I want to tell you guys a story that happened to me recently. The past month or so, I’ve been going on this journey on how to maintain growth in my kitchen while still meeting my workplace’s financial goals. Knowing that during the summertime, are not busy at all because everyone and their mother is going on vacation, I need to act fast. I have to cut my labor hours in order to meet my margin goals for the month. Most cooks in my kitchen weren’t happy about it. Especially one person. They accused me of:

“Making them work harder even though they are not getting paid much to do so”

“Burning them out”

“Overloading them with tasks that they’re not supposed to do.”

I’m sure I’m not the only one who is in this position. Every chef who lives in this pressure cooker environment, where you have the owners and upper management to cut in order to meet their margins and increase profits, and mostly, minimum wage cooks who want more money or resources. Basically, I’m getting the shit end of the stick. But, my responsibility as a chef is to educate people (cook or non-cook) about the ins and outs of the business side of running a food operation (or any kind of operation). Keep in mind that what I’m giving you is stuff that I’ve learned throughout my time in the food industry. You guys may not like the information I’m going to give you. However, this is one of the few posts that I’ll say, “I don’t care.” I’m here to educate you. Not to please you. I’m here to tell you the stuff you need to hear. Not what you like to hear. 

As you guys may or may not know by now, I’m a head chef for 2 years, and before that I was a cook for 8 years, working and climbing the ladder. Starting from just a dishwasher and working all the way up to head chef, I’ve seen both sides of the table. Both sides of the coin. I see cooks struggling to get through service while dealing with their personal problems outside of the kitchen. I see managers and owners stressing about how on earth they will be able to afford to pay their employees, rent, themselves, while either maintaining or growing their business and dealing with their personal problems outside of work. It’s a tough thing to see. That’s why, for me, I feel like I now have the curse of knowledge. In the past, I wanted to know and learn everything. Now, I know too much. From both sides of the table.

One of my responsibilities is that I need to make sure that the budget is balanced so that we can meet our margin targets. In the past, I would hire more than I needed because I thought I needed to use every tool in my toolkit to succeed. But as a chef, it came back to bite me. Hard. When business slows down, sales dip. But even though business is slow, restaurants still need to make a profit, or else they will close. So, that’s why owners and chefs need to cut out waste. This could be food (limiting portion size, increasing their prices so they can have an increase in profits, or buying lower quality ingredients), staff, wages, rent, the list goes on and on. Now, depending on the operation, people will take different options. What people, including myself, found is that cutting staff (limiting the amount of hours they can work) is the fastest and easiest solution. All you have to do is not schedule them in, and you can save a butt-ton of money. Food can be difficult because it’s a long, lengthy process. Wages are an absolute no-no. Rent, well, how on earth can you eliminate rent?

Fun Fact: Staffing and wages make up over 40% of the average budget!

The only catch is that due to the number of hours that are being cut from the budget, people need to work a little bit harder so that we can still pump out good, quality food. People may need to learn other stations because we can’t afford to have too many cooks in. Obviously, if you’re an average, minimum-wage, close-minded cook, you think that’s insane! You’re just overworking your staff to the ground, and you don’t care about your cook’s mental well-being. You’re just kissing the owner’s ass so that you can get their approval and, in the end, a much bigger wage increase! While in some cases you’re saying that is true for other chefs (not myself), keep in mind that most chefs started from the bottom. None of us is giving this job for free (unless you bought a business and you promoted yourself as a head chef). Also, just like what I’ve said earlier, a good chef knows both sides of the operation. They know the business side and the culinary side. They’re in a pressure cooker environment

To all the cooks or minimum wage workers out there, I got some news for you:

1. If you think that your boss is overworking you to the ground and doesn’t care about your well-being, you can do one of two things:
   1. Have an honest conversation with your boss or someone who is controlling the operation and tell them how you feel. If they care about you, they will listen to you
   2. Pull a full-on baby rage tantrum like those idiotic losers on TikTok and leave

Both options are good. If you choose option a, you will understand why. Why are they doing this, and how long? If you choose option b, that would be great content for me and other successful people to watch in our free time

2. Ride out the wave of uncertainty and trust in your boss or upper management. They probably know something you don’t know. This road bump may be temporary, and after a few months, you can get your proper work hours back. So work that extra station or extra task. That creates value for yourself because you know how to do more things. Because if, for whatever reason, owners need to lay people off in order to keep their business afloat, you’ll be in a much safer position. Why, you might ask? Management looks at an individual and sees what they can do. Meaning if Jimmy knows how to manage a grill station, while Tom can work grill, bakery, salad, soup, and dishes, chances are that the owner will choose Tom over Jimmy

Now, to the small group of people that always say “That’s not job to do ______” I would highly recommend you to look at your job description. Because what you signed up for the job may include that particular task. If it’s not, cool. You can have the right to refuse work or take on the task if you want to learn and grow in the operation. If that task is in your job description, you are obligated to do it because it is strictly stated in your job description. For example: If you’re working in a shoe store and you like working at the front counter, but one day your boss needs you to put away a shipment, and your job description said “Manage inventory by unloading shoe shipments,” sorry Sally. But you have to do it because that’s what they are paying you to do, also. Now, within that small group, there will be people who are still stubborn to the bone that are supposed to do their job and will say, “You’re not paying me enough to do this”. To this, I’m going to say this is a very cut-throat, blunt, Kevin O Leary way. “I’m not paying you to have an opinion on my orders either.” I’m sorry (not really). You dropped the bomb on this, not me. 

I want to share with you guys one more story before I close off. One day in the summertime, when most customers are on vacation and the store is quiet, one of my cooks was being extremely hostile and rude to me and my staff. It’s about all the stuff we have discussed so far. I pulled him out of the kitchen and had a serious meeting with him, myself, and my boss. He was complaining that I was working him to the bone and burning him out (even though the store is quiet). He was tasked to help other stations. I asked my boss to pull up my spreadsheet of everything. Sales, waste, schedules, labor, and menu. EVERYTHING. Because one thing we can all agree on, whether you’re CEO or an idiot, statistics never lie. Especially running a business. We saw that sales are not trending in the right direction because people are out of town, the menu was too big, and waste was above average. Nearly everything that I’m allowed to show is laid bare for him to see. I told him the decisions I have to make and why. Why do I have to temporarily cut labor in the summer? Later, I asked him a question. “You’re acting like you’re the victim when NO ONE is enslaving you. So please tell me, through all the information I have given you, why do you think we’re working you to the bone and burning you out when business is slow?”

When I made the decision to cut labor from my staff, my heart hurt. The reason is that I care about my cooks so much. I’ve been in their shoes, and I want nothing but the best for them. But, in order to sustain our operation and increase our longevity in this business, we need to adapt. When I had that meeting with my kitchen staff, I said these exact words:

“We need to match and increase productivity with the resources we currently have during this time of the year.”

 

Now, if you’re a weak, selfish, arrogant individual, you think that this is a bunch of political mumbo jumbo. But it makes perfect sense. We need to maintain our standards with the tools we can afford in this stage of the business. If something bad happens, most of the time, it doesn’t last forever. We have to overcome the painful parts of life before we can reap the fruits of our labor. Just like Bruce Lee said:

“Pain will leave you once it has finished teaching you.”