During my time as a cook I had ups and downs throughout my career, and they seemed to have no rhythm or reason why. I worked in many restaurants and establishments from a sole proprietorship restaurant to a large corporation. From a small group of 4 cooks to a team of 40+. In some places, I was successful and in some cases I was subpar. The work isn’t always hard but it’s manageable. I struggled with this idea because in my mind, as every year passed, I became a better cook, I know my skills are improving, but why doesn’t the results match? Eventually, I finally figured it out.

I always go by this quote when building the team “Your team is solely dependent on your kitchen culture. Defend it with your life” This is something that my boss and I slowly developed over the course of the first half of the year. We realized that in order to improve sales and maintain our standards, we need to do something within our operation. Over the course of 6 months, we slightly push our cooks and front-of-house staff (FOH for short), making our kitchen a safe, fun place to work, and reminding the staff to support one another. As a result of that, we end up with much happier staff, and people who love to work, which leads to happier customers, and that leads to more products being sold, which leads us to higher revenue. In addition to that, we ended up with far fewer complaints. Because if the service and food are good, why take your anger out on some friendly staff members (unless you’re fucked up).

Of course, it is not just me or my boss that helped changed the atmosphere, we’re only a few cogs of the machine. It is a combination of everyone that helped make it work. This is one of my proud moments this year because not only the kitchen culture has changed for the better, but it helped find a purpose for other cooks and FOH staff. Not only that but whenever we do get a new hire, it will be everyone’s responsibility to make sure that the work culture does not be destroyed. For the new hires that have been introduced to the new kitchen culture, they have two options. They can embrace it and work alongside with my cooks, or they can just leave. Both sides I’m ok with that. If they stay, they respect our kitchen culture and will work to our standards. If they leave, it will be a good tell that they’re not fit for the job and they will be a liability. 

At the end of the day, my job as a cook, sous chef, and big brother in the kitchen (whatever you call me) is to make sure everyone leaves work in the same state they should always be. So they can carry on with their duties for the next day. My message to all my friends, colleagues, and potential leaders is to make sure you believe in yourself. Good work culture starts with you knowing and putting in the effort to make it happen. If you don’t, then you just lost before you even started.