Morning Shift vs Night shift

I always preferred nights, more action....... I hated getting up early.

Both are fun, IMO.

 

I like working lunch sometimes, because our menu is more laid back, and it's a nice break from the crazyness that is dinner service, the food is dumbed down a bit, but it's still fun working a lunch rush if one of the lunch guys is off.

 

But, given the choice, i'd rather work dinner service any day of the week.

Love the early AM  times when I can check my inventory,  and prep what I need in quiet relaxed enviorment., and to check what they used night before.

I liked the morning, got to see what was fresh and available that day, write my menu based on whatever came in over the fax/email overnight and get cracking.  It was just me, my prep guys and the radio.

12:00-22:00 is the best shift IMO. Go in, do service, do prep between 3-5, do service, go home. No setting up, no doing big prep jobs (these usually get done between 8:00-12:00), no closing down. All action, and no jobs that I don't like doing.

if you are a line cook and don't need to deal with sales people, management meetings, or phone calls and don't have a young family at home then working nights is what the cooking business is all about. not just the job but the lifestyle as well. i know that lots of people here will disagree with me but it's just the way it is, you'll rarely see five cooks passionately discussing that days lunch service over mochachinos at 4:30; they're all on bus home but walk into any bar in any downtown at  midnight and you can pick out the cooks. i also agree with kingofkings that the 12-whenever shift is pretty good too.

Night, I can't get up early and for the reasons rbrad stated.

Mornings for sure. There's nothing like the smell of Napalm in the morning!

I always liked being the first one in the kitchen for the day.

 

Dave

Wait a sec....... there are day AND night shifts?!?  I just remember going in when the clock said AM and leaving when the clock said AM. 

I often never had a choice, but rather the specs of the job determined whether it was a morning (7am - 5pm) job or night (11am - 10:30pm).

One of the "dangers" of working a morning shift is that it's easier to get stuck there way past your shift technically ends, where that won't happen with a night shift.

I've been doing a lot of 12pm-10pm shifts the last couple weeks, all but Sunday when it's 11am-7pm... I've got to say that I like it a lot more

Fridays I get to sneak out at 8 or 830, Tuesday when I'm lucky and always Wednesday off, ending up somewhere in the 57-60 hour range a week. I think, for me at least, I'm in the sweet spot. I don't have to get up and open and start breads or put the prime rib in and I don't have to close and worry about stragglers or clear down

The time between lunch and dinner service can be boring though. I'm usually the only one there for 2-3 hours while chef meets with the owner and deals with suppliers, ect for our deliveries. Switch line from lunch to dinner stuff, break down whatever meat need to be cut, get veg and starch in and ready on backup to go I., make a sandwich or chicken breast to eat, start sauces, gravies, jus, ect as the line cooks walk in and take a 15 minute smoke break. Good routine so far

Today is 3pm-close though =/ lol

Just remembering back to my good ol' days working on the line...

 

I always preferred having my station - whichever it was - be solely mine.  Closing up at night and leaving it prepped and organized; or if lacking then at least I knew exactly what I needed to do in the AM.  Unless it were my clone working it when I wasn't, I could never handle working my station without that continuity.  On the occasions when I was out of the restaurant for a cooking demo or off-site event, coming back would always take an extra 1/2 hour to get it reset to the point where I could work "blind".

I was doing some observing Saturday night because of a post I read on here, might have been from you, but I know you were in the thread... anyway, you can always tell a good cook by how well he gets his routine down. I would talk to each person on the line individually and see how well they could continue with the tickets. The most senior line cook didn't miss a beat, joking and laughing with me all while dropping down in lowboys, checking tickets, calling times, and getting his plates ready

The second guy, while not as smooth, just the same. Pretty fluid in how he went through clearing the board

The last one, who's been with us ~2 weeks now would have brief moments where you could tell she would forget what she was doing or where she was going next

Then I jumped on line during rush and noticed when I left my water bottle on the pass instead of above my grill, I would reach for the water bottle knowing it wasn't there, then totally forget what I was doing. My body went for muscle memory after thinking "burger, meunster, melt, bottle, ???????????"

No water bottle found then I would be lost. It was very interesting. The point is, closing and opening your own station is best... lol

I've actually figured out a (to my mind) superior way to set up my station, but because I share it no-one else is on board with it, so I can't use it.

But, on the other hand it is nice when they stick 3 chefs on a Sunday night, with 6 covers booked and you go in on a Monday morning and struggle to find a single thing to prep.

Swings and roundabouts I guess