more kitchen stories..

There are dingbats and then there are dingbats.

This dude came in, ordered a bunch of top shelf, then dipped out on the tab. Whatever ride he thought he had arranged was running later than expected, so he came back in to piss after hanging around outside for 20 minutes. The bar staff notified the kitchen ogre as soon as they saw his stupid-ass Yankees cap walk in the back door, so I shoved him into the shitter stall and held the door shut until the cops got there. At one point he tried to slide on his back under the stall divider so I lifted up my foot like I was going to squash him. There was a brief game of whack-a-moron and then he gave up, sat on the toilet, and cried. Turns out his mom was a cop. She came by the next day looking for me, and I thought I was about to get busted for false arrest or something. Instead, she thanked me for not beating the shit out of him, which is what they did at the last place he pulled this at.

Servers always try to pull a fast one.

A lot of servers don't understand that a customer is going to tip what they're going to tip, and the best way to get a bigger tip is to upsell and drive up the ticket cost. When you try to ring in a hamburger and cheat the kitchen out of the extra cheese, special bun, bacon, etc. under the pretense of "I forgot, I'll send it back as soon as I can", you are also fucking yourself. Once in a while, yeah, sure, we all fuck up - chronic abusers of on the fly requests have their privileges revoked by executive decision.

Read your own goddamned tickets.

I can't tell you how often this happens. A couple comes in and orders the same thing, except one of them wants their shitty burger or shitty steak cooked one way, and the other one the other way, or maybe the meat is the same but the sides are different. Two minutes after the food leaves the window, it comes right back with both orders being wrong... The one that wants the medium got a well, and the one that wants the well got the medium. Read your fucking ticket, and if you can't tell by looking, or by knowing what order they go in the window every single time, just ask. My only function is to make the customers the food they order; please, just ask. And if you're wondering, yes, just last week in fact I put out an order for a bacon cheeseburger medium with steak fries, and a bacon cheeseburger medium with waffle fries, and the server promptly informed me that I messed up the sides and needed to drop another steak fry and waffle fry. I managed to not laugh and just swapped the plates while they consoled the (apparently very pissed) customers.

FOOD. SAFETY.

I'll humor a lot of shit when it comes to a steak (we have one guy who comes in every few weeks and orders a filet "blue", and another weekly regular who likes them Pittsburgh), and if you really really want it, I'll do a hamburger medium rare... But this dude really wanted a medium rare chicken breast. I was certain that the server had fucked it up (we don't even have a button for done-ness on chicken), and ended up confirming it with the guy myself before straight up telling him no way.

White trash motherfuckers.

This one was pretty sad. I mean, I've seen some pretty sad shit, but these winners took their kid to a bar for his birthday, and then acted all surprised and indignant when we didn't have everything on hand to whip up a birthday cake for him. Yes, when they were told there was no birthday item on the menu (other than 21st birthdays) they actually suggested that we just go ahead and make him one then, they have plenty of time. So a server came back, explained the whole thing to me, and then didn't look at all surprised when I told her there was exactly zero possibility of making a cake. Then they suggested we "... just put a birthday candle on a piece of pie or something", only to be told we don't have birthday candles. The kid was so fucking chill about it I sent the dishwasher to the closest grocery store to pick up a slice of cake for him. The servers were "too busy" (a.k.a. knew the tip would be shit) so the kitchen staff sang for him. And yeah they didn't tip at all, because we "should have had something on hand for birthdays like that, or at least a birthday discount."

Stainless steel countertops.

This clown-ass motherfucker worked in my kitchen for exactly one day. I didn't even know his name yet and he was snorting Demerol off the prep counter - I suppose because it was the closest thing to a mirror we had available. Within an hour he was so fucked up, he fell into one of the fryers. The good news is he probably didn't feel it til later. And yeah, workman's comp doesn't pay for that when your piss test comes back looking like a perfect SAT exam.

One of the not at all family friendly games we play.

Right so, among other pastimes, there is the crafting of elaborate, anatomically correct genitalia (of both genders) and buttholes (including at least one "fully functional" model) out of meat, and leaving them for others to find in random places in the kitchen. I know for sure that more than one distinctly dong-shaped chicken tender has been breaded and tossed in with the rest. Because I made them, and giggled the whole time you were eating them

If it can be hidden, ignored, selectively enforced, or looked away from...

There are parts of the health code here that are absolutely ridiculous, either in terms of being unbelievably too strict for no reason, or being laughably inadequate. It's also open enough to interpretation that once you know your local inspector's pet peeves, you can pretty much get away with murder (or at least attempted murder) anywhere else. We had a guy for a while that would go apeshit over not having at least one box of every size of food safe gloves on hand (you know, for all of those leprechauns and orangutans who work the grill), but didn't really give a damn about the grease trap being disconnected and the food prep sink not meeting isolation requirements from the dishwashing sink. And he never once checked the temp logs for the walk-ins.

Some people steal just to steal.

The best way to not get your bike stolen is to not have a bike worth stealing, and ALSO lock it up. Well, despite having a bike literally assembled from dumpstered bikes (the only new part on it was a $15 singlespeed sprocket), and locked up with 3/8" hardened chain, someone decided that they absolutely had to have it. Thankfully, the dusted old bum that lives in the dumpster behind the restaurant watched it happen, waited for the kid to take off down the alley, and knocked him off my bike with a trashbag full of kitchen waste. I wish I could have seen it. Then he dragged my bike into the dumpster with him and waited for me to come out to pitch another bag. Now I keep it in the rafters above the pool tables.

FNGs, the plague of everything everywhere.

Our food distributor hired a brand new delivery guy for the route we're on and didn't bother putting an old timer with him. I walked up to open the restaurant on truck day and quickly realized he'd left us the week's order for a Mexican restaurant 12 miles away. The manager wasn't in yet to call them, and I had nowhere near the food I needed (it was truck day, so we were low on everyfuckingthing) so I made the best of it. The lunch and dinner specials were tacos and tostadas. The regulars were weirded the fuck out, and the owner screamed about it being un-American.

The secret ingredient is actually...

CLEAN THE FUCKING FLAT TOP. THAT'S THE SECRET INGREDIENT. CLEAN FOOD TASTES BETTER. BURGERS TASTE BETTER WHEN THEY AREN'T COOKED IN LAYERS AND LAYERS OF BURNT CHICKEN JIZZ. FILETS TASTE BETTER WHEN THEY AREN'T COOKED IN LAYERS AND LAYERS OF BURGER GREASE. EVERYTHING TASTES BETTER WHEN IT'S COOKED ON A CLEAN GRILL. And for the person who asked about grilled cheese sandwiches: Preheat your pan on low-medium heat, butter one side each of two pieces of bread, drop them in the pan, and put a slice of cheese on each piece of bread. When the cheese gets soft, flip one piece of bread on top of the other. The reason your bread always burns is because you if you don't preheat the pan, you'll burn the shit out of the bread before the cheese melts. And the butter helps conduct heat to the bread, as well as adding flavor, color, and texture.