So yesterday was Valentine's Day and as you all can imagine it was extremely busy. I work in a restaurant located in a casino and we were open from 11AM to 11PM and were busy from the opening minute until closing. I got in at 4PM and the rush was on and didn't stop. And the way it works in our restaurant is they seat as many people as they can, put in all orders at once, and basically turn the tables as quickly as possible. Which makes them a ton of money but the quality suffers, and on a day like yesterday the result is complete chaos. Because it might take 15-20 minutes just to look at a ticket before you can even fire it and then it sits in the window for another 20 minutes because the servers and runners are unable to get to it. Then you add in the times you have to refire because they took the wrong food out or else they don't pull the expeditor's copy of the ticket so someone's asking for food that's already out. And it was so busy that every station was running out of prep yet you couldn't leave your station because of all the orders coming in. So after we closed tonight and cleaned our stations we all spent close to 3 hours restocking our lines and doing all of our backups.
Anyway, here is the issue I have with my chef. All the line cooks and the 2 Kitchen Supervisors worked an 11 hour day yesterday or close to that. Our Chef came in at 1PM and left at 6PM. That's a 5 hour day! And he left when the dinner rush was starting, although we were already busy at that point. We had to have chefs from other outlets come and help us out. I know it's Valentine's Day and he wanted to be with his wife (or mistresses, whatever). But it's his restaurant! He should be there running it. I know that once you create the menus and you train all the cooks properly you should trust in them to do their jobs. But in my mind if your the chef of a restaurant it means you're there making sure everything is being run properly and that no plate goes out unless it's to your standards. Am I wrong? Is it acceptable for him to cut out after 5 hours on a busy day while the rest of us have to work 11 hours? I'll tell you one thing, no one in the kitchen, whether it's the cooks or supervisors, has any respect for the guy after yesterday. In fact if there were any justice in the world he'd be fired immediately.
Anyway, here is the issue I have with my chef. All the line cooks and the 2 Kitchen Supervisors worked an 11 hour day yesterday or close to that. Our Chef came in at 1PM and left at 6PM. That's a 5 hour day! And he left when the dinner rush was starting, although we were already busy at that point. We had to have chefs from other outlets come and help us out. I know it's Valentine's Day and he wanted to be with his wife (or mistresses, whatever). But it's his restaurant! He should be there running it. I know that once you create the menus and you train all the cooks properly you should trust in them to do their jobs. But in my mind if your the chef of a restaurant it means you're there making sure everything is being run properly and that no plate goes out unless it's to your standards. Am I wrong? Is it acceptable for him to cut out after 5 hours on a busy day while the rest of us have to work 11 hours? I'll tell you one thing, no one in the kitchen, whether it's the cooks or supervisors, has any respect for the guy after yesterday. In fact if there were any justice in the world he'd be fired immediately.
