32.2022 Edition

Editor: Justin Khanna​

Hey Reader,

Where do the numbers associated with “tenure” at a restaurant come from?

“Work here for a year, otherwise, don’t put this place on your resumé”

“I need to work on the line for 4 years”

“I’ll stay there for 2 years and then try to go for a fine dining place”

“After 7 years I’ll probably get sous”

I had one of you folks reach out last week, and a sentence in their email really stood out to me:

“I decided that I want to give myself like 8-10 years, give or take, just to learn; so I have no obligations to any particular restaurant, no responsibility for other cooks, just nothing but time to grow.”

Let’s break down some of the incentives at play, where these numbers come from, and what I think you should actually do in your career (without going broke “staging around” for years).

I started writing a lot on this topic, so I’ll be building this out with you readers! I've already got 3 articles/blog posts "outlined", and this is the first one I'm gonna share:

To start, let's talk about this phrase I'm coining to describe one of the factors at play...Promotion Fog.

Promotion Fog

This concept hits really close to home because I’ve felt this at multiple jobs in my career.

We should acknowledge that most of us don’t spend 6+ months “sucking” at our position. I'm talking about TRULY sucking: going down during service, failing to get setup, screwing up pickups, running out of prep, over/under cooking protein, burning chips, etc.

Sure, sometimes those first 2 weeks “suck”. It takes time to grasp a role.

But most positions become relatively well-understood after 2-5 months.

We’re adaptable creatures; sometimes “getting good” is just learning what not to do (and sometimes the hard way).

From there, the real challenges come from increases in either scale or complexity:

• Doing 180 covers, up from your standard 110
• Adding a new dish to your menu
• A change in a component that requires a more precise technique
• Doing a buy out where all guests sit at the same time instead of an a-la-carte service

And once you’ve got the hang of it, you’re on relatively “solid” ground in your current role. You’ve finished the climbing part, and you’re able to actually develop confidence.

But something happens after 4, 10 or 18 months of continuing to do the same role, with the same tasks, in the same kitchen, day after day. You see, out of the corner of your eye, the next position.

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Let’s also acknowledge: there are only so many positions in the restaurant. It’s not a customer service department at a call center where there might be 60, 100, 300 people with the same role.

There might only be 2 positions on Hot Apps. There might be 1 butcher. There could be just 3 sous chef positions.

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So what’s standing in the way of me just “making the leap” to the next position? Well, that's ALSO only got room for one person - in a lot of kitchens there are actual physical limitations to the position (there’s only square footage on the grill station for one person to stand and work the station).

“Alright, got it. I gotta wait until the position “frees up” before I get a shot at it. When does that happen?“, you might ask.

I call this Promotion Fog. It shrouds the new position so you can’t see how far away it is in both distance (the skill gap) and time (the wait until availability happens). You can guarantee it will eventually lift, but there’s no guarantee when.

Just like fog in real life, it can evaporate in seemingly an instant, or linger on for ages.

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Some folks might think: cool, I can’t make progress towards the next position until I can “see it”, so I should just wait until after the fog lifts and the position reveals itself, right? You can...but living with that uncertainty is excruciating.

There are a few ways that this typically progresses, so here are 3 ways to navigate Promotion Fog.

The Unexpected Push

This one comes out of left field.

One day, you walk in and your Sous Chef says, “Eduardo didn’t show up today - you’re working entrement station now”, or “Sarah’s out sick today - you’re on the grill tonight”.

The push comes from behind, and you don’t quite grip the position properly so suddenly. In the moment, it feels like you’ve fallen below where you were before…so much for a “move up”, huh?

This means you’ve got to go back into climbing mode and continue to develop your skills - but what’s interesting about this transition is that you also don’t get knocked down completely to level zero. It’s like getting to bring all your current weapons and skills with you, but it’s a different video game.

When you find yourself experiencing The Unexpected Push, you’ll completely avoid having to wait for the Promotion Fog to lift, but you might find yourself being bruised and disheartened from the impact. It’s a longer way to climb, and you might even stumble down even further as you get your “grip”…but if you’ve got the desire for the challenge, it can be worth it.

The Slow Creep

I’m a huge fan of this tactic, because it puts the locus of control in your hands.

This requires saying: okay, I don’t have access to this next position because of this darn Promotion Fog, but I can kinda see the tasks involved and the responsibilities that come with this next role.

The strategy here is to ask for some of those tasks, and start to inch closer to the role itself.

The caveat here: you need to be extremely comfortable in your current role so that you can free up time & energy to dedicate towards this effort. As the visual shows, you'll literally be "leaving" your current role to execute this strategy.

That means being able to build in buffer time to your current day so that you can gather experience, brick-by-brick:

• The person in the next role does inventory every month. Ask to shadow that person doing inventory one month, and then take the initiative to inventory an area of the restaurant (ie: dry storage) the next month.
• Spend time observing a tedious butchery project, and then jump in the next time that job needs to be done.
• Express that you’re setup/finished early and you want to see how the next station gets setup for service.

Especially if you’re in an environment where multiple people could potentially get chosen for the next role, this works incredibly well to stand out amongst your peers in a way that’s not “back-stabby” or negative.

The Guided Tour

I’ve made it out to seem incredibly lonely and isolating to get a promotion - because it often is.

I wouldn’t want to start off a piece like this with “you might just get shown the way by someone else”, because you might just click off right away and leave with the wrong impression.

In reality, that does happen, but only in certain circumstances.

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I call this The Guided Tour, and it’s a way to navigate through the Promotion Fog with someone else. This is different from The Slow Creep in that you often follow someone versus leading the charge on the learning yourself.

When I went from Commis to Cheese Station at The French Laundry, there were massive shifts happening in the brigade. The Chef-de-Cuisine was new, so a bunch of people were leaving, and new hires were coming in left and right.

There was one guy who was getting ready to become the butcher (a pretty senior role at TFL), but he needed something to do while the old butcher worked out their last 2 weeks. So for my first 10 days of Cheese Station, I got to work alongside someone who had worked every station in the brigade (he was just coming off the meat station, the “highest” and most difficult station on the hot line).

Not only did he show me advanced prep techniques, but I got a way better experience for my first station at the restaurant. My station was setup to the nine’s every day, and that set the standard in my head of what to shoot for.

Just because a mentor or peer gives you The Guided Tour doesn’t mean that you end up not having to do any climbing. It’s a little like riding a bike with training wheels - it works for a short time, but they eventually get removed. Keep this in mind, and if you see the opportunity for The Guided Tour, use it to get through the fog.

The Time-Lifted Clearing

Just like fog in real life, given a long enough time horizon, the fog will lift.

But don’t think you’ll immediately get "transported" to the top of the next position.

If you’re patient enough and find yourself committed to a place, the clear view you’ll have of the next position means that you can set yourself up for the day that you “make the leap” for the promotion.

You’ll still have to “climb” a bit, but you won’t have to ask for as much help from others or even do other tactics shared in this piece. The biggest downside here is the existential “when?” that constantly gets asked.

It’s Only the Beginning

If there’s one thing I’ve learned after over 12 years in this industry: there’s always another position.

You’ll agonize over going from Commis to Garde Manger.

It might seem impossible to go from Hot Apps to Fish Station.

You might suck as a manager in your first Sous Chef position. But then you realize that there’s another, gnarlier, scarier position just beyond that.

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It might be shrouded behind fog, but it’s there. And the second you see it, if you’re progress-focused, it’s impossible to unsee.

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Did this post resonate? Have you ever dealt with "Promotion Fog" in a position before?

I'd love to hear your thoughts & feedback; you newsletter folks are the first ones I'm sharing this with. I intend on having this evolve into a blog post and even become a YouTube video or Podcast episode in the future, so I wanna develop it together!

Reply to this email with your thoughts - I read every one 👀

Top Highlights 💡

​Giving it Away​

I've seen a lot of work being shared after the multi-article piece from Dan Barber's allegations at Blue Hill at Stone Barns, the Financial Times piece on Fine Dining in Copenhagen, and individuals like Lisa Lind Dunbar on Instagram - and this piece from Lisa Abend had enough nuance that I wanted to share it here with you folks.

She dives into both sides of staging: the folks that look back on their stagiaire experiences fondly (or gratefully for the learnings, experience, or connections), as well as the highly exploitative and abusive experiences.

In discussing stage experiences, she shares, "They work the longest hours, do the most menial tasks, receive the least amount of respect and sometimes the most abuse, and have often made the greatest sacrifices for the opportunity. All this, for no pay."

Arguably most importantly, she touches on "an undeniable and damning truth about the system of fine dining today: many of the most acclaimed restaurants in the world could not do what they do without stagiaires, which is to say, without unpaid labor."

Our Take: To me, that last quote is key ^^^ that's a pretty clean line in the sand for me to draw.

However, maybe there's a ratio or percentage calculation we could run as a "rule of thumb".

What if there was a threshold of 20% of your paid headcount that can be brought on as stages?

If you're a 5 person kitchen team, you can have 1 stage. A 20 person team gets 4. If you've got 50 chefs on payroll, 10 stages is fine.

It's a pretty clean use of the Pareto Principle, and chances are, that restaurant would still continue to operate if none of the stages showed up tomorrow. The menu gets adjusted, folks show up earlier that day, and things will self correct over time.

Maybe theres a useful duration restriction too? 3 months, to me, feels like a generous ceiling. At 50 hours a week, that's 600 hours of unpaid labor.

As I've shared before, not all stages are created equal. After 3 months, one of two things has probably happened:

1. You're still doing the same tasks you were doing 90 days ago, and you've nearly mastered those tasks, workflows, and prep items. Considering the "learning" has probably plateaued, I have a hard time believing the staging experience giving you the same returns on your time as it used to.
2. You've moved on from the tasks you started with, and you're being entrusted with more responsibilities, more complicated tasks, and even more expensive products. Especially if you're running a station, I find it hard to believe that the restaurant is "unsure" if they want to hire you or not. This should switch from "staging" to "employment", IMO.

I also wanted to touch on the first quote (re: longest hours, menial tasks, etc)...because it falls apart a little bit when you break down the nouns I highlighted:

• Hours - Do stages always work more hours than the paid employees? Maybe the management team, but most places don't want stages in the restaurant without supervision...meaning that they work the same hours as the rest of the staff. (again, I acknowledge it's unpaid...but stick with me). There are outliers (the stories of elBulli seasons with nearly 100% of the team being stages), and split shifts can affect this (if there's an AM team of stages, they might arrive at 6am and work until 7pm, where the service team might start at 2pm and leave at 12am, but they're probably with paid AM employees, too), but I don't think this is universally true.
• Tasks - Are these tasks being created to cause stages suffering? Sure, sometimes. But most of these "menial tasks" have to get done, regardless of if the person is paid or not. Shucking oysters, peeling beets, picking spinach stems, shelling shrimp, de-bearding mussels...it's all gotta get done. In fact, a lot of these tasks have a pretty high margin of error, where it's not the end of the world if a stage who isn't that experienced "screws it up". I remember when I used to have a stage work with me, if they didn't show up, I just had to do that prep task myself.
• Respect - I've always been a big fan of treating "respect" like certain people treat "trust". Give 100% respect, immediately, and only take it away if that person gives you reason(s) to not respect them. And that's on the very "human" level, of respecting someone as a person...but in a brigade or kitchen structure where responsibility has levels to it, of course there will be discrepancies. The person who works the roast station who is responsible for 4 different proteins, nailing the temperatures on the pickups, keeping track of a massive list of mise en place, and leading staff meal might be perceived as being "more respected". Is that bad? They carry more weight on their shoulders and have the skill set to back it up. I'm not saying not to respect stages, but I also don't think it's a negative that there are varying "degrees" of respect in a kitchen.
• Abuse - This needs to be incredibly contextual, and varies from person to person...so I'm not going to over generalize on this one. Abuse definitely happens. But chances are, regardless of if you're paid or not, if an abuser is in the kitchen, they're taking it out on more people than just the stages.
• Sacrifices & Pay - If you ask a stage what they're currently "sacrificing", it's probably some version of: time with family, romantic relationships, leisure/hobbies, other opportunities where they could be earning money, living situation, formalized education, etc. But every other person at that restaurant would probably say the same. Yes, there's a lack of pay, but if we follow my <90 day rule, there's a benefit that probably comes from that stage that you basically got in exchange for your time. I tend to agree that most folks over value their time, early on in the process.
  • Bonus point: stages actually have more optionality than full-time employees. Sure, most employment is "at-will", but stages can theoretically bounce at any moment, where as an employee will have to give their notice, train up the next person, document recipes from their station, etc. What I guess I'm trying to say here: everything has trade-offs.

​Lysverket Earns 1* Michelin​

From the Michelin Guide: "Set within an art museum in Bergen, on the southwest coast of Norway, Lysverket was opened by chef Christopher Haatuft in 2013. Seasonal ‘short’ and ‘long’ menus showcase the Norwegian larder, and the intelligently crafted, balanced dishes burst with flavour."

Our Take: I wanted to share this one just because I'm so proud of the team. For those that don't know, I was a sous chef at Lysverket. I remember the day that the Michelin Guide first gave us a shoutout as a "recommended" place almost 7 years ago. Chef Chris came into the kitchen and told me "I wanna go for the star". But it didn't come, and Chris didn't stop.

He opened 4+ other restaurants, built a restaurant group, had 2 kids, took care of his purveyors, and traveled the world. To me, this is a masterclass in patience, tenacity and focusing on the things that matter. The awards will come.

I respect Christopher Haatuft a ton as an entrepreneur - check out my conversation with him on the podcast.

Quick Hits 💥

​Why Food Brands Are All About the Aesthetic Now - Flat lays, font choice, colors...if you're contemplating starting a brand (or going through a re-brand for your existing company) this is an interesting piece.

​How woke food fights are destroying restaurants - Wanted to share the "other side of the argument" after a lot of the news has been swirling lately.

​Why So Many Restaurant Websites are BAD (and how to fix them) - Hands up if you've ever dealt with a horribly/frustratingly designed website before 🙋

To Peep 👀

​Town Cutler's Tahoe Bliss Line​

A gorgeous new line from the team at Town Cutler - reminder that "sets" from them usually come at a discount!

​A Japanese Palate Knife from Chubo​

See: my late-night-browsing-session of gear 😏 might be cool to bend like I did with mine from E. Dehillerin?

Quote I'm Pondering 💭

Thanks for reading, especially if you made it to the end of this long one. That's what I get when I don't send you folks one of these for a few weeks. Excited to be back in the saddle!

👊Justin​

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