, this is an exciting time, but remember that everyone is replaceable. You just took over for someone and one day someone else will take over for you. Unless you fuck up and run the operation into the ground.

 Good luck!