This clipbpard was one we used for prep sheets at Carnival. You can see all the marks where the markers bled through the paper.
Photo by Mike Schacht
I remember getting up that day and being in a good mood despite the fact that work was probably going to be sheer and utter chaos. Mother’s day brunch was usually the most painful shift of the entire year. It was very busy, plus it was brunch food, which if you’ve ever cooked eggs professionally, can be a nightmare. But for whatever reason, I woke up feeling great and figured I’d just go with it. The days before had been spent planning, discussing, obsessing, and praying about mother’s day with my sous chefs and staff. Even though it was definitely challenging I felt we had planned for every contingency. There were about 900 reservations. Yes, you read that right. Now it was spread out, not just brunch but dinner as well. We would be open from 11 am until 9 pm that night. I remember not being happy that we were open for dinner as well, it made staffing a real challenge.
But somehow we figured it out and I was happy with all our plans. I showed up at 8 am the next day and the prep cooks were already running around yelling to each other in Spanish. Because it was a different menu, I was bombarded with questions the minute I stepped in the door. How much french toast batter to make? How do we make Tortilla Espanola? How much do we make? How many sheet trays of bacon do we cook? It was endless. But that was the whole point of my getting there so early, I knew it would be a little chaotic, I was ok with it.
As the line cooks started to arrive I talked to them about the menu and what they needed to have on their stations. It was a fairly easy menu, I tried to make it as painless as possible. I was feeling good, I had brought donuts, and it all seemed to be coming together. Maybe Mother’s day brunch wouldn’t be that bad after all. Once the sous chefs got there I talked to them about what needed to be done and they started helping the cooks finish whatever prep was left and I headed to the pre-shift meeting. About this time is when I started to get a little worried. As I walked across the dining room to the back bar area I saw there were already a good amount of people waiting at the bar. We weren’t even open yet.
The pre-shift meeting at Carnivale was not like other restaurants. There were about 25 servers, 3 managers, 10 server assistants, 2 barbacks, 6 bartenders, 2 hostesses, 2 sous chefs, and one tired chef. Usually, I had the sous chefs talk at the meetings, go over specials, talk about seasonal items, any kitchen issues, that sort of thing. But today I wanted to do it. I wanted to make it light-hearted and fun. No one likes working Mother’s day brunch, most people would rather be with their mother or asleep. Plus add on to that most of the staff were working doubles to cover dinner shift as well. So when it was my turn I got up in front of everybody and started out with a question.
“Did everyone call their mothers today?”
Some people laughed, a few smiles.
“I’m serious, call your mother. Look, I know no one wants to be here. No one wants to work brunch let alone Mother’s Day brunch. It will probably be painful in parts. There will be people that have issues, people that need more attention, people that will complain, people that will ask you silly questions, that will annoy you and make you run around like your pants are on fire. It’s ok. At some point, everyone here is going to be in the weeds. It will be ok. Let’s do the best we can, and then get the fuck out of here. Let’s seat ‘em feed ‘em and get them out of here as soon as possible so we can go home. Who’s with me?”
The room erupted in applause. I was just being honest, which I think people appreciated. I headed back to the kitchen to check on staff meal. So since so many servers were working doubles, there wasn’t a time when everyone could sit down together at the same time and have staff meal. So what we decided to do was put out cold-cut sandwiches and soup. That way people could stop in the kitchen and help themselves when they had time. I think we made ham and cheese sandwiches or something like that and chili I think. There were a lot of people to feed, in addition to the people that were working brunch, there were other people starting later, and we had to make sure they were fed as well. So I made sure we had someone keeping an eye on it all day.
As the first few tickets started coming into the kitchen I went through the dishes with the cooks. I showed them how to plate up the brunch items and talked about how to execute them when it got busy. I showed one of the cooks how to make the French Toast. She didn’t have a ton of experience but the only she had to do was make French Toast, somebody else would plate it for her. I warned her it might get a little hectic and if she wanted she could cook some ahead of time in case she got slammed with tickets. She assured me she could cook them to order, no problem. I highly doubted this but for whatever reason decided to let it go. I honestly didn’t think we would sell that many.
As tickets started rolling in, I remember calling out the orders.
“ Two French Toast. Four French Toast. Six French Toast all day”
And just like that, she was in the weeds. It was 11:30.
“Four more French Toast, 10 all day.”
Now I was really nervous. I sent a sous chef over to help her.
“Four more French Toast, 14 all day.”
Ok, I’m starting to freak out a little. Another ticket came in.
“2 chilaquiles, 2 French Toast, 16 French Toast all day“
Starting to panic now, just a little.
“New order, 3 chilaquiles, 2 French Toast 18 all day”
Ok, now I’m in panic mode. My sous chef turned around and gave me a look of horror. They were almost out of batter. I closed my eyes just for two seconds. I had to keep it together, it was too early to lose my mind. I calmly walked over to the pastry chef and asked if he could help make some more French Toast better real quick. He nodded and ran. I walked back to the line and walked behind the line. I told my sous chef that it was ok, just do the best you can. One ticket at a time no worries. Soon the tide started to turn. We were getting the French Toast out of the kitchen and now people were ordering chilaquiles like crazy, but it was fine. The cook working that station was crazy fast. I wasn’t worried. Until I remembered that the eggs that were supposed to garnish the chilaquiles came off the same station as French Toast. Oh no.
I had about twenty bowls of chilaquiles in the window waiting for a fried egg to go on top. But my sous chef was on it and he threw me a whole sheet tray of fried eggs and I was putting the eggs on as the food runners were taking them out of the window. The ticket machine was really going now and the kitchen became loud with the clanging of pots and pans and sizzling fire from the grill. Once we got through that initial pain it started to even out. The tickets were more evenly spread out across stations, and food started to go out of the kitchen faster. Every table seemed huge, 8 tops, 12 tops, a few 20 tops. The food runners were grabbing the plates as fast as I could tell them where to go and whisked the food away. At one point I looked at the board and there were two full rails of tickets, that’s about twenty tables or so. I was having a hard time keeping up, the cooks were now throwing the food in the window at a steady clip and I was trying to get the dishes on the trays for the food runners as fast as I could. I also didn’t want the food to get cold.
I was literally standing in the middle of the kitchen with people running all around me. It was like being in the eye of the storm. There was a buzz in the dining room I could hear even though I was in the kitchen, you would hear it when the food runners opened the doors to the dining room. Tickets were coming out of the machine now at a steady clip. The sous chefs were walking up and down the line helping out here and there. Even though it was very busy it all seemed to flow, and my stress level started to go down a bit. I looked at the clock and it was now 1:30, it was starting to die down. I walked the line telling the cooks they did a good job and talked to them for awhile. A few minutes later tickets stopped coming into the kitchen for the most part, just one or two here and there. I told the sous chefs I needed to sit down for a few minutes, I was tired and my body hurt. I told them I just needed 20 minutes. I also begged them to pay attention to the ticket machine. If it started getting busy again that they should come and get me right away. I didn’t want everything ti go down in flames again.
I headed downstairs to my office. Once there I closed the door and sat down, lowered my head and closed my eyes. I was trying to relax for a few before going back upstairs, I knew it was going to get busy again soon. Usually the chaos would come in waves, although there were times it didn’t seem to stop, those times were frightening. But I sat there, eyes closed and thought good thoughts,
After about 30 minutes I figured I should head back upstairs. I could hear the murmur of people as I mad my way up the stairs. The stairs leading to the offices at Carnivale are next to the main bar. When I got to the top of the stairs I could see that the bar was packed. Now I was worried. I made my way though the crowd, across the dining room and into the kitchen. When I opened the kitchen door I saw chaos. One of the food runners had a whole string of tickets in his hand and was trying to call them out. The cooks were asking all kinds of questions and the ous chefs were nowhere to be seen. Immediately I became angry. Hadn’t I asked them to keep an eye out for this? Where the fuck were they? The cooks were spinning in circles there were so many tickets. I walked up to the window, grabbed all the tickets and started calling them out. I was calling them out in a very loud voice because I was pissed and stressed. Why would they just leave the line? Where were they? I felt like screaming and I could feel my face get hot with rage. The tickets just kept coming and now servers were coming in the kitchen and asking where their food was, it was taking so long. At this point I felt like my head was going to explode. LIz came in the kitchen to check on me but also to see if the kitchen was alright. She approached me and saw all the tickets and asked me if I was alright.
“I don’t know where the fuck my sous chefs are! Where the fuck did they go and what the fuck is going on?!”
I could tell by the look she gave me she was worried about me. I told her it was fine and that we were a little behind but in would be ok in a few minutes once we got soe of the big tables out of the kitchen.
I was standing there at the pass, angry, seething, arms crossed, wondering where my osus chefs were. These guys were usually dependable, solid guys. They were exceptional sous chefs I felt, there was no doubt in my mind they would go on to bigger and better things. The cooks were yelling table numbers at me, telling me what was next out of the kitchen. I nodded but was only half paying attention. My head was pounding, and I knew I needed to calm down. It was then I decided to walk down to the end of the line, to check on the hot appetizer cooks to make sure they were ok. The kitchen at Carnivale is huge, 4000 square feet. The line itself is very long and the dishpit is even further away. When I walked towards the end of the line, I saw what was going on. The sous chefs were washing dishes. One was working the machine, the other was washing pots and pans for the line. I hurried over and asked them why they were washing dishes and they told me one of the dishwashers called off and the other ones were running late. So we would have no dishwasher for an hour or so. Immediately I felt like a huge pile of shit.
I had assumed they were fucking off somewhere, and they were washing dishes, busting their asses. I couldn’t even talk, I just walked away. What a monumental asshole I was becoming I thought to myself. I was becoming like those chefs you hear about all the time that yell and scream and act like tyrants. That wasn’t me. I had worked in those kitchens and vowed never to let that happen to me. But here I was assuming the worst of two guys who had nothing but work hard for me the entire tie they worked there. Waves of guilt and regret washed over me and I stood at the pass, not talking, but trying to expedite anyway, just pointing and mumbling to the food runners where to go. It started to die down a bit and Liz walked in the kitchen again to check on me.
I looked at her and reminded myself how fortunate I was to have met her here at Carnivale. How lucky I had been my entire career. But I could feel myself turning into something I didn’t like. The stress was affecting me in ways I hadn’t expected. I had begun to feel like everyday was a fight. Most days of the week, my stomach would start to hurt before I walked into work. On days I had meetings with owners my stomach would hurt so bad I would drink Pepto Bismal right out of the bottle. I didn’t like where this was heading.
I looked Liz in the eye. “I can’t work here anymore.”
She looked at me for a minute before answering “ I understand”
And that was it, we ame up with an exit strategy for both of us and about a year later we were gone.
I think this little chapter most makes me regret never having worked with you Mark. That would’ve been a blast.
Phew. Held my breath as I was reading this.