What do you get when you combine a limited budget, a low priority kitchen task and specific time constraints? Shift meals. For those who have never worked in the service industry, this may seem like an alien concept. However, normal work environment rules don’t apply to us. Regular hours? No, we don’t leave until every last one of our customers do. If you’re busy, don’t even think about the traditional coffee or cigarette break. Some nights are crazy enough you don’t have time for a glass of water or you realize you’ve had to go to the bathroom for three hours. Don’t even get me started on the low-level sexual harassment that would probably get you fired in most other environments. (That’s fodder for another time…ever been Credit Carded in public?)
So most establishments try to start the night off on a good note. Hence, the Shift Meal. These can run the gamut from down right delicious to something you wouldn’t feed your dog. Not if you wanted him to sleep in your bedroom. The quality of food given to the staff is not a reflection of the caliber of the restaurant itself; sometimes the greasy spoon chef puts together a chicken pot pie to dream about, while the most glorified cook in the valley has his sous chef serve frozen veggie medley dripping in grease.
Cooking cheaply for a large group of people is never easy. The sheet pan pizza or the baked potato bar are always winners. The ingredients are varied enough that the kitchen can use up whatever is necessary. Burgers or fried chicken are usually appreciated, but hopefully a salad or vegetable will be an option. The infamous B4D (Breakfast For Dinner) is also a fairly safe bet, especially on New Year’s Day or the day after the company party. A pan of scrambled eggs and some deep-fried bacon: delicious.
But shift meals have a dark side. Repetition is often the biggest culprit. Anything gets old four days in a row. A co-worker came up with an idea of an inter-restaurant salad dressing exchange just for staff meals after facing the same five choices for years. Worse than just repeating the idea of a dish, is when the actual dish shows up over and over again. Nothing says E. coli like a pan of mac ‘n’ cheese reheated over the course of a work week. A smart cook will at least camouflage those noodles into Grandma’s Potato Noodle Casserole or creamy tomato soup for day three.
When I actually look at the numbers, when I realize I eat shift meals for dinner more often than I eat anywhere else, I don’t want to sound unappreciative. The food really does set the tone for the rest of the night. So to those chefs out there that really put some thought and love into our meals, on behalf of servers everywhere I’d like to say, “thank you.” To those cooks who leave our dinners as an afterthought or as a way to use that fish (is that fish?) that didn’t make it into the walk-in refrigerator last night, we’re talking about you behind your back. I just keep waiting for the expose on what those “Top Chef” contestants actually feed their staff.
