My Boss the Party Girl

My very first chef's position was a complete disaster. I had so little idea how to staff a kitchen for production, and judging the existing staff was of little importance at the time of my hire. I thought I could fix anything in a strange, youthful sort of optimistic way. But was I wrong.

I interviewed with the General Manager first. A twenty something artist wanna be with a liberal arts degree and a father who owned some mediocre food shops, mostly pasta shacks. She was close to my age and seemed OK at first.

This was a re-concepting of an existing restaurant. Papa Pasta had decided to appease his spoiled little angel and give her a upscale property despite the fact she had never even worked in one. Nor had he ever owned one.

Soon after taking over, I was awarded a rag tag team of mostly non-English speaking line cooks from various high volume pasta shops the family already operated. None were trained, but all were quite opposed to taking direction from a 25 year old woman. One or two even felt put out that they had not been selected to lead the new venture as Head Chef and began working against me at every turn. This was problematic enough but they were not fireable. Yes, that's right. When I attempted to replace them, the owner, Papa Pasta, told me they were "family". Hmm.

Here began the beginning of a very hard couple of months which I would never even put on my resume due to its obvious lack of foresight and the fact that I stayed only 3 months. The first eight weeks entailed my calling every contact I ever had in the industry to pull together a real menu, wine list, inventory of kitchen wares, and purveyors. Usually, the chef needs only handle the kitchen. The general manager does the rest, consulting with the chef where appropriate. I actually had to convince the the owners that we needed the cups and saucers to match. They couldn't see the need for this frivolity at first.

You would not believe the rag tag group of thieves these folks were accustomed to doing business prior to this. Despite my begging, the owner refused flatly to replace some of the nearly antique equipment on the hot line. A request he should have considered closely and whose refusal resulted in a fryolater going on fire during Friday night service. I guess every chef needs to learn how to fight a grease fire at some point in their career.


Soon after opening, the 21 year old G.M. discovered that she had acquired the perfect place to drink with her pals. The restaurant had a private dining area which was not yet booked and so it mostly sat dark, closed off by a heavy drape. We would open at 4:30, do some decent cocktail business at the bar, and then due to the absence of any reservation system, wait until 7:00pm when the hostess and manager would bring one table after another into the 120 seat dining room. A flat seating of 100 to 120 guests in 10 minutes with 4 cooks and a dishwasher in the kitchen would be the result night after night. While the insanity of endless slam played out in the kitchen, Miss G.M. would assemble friends, co-workers, employees and sometimes romantic interests in the Private Dining Room for cocktails and general debauchery. Often, while walking through the dining room looking in a panic for a manager to handle an irate customer, I could smell the pungent odor of marijuana wafting into the main area from the PDR. Man! Where do I get a job like that?

One night when it was kinda quiet, my sous chef actually walked in on the GM having sex with "boyfriend of the week" in the banquets. I had enough. I spoke to the owner and tried my best to frame it so I didn't need to say his daughter was smoking dope, drinking and screwing everyone in sight inside his restaurant during business. It was harder to do than I expected. Papa Pasta eventually invited little Miss 21, to join us to iron out the situation. Great. She acted wounded and shocked. Give this girl the Academy Award. I was dumbstruck, and maybe just plain dumb, cause the owner responded that he was very unhappy we were not getting on well because he could never side against his own blood. Even if she was wrong.

I packed my knives and walked outside in my whites totally exhausted. What a ride. I had been fired after opening a restaurant almost single handedly. I can only pray for karmic correction.