Taking One for the Team

Alcohol greases the wheels of this industry.  The profit margins are the highest, but so are the problems.  Especially when the bosses or chefs are involved.  Boundaries? Rules?  Not only can those be broken or redefined, but those above you on the chain of command often don’t want to drink alone.  Now, if the chef starts ordering rounds for the kitchen at clean-up time, no one is really going to complain.  However, if you walk in the door at 4 p.m. and the boss wants do shots, its going to be a long night.

The problems caused by one drunk chef can often be contained, but a whole kitchen? Watch the problem snowball.  If the chef is expediting (making sure the correct food is timed properly and going to the right tables) things obviously get screwed up.  So the chef yells at his line cooks, who decided that they deserve to drink if they have to deal with his anger.  Well, heck, if the chefs are all buzzed and screwing up the food to our customers, then the front of house wants in on the action.  Any owner or chef running this kind of kitchen probably has ways around those pesky alcohol pour costs (Oops! Who dropped that bottle of Jameson?) allowing a night like this to become a common occurrence.

Imagine a restaurant where the workers are trying to put out a great product and provide good service, but the Head Honcho is often well on his way to drunk when they show up to work.  The bartender can’t cut him off without causing a scene and risking his job, but everyone knows the night is going downhill fast.  So between the bar and the other cooks, they determine the best course of action: speed up the process.  If he can drink enough in the two hours before the restaurant gets busy, maybe they can get him out of the way.  Different staff members could get away with only downing a shot or two and then let someone else drink with him.  By the time they’re slammed with customers out front, the staff has poured him into a cab or let him nap in the back office.

Unfortunately the plan didn’t always work and then the night would become disastrous. How do you explain to a table why the chef is wandering the restaurant without his shoes?  Or that the loud thud, thud, thud echoing through the dining room was simply the boss having a little trouble with the stairs.  We knew he had a real problem when he was slurring and stumbling while greeting a certain VIP (hint, hint: It rhymes with  Mice-Resident Brainy) and his secret service agents.  But lots of nights our plan to send him home before the damage was done did work, with a little effort on our parts.

Maybe you’ve seen servers taking a shot while at work.  Maybe you’ve thought that their actions were irresponsible.  But maybe they were just trying to help the flow of the whole restaurant – the behind the scenes motivation to imbibe to keep everything running smoothly.  They were just taking one for the team.

 

Secret Server

Terra
Tom Evans
Haagen Dazs