14.2023 Edition

Powered by 7shifts​

Editor: Justin Khanna​

Hey Reader,

It wasn’t a normal day at all.

I was a chef-de-partie (CDP) at The French Laundry, and that afternoon in late summer of 2013 was probably the hardest day I experienced in my time at that restaurant.

Now, mind you, I wasn’t that great of a CDP at the time.

The brigade was split between 2 teams:

• One that would do dinner service, Wednesday-Saturday. I’ll call this the “A” Team.
• The other would do lunch Friday-Sunday, and then take over dinner service during the time when the “A” team was off. This is the “B” Team.

It was never explicitly stated that way, but there was definitely a “JV” and “Varsity” energy between the two.

If you were on the “A” team, you never had to worry about lunch (no 5:30am start time), you prepped and executed the most covers, and you worked service with the Chef-de-Cuisine at the pass (The “B” Team was led by the Executive Sous).

The quality of the product didn’t change, the menu structure was identical to the dinner menu (even though the menus themselves were different, changing everyday), the level of service was the same, but think about it…if a high profile guest is coming to TFL, chances are they’re coming in on a Friday or Saturday night for dinner.

And you guessed it, I was on the “B” Team.

However, that meant I had a station partner that WAS on the “A” Team. She was way more experienced than I was - she had worked the line in busy NYC pasta places, graduated school before I did, was more organized in how she approached the station, the list goes on.

Both of us were still incredibly “green” and nervous (we’d often have hushed conversations about horror stories from service together), but it was absolutely the right call to put her on that team instead of me.

Remember how I said that my team didn’t do as many covers during lunch? To put some concrete numbers there: a busy lunch service was about 65 people. Dinner’s busy cover count was 110 - nearly 2x what I would typically prep for.

If you didn’t know, at TFL there wasn’t a “leave your station partner with zero mise-en-place” style relationship - the way that this team dynamic worked (on all stations) was incredibly optimized.

This optimization manifested as me doing prep for my station partner. On any given day, I’d:

• Prep the mise en place for the vegetarian menu that we shared (the Vegetarian Menu was more of a seasonal thing at TFL, it didn't change every day like the Chef's Tasting Menu did)
• Make increased batch sizes of prep for myself so my overflow could set her up for service (our station had the signature salmon cornets on it)
• Take entire projects off of her prep list so that she could focus on keeping up with her busy list (our respective Chef’s menus were different every day, so it was unlikely that we could even share that prep from the day)

…we were on the cheese station, the “lowest” in the entire brigade.

This day, her menu had a layered cheese gateau on it. Today at TFL, this meant a genoise-style cake (that day’s was made with Sicilian pistachio), a strawberry jam fortified with gelatin, and a cheese custard which was a combination of a tangy & light cheese, eggs, cream, and milk. I don't have a picture of that day's gateau, but I'll throw in a few other examples here so you can get a visual...

When you assembled a gateau, each component was painstakingly weighed out so that there would be visibly distinguishable layers and a pleasant-to-eat ratio of flavors. Not to mention the texture had to be perfect so that it would portion cleanly.

It was understood that cheese station had priority on sheet trays because we needed the absolutely perfectly flat ones for our prep projects. This meant all sorts of funky workflow tricks and strategies. We’d place 1/8 sheet trays inside of cryovac bags and vacuum seal them so that we would have a perfectly smooth surfaces to set up the layers.

Someone even figured out that this would work with the genoise recipe - you could wrap the batter-filled tray in plastic wrap, steam it in the Combi-Oven, and then have no crust develop, effectively giving you more portions-per-tray because you wouldn’t have to trim so much off.

It was the type of dish that was a HUGE to-do to prep and portion, but once you got into service, it was incredibly easy to execute. Good news for us, because my station partner and I weren’t all that great at keeping up with plating during service 🥵

On this memorable day, I arrived at work at 5:30am to prep for my lunch service and my gut sunk down into my stomach after seeing a note from my station partner, written and circled at the bottom of her update memo:

“Please Prep 3x Pistachio/Strawberry/Camembert Gateaux”

In situations like these, there was no arguing. You had no idea how the “A” Team’s service was the night before. If you were being asked to do this much extra prep, chances are, either your station partner went down last night, or was gonna be STRUGGLING today and you supporting on this was absolutely necessary.

It was already a relatively “busy” feeling lunch day for me, so I went full-bore, going as fast as I thought I could go.

It took me about 4 hours to get these gateaux done, knocking out my own prep projects out in between the “waiting periods” of the layers (allowing gelatin to set, waiting for the genoise to steam, cooking the custard and waiting for it to cool, etc.)

I even paced my day out so that I got the gateaux assembled before lunch started, meaning I ended up having to prep some of my stuff into service…but to me, the goal was being able to give her a fist bump and say, “no worries, your prep is done, I gotchu”, when she arrived.

And that’s exactly what happened. She came in, I said, "your trays are in the fridge, all you gotta do is portion them." 😎

Now, here’s where the details get fuzzy for me…

I can’t remember if I missed a text from her, if she forgot to write additional instructions on her note, or if she DID write the note, but I just saw the request to make 3 frickin’ gateaux and just blacked out, not reading any further down the page.

Either way, there was a miscommunication issue between us, and I failed to prep them correctly.

This all came to a head when she went to go portion the gateaux I made, and I heard my name get called into the main kitchen. The chef-de-cuisine was not happy; when I walked up to the station he was visibly upset.

“These weights are all wrong. We talked about this. It’s gotta get done again, fix it,” he said, looking at both of us.

The time was 3pm. Lunch service had just about wrapped up, and her first order would come in around 5:45pm.

There wasn’t even time to get emotional or have a conversation. I went into overdrive.

What took me 4 hours earlier on in the day I was able to get done in just over 2.5 hours that afternoon, and although she was portioning gateau pieces to-order, it got done on time.

What’d I learn? Enough lessons that it’s taken me almost 10 years to write about this…but here are a few stand outs:

• Motivation is a hell of a drug - There’s this anecdote from an author where he observed folks that are put through an exercise session and asked to speak up when they think they’ve hit their limit. Long story short, most people throw up the white flag when they really have about 60% more in the tank. He calls it the 40% rule. I find that to be pretty accurate for myself, and it translates across a ton of different areas. If I think I can only hit 5 reps on an exercise? I can probably get 8-9 (if I have a spotter on me). If I’m on a run and I wanna stop 3 miles in, I can probably do 4 more miles. That day, I thought FOR SURE that my 4 hour push was as fast as I could go. Had I not experienced that negative reinforcement as motivation, I don’t think I would’ve been able to break through that “limit” from earlier in the day. Is this to say that we should all go 100% all the time? No, that’s not sustainable. I believe that the “limit sensor” is wildly helpful because if it only went off when you were truly at your limit, we’d have a lot more horror stories. But it's just a signal. What I’m suggesting is to pay attention to when your “limit sensor" goes off and realize that it’s more of an “indicator light” than a true barrier.
• The problem with “assuming” - I had this roommate in culinary school who told this hilarious riff on the common question:

Him: “You know what happens when you assume right?”

Person: “Yeah, it makes an ‘ass’ out of ‘u’ and ‘me’, I get it” (see: ass-u-me = assume)

Him: “No, it makes you wrong!”

It was a very “meta” joke on literally “assuming” the punchline 😭 and it serves as a reminder that assuming is a “guess” at worst and an semi-informed presumption at best.

For most of us, clarity leads to confidence. Especially when I was early on in my career, I saw asking questions as “needy” or a display of “not knowing”. As I got more experienced, the less I relied on assumptions, and the more comfortable I became with asking questions.

I shouldn’t have assumed the weights of the gateaux - seeking clarity instead of “trying to flex” would’ve saved me a whole lot of headache. When you learn to fall in love with accountability, you both learn faster and feel better in the process.

• How we label past experiences matters - I heard this great re-frame this week: when you put a seed in the dirt, are you “burying” it, or “planting” it? Same action, same circumstances, how we choose to label it dictates the way we “feel” about it, and ultimately how we often carry that story into the present. I felt a lot of shame that day. But I used the lessons learned in a lot of positive ways in the years that followed. I could better identify situations that were ripe with “assumptions”. Seeing that I had that “mode” was now un-see-able…and it gave me an immense amount of reassurance that if things got hairy again, I could turn that on and bail myself out. In fact, I teach “building in buffer time” as a developable skill inside of Total Station Domination because I know how powerful the benefits are. Everyone’s different, but I chose to use this day as a productive lesson vs labelling it as “trauma”.
• Growth happens under pressure - I could’ve made those gateaux every day for a year and probably seen zero increase in speed. Until I had the time pressure put on me of a looming dinner service, and the desire to not let my station partner down, I didn’t have the conditions required for that kind of growth. It’s why I make videos that focus on culinary progressive overload, because it works. That’s why I love seeing you folks going outside of your comfort zone and trying new restaurant environments. This pressure can come from you, it can come from the guest, your manager, your audience on Instagram, your parents, your station partner…I don't care where you get it. I knew I needed to get better, but the growth only came when I was under the pressure that facilitated that improvement.

The best part about these types of stories? When they happen to you, chances are, nobody but you probably remembers them.

I've lost count the number of kitchen-themed nightmares that this day caused after it happened, but it wasn't forever. These days, I can look back on that day and appreciate it, even though it caused an immense amount of pain in the moment.

I know so many of you resonate with these types of stories, so allow me to share my gratitude that you allow me to write to you every week 🙏 thanks for reading.

​​7shifts: Team Management for Restaurants*

Are you feeling in over your head with all the parts that go into running your restaurant team?

Making schedules, tracking time off, managing shift swaps, tracking tasks, trying to keep a pulse on labor costs, onboarding - there’s a ton that goes into managing the restaurant team. Where do you even start?!

​7shifts has your back.

Their team management platform is a restaurant’s secret weapon that can literally save your operations. With their tools and resources, restaurant operators and teams are creating stronger processes, better communication, and adding confidence at every level.

Say hello to a new way of working, and build your best restaurant team today. Sign up now and get your first 3 months free 👀

*Sponsored by 7shifts

Top Hits 💥

​"good enough"​

Bonjwing came out with a new rumination this week, and part of it reads:

"Societies advance when there’s competition, when its members are encouraged, inspired, and aspire to be better, if not the best. Ideally, society applies its rules objectively and fairly, and equips as many people as possible to compete. This is what we should be spending our time and effort achieving, not propagating a culture of “good enough” inclusivity.

There is nothing egalitarian or equitable about conferring awards and recognizing excellence. This is an inherently exclusionary act, the value of which relies on aspiration for motivation and merit as measure. Change any of this and what you have is not an award or honor, but a decorative commodity available to anyone who desires it enough."

Our Take: Read Bonjwing's full piece (it's not terribly long) to get the full context here, but it's in response to this piece that calls for all James Beard Awards finalists to be proclaimed winners. That piece's author, Brian Reinhart, writes:

While I see benefits (and downsides) to both sides of this argument, I fear that Brian's proposal fails to hit the right of mix of award attributes that make an award appeal to the 3 legs of the stool: the team, the academy, and the guest.

These attributes effectively state how the winners will be qualified, evaluated, selected, and ranked. Some examples:

• An award with a numerical attribute, where presence is blanketed (multiple places get "on the list"), but position is singular (see: World's 50 Best)
• A location-based attribute, where the same award is given to multiple parties, but not in the same geographical area. (see: James Beard and their "regions" where several chefs will win "Best Chef ______ 2023").
• A "tier-style" attribute, where there are levels to awards (vs you "won" or you "lost"), and there's no limit to how many spots can be awarded, as long as the qualifications are met (see: the 758 Michelin stars given in France this year)
• A time-based attribute, where the contenders must be either "new" or have longevity (see: Food & Wine's Best New Restaurants or the "Lifetime Achievement Award" from James Beard Awards)
• A behavior-based attribute, where winners must adhere to a specific way of doing business or exemplify practices that are deemed worthy of the award (see: the Green Michelin Star, "winning" a competition like Top Chef, or the recent updates of how James Beard judges)

San Pellegrino and their World's 50 Best List performed a master class of this knowledge by understanding where they stood in guests' minds and how to use attributes to their advantage.

If they came out with a 3-tiered list of "Shining Bottles", where restaurants could either get 1-Bottle, 2-Bottles or 3-Bottles, their review process (and committee) would probably be exactly the same, but it would constantly be second best to Michelin's stars.

Instead, they threw a different attribute in the mix (see the list above) and pulled the balls-y move of claiming that certain restaurants were "better than others" by only putting out 100 spots. Every year their list stirs up drama, causes controversy and garners the attention of more guests.

It goes deeper than this - remember those legs of the stool? The best awards incentivize and encourage all three legs and ultimately leads to longevity for that award.

You need to get all parties involved to care:

• The team - This starts with the owner/founder/creative first and foremost. If a restaurant has a chef at the helm that doesn't care about the award, chances are, the behavior won't track towards achieving it. But that's not enough. If the team isn't capable of executing at the level that merits the award (or conversely, gets pushed to the point of burnout in service of achieving it), the award also generally won't be achieved. The team wants recognition, status, and stakes.
• The academy - Think of this like the people doing the reviewing. Their success hinges on subjective taste and objective coverage. Everyone's palate is different, individual folks have complicated relationships with people involved in the restaurant (investors, the chef, the GM, etc.), and restaurant meals aren't like movies where your experience could be exactly the same as mine. But it's not all subjective - there are plenty of objective measures that an academy can note: the number of visits the academy does. The budget it has to spend per-award-publication. The geographical area that it covers. The combination of both the academy's subjective taste and objective coverage establishes a brand, and that brand gets to dictate how it fits in the market. I threw together a 2x2 matrix to help me think about this:

Notice: there isn't a "perfect" square to land in. You get problems in each of these...

The Michelin Guide has to take subsidies from tourism boards to help fund their operation because having comprehensive coverage (while keeping "Good Taste") is expensive.

Yelp is able to get around that by democratizing the reviews - anyone can publish, but that comes with the downside of how people bucket all Yelpers in the same scummy bucket.

I shared ages ago that I respect the White Guide's approach to reviewing a lot, but their coverage is so silo'd to Scandinavian-adjacent-Europe which I believe negatively impacts their brand perception.

I put myself in that category too, I've shared numerous meals on the channel but I have horrendous coverage, because I'm just one guy.

The academy wants growth, authority, and trust.

• The guest - The last crucial party that helps keep this thing going. You hear about the impact of having guests care when a restaurant gets put on a list and their business triples. Guests are "the 99%" and they outsource their decision making to reviewers. If adhering to a list results in good and memorable food & beverage experiences (or is an accurate depiction of a certain caliber of place), guests will not only care, but they'll join the cult (see: this guy who set a world record for Michelin dining). The guest wants accuracy, scarcity, and ease.

Optimize for just 1 or 2 of these to the exclusion of others, and you won't have longevity as an award platform. Some examples:

• (Academy + Team) - Guest = The Jean Banchet awards. They end up on the winners' websites and the awards show is a big production, but your average guest doesn't exclaim they're excited to go to a restaurant because "this place got Restaurant of The Year at the Jean Banchet awards"
• (Team + Guest) - Academy = I felt like the White Guide fell into this trap - their awards show was great and in Norway, or local guests loved having us featured, but it felt like the folks putting together the guide were always in a bit of a scramble. (A potential future of) the James Beard Awards fits here too if the academy doesn't get its act together
• (Guest + Academy) - Team = any sort of "Food Network" or "Top Chef" style award. Guests (and obviously the show) cares that you beat Bobby Flay, but you generally aren't gonna get a rush of new applications to work for your restaurant after you get that type of an accolade in the same way that a Michelin star will. Yelp-style awards fall in here too.

...that got nerdier than I thought it would.

I appreciate that Bonjwing is willing to put his thoughts out there and "call it how he sees it" in this scenario. If you do the reading to dive into both sides, I'd love to hear what you think in this situation!

​Breaking Down the Cost​

This piece is a fascinating breakdown of how another industry operates, but tell me you couldn't read this from the perspective of a restaurant operator:

"If you pay attention to the news, you know there’s a lot going on in the world. What you may not realize is how much that can affect the ways we do business and how it contributes to the final price you pay. It’s something we think about all the time - how to make a great product at a price that makes sense.

While we were thinking through how to explain some recent price changes (see Part One: Labor), we realized that many of you may have wondered why our prices are the way they are at all. So we thought - why not shed a little light on the most significant costs in making what we make - costs that are sometimes beyond our control?"

Our Take: We share this piece with you folks this week as a challenge.

If you've ever had customers push back on your prices, maybe you can use this graphic as a way to illustrate why you charge what you charge. Use an appetizer, a cocktail, or your entire tasting menu as an example, and create your own that might live on your website, get posted on social media, or can get printed out and given to guests who make a stink about your prices.

Sometimes customers don't want lower prices. They just want to know what they're paying for. In fact, if you don't have a good grip on your unit economics, I'd argue that putting together this graphic just for yourself would give you a better insight into your operations. We hope this helps!

ICYMI 🙌

🧑‍🏫 We created a Knowledge Base for Repertoire Pro Members - It’s full of distilled “clips” from the live monthly Hotseat sessions to help answer frequently-asked-questions. If you’re nervous about a new job, hesitant to reach out to restaurants, or have just become a first-time-manager…there’s now over 3+ hours of content and you can get access for just $1 with FD101 at sign up!

🎙️"Hostile" Hospitality, A Failed Chef-Restaurateur, Delivery Financials, and more - we're back to covering the news and sharing expanded thoughts, a new podcast is live!

🧈 Ever struggled making butter sauces? Justin did a 2-part series on IG this week - check it out now before it goes live on YouTube soon!

This Week, We Learned… 🧠

• ​Alex French Guy Cooking and Ivan Ramen is the long-overdue Noodle Collab that finally happened. Check out our conversation with Alex on the pod here​
• How to Actually Bake Bánh Mì at Home​
• Starbucks launches new Olive Oil Coffee​
• Tilit wants to hear from women on wants/needs for clothing - Take the survey and have a say in what gets made!

Comment from you folks:

To Peep 👀

• $40 off an Oura ring! Track your sleep, heart rate, and activity levels. Two clicks required, activate here first, then redeem using this link!
• Wanna read more but can’t find the time? 🤔 Why not get books in your ears? Audible has a promo where you get 1 month free and up to 2 free audiobooks, it’s my favorite way to stay on top of book consumption. My current listen is Outlive by Peter Attia so that I can learn more about “Medicine 3.0” and the importance of health-span
• Gestura launched their Stando tweezers, and the Silver ones are still in stock!

Quote I'm Pondering 💭

Thanks for reading, as always,

👊Justin​

​