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magnetic posted:I suppose the tittle chef has no meaning any longer; now that every turd that flips an egg for minimum wage is calling themselves chef. Well, fortunately, nobody really remembers chefs outside of LA, New York, or Vegas if they aren't on the Food Network or haven't won a Beard award, so all those inflated titles are really just people splashing in little ponds. And at the end of the day, given how stressful and tiring this industry can be, I'm inclined to let them (and myself) have a little satisfaction.
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| # ? Nov 10, 2011 11:44 |
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| # ? May 26, 2013 03:15 |
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So 7 months in a TGI Fridays kitchen.. Cant really recommend it even if you're completely inexperienced. But praise be to Satan, I just got hooked up with a new sweet gig in a "real" kitchen! Whoop whoop!
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| # ? Nov 10, 2011 14:22 |
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If I'm talking to restaurant people, I use the term chef correctly. The rest of the world, however, I have given up on. When someone asks me what I do, I say I'm a chef because it puts the correct picture in their head; "line cook" or "saucier" do not. Plus I'm sick of having the following conversation I'm a cook! What, like at McDonalds or something? No! I work over at Boite du Litiere du Chat. So you're a chef! Nope, Hercule Poisson is the chef there. But surely, just to work at such a place you would have to go to culinary school? Not really, but yes, I am a culinary school grad. So you're a chef! I guess you can call me that if you like. And my grandma really likes telling people her granddaughter is a gourmet chef. I figure words are words and as long as you get your point across you're good. My husband has it even worse- he has to explain the whole Army. My dad keeps asking when he's going to get promoted from Sergeant to Lieutenant. *yes, these days I do say "I'm a chef by trade and training, but at the moment I'm delivering pizzas to pay the student loans."
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| # ? Nov 10, 2011 14:55 |
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I always preferred Pizza Transport Facilitator.
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| # ? Nov 10, 2011 15:04 |
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Having delivered Chinese and Mexican food, I opt for the more general "Food Conveyance Expert" on mine.
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| # ? Nov 10, 2011 15:21 |
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Wroughtirony posted:If I'm talking to restaurant people, I use the term chef correctly. The rest of the world, however, I have given up on. When someone asks me what I do, I say I'm a chef because it puts the correct picture in their head; "line cook" or "saucier" do not. Plus I'm sick of having the following conversation I found by saying "I cook for a living at so and so" deters the whole chef/cook conversation.
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| # ? Nov 10, 2011 16:57 |
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Worldmaker posted:And at the end of the day, given how stressful and tiring this industry can be, I'm inclined to let them (and myself) have a little satisfaction. I am pretty tired of "chefs" with "15 years experience" coming through my door who I would not let wash my dishes much less season a gravy. But if people are willing live with a title they don't deserve. My assistant will henceforth be called "Master of the Foodsmiths" instead of Chef.
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| # ? Nov 10, 2011 21:15 |
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magnetic posted:I am pretty tired of "chefs" with "15 years experience" coming through my door who I would not let wash my dishes much less season a gravy. But if people are willing live with a title they don't deserve. My assistant will henceforth be called "Master of the Foodsmiths" instead of Chef. Most industries are packed full of people who aren't any good at what they do, regardless of time spent behind the wheel. In general, like most people discussing an industry they enjoy, I'm not referring to the shitheels, but the people who work hard and are talented.
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| # ? Nov 10, 2011 22:35 |
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This is hilarious and reads like something from The Onion - http://www.businessknowhow.com/manage/job_title.htm
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| # ? Nov 10, 2011 23:14 |
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It's funny because it's true, people are dumb as stumps :V
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| # ? Nov 11, 2011 01:30 |
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Dane posted:This is hilarious and reads like something from The Onion - http://www.businessknowhow.com/manage/job_title.htm If I could have the title of Culinary Jedi I'd be one of the happiest motherfuckers on the planet. Or maybe Kitchen Ninja. Hell, for the time being even Culinary Padawan would be awesome. meatcookie fucked around with this message at Nov 11, 2011 around 01:45 |
| # ? Nov 11, 2011 01:39 |
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meatcookie posted:If I could have the title of Culinary Jedi I'd be one of the happiest motherfuckers on the planet. Or maybe Kitchen Ninja. Facebook job title.. changed..
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| # ? Nov 11, 2011 02:48 |
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ApolloCreed posted:Puttin' bitches in line. This reply is the SA version of a fistbump. Edit: My new job title is Emporer of Dough Tossing Second Pope of Flat Top Grill and Destroyer of Slack Asses. EvilRobot fucked around with this message at Nov 11, 2011 around 11:01 |
| # ? Nov 11, 2011 10:56 |
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I think part of the problem is that people are encouraged to take the "baffle them with bullshit" approach to resumes, especially when they are just starting out. poo poo like "OBJECTIVE- To Obtain Rewarding and Dynamic Position With Opportunity to Grow Leadership and Skill Expansion in the Fast-Paced Traditional French-Style Paradigm of Guest Organoleptic Delight While Maintaining a People-Oriented Mission." We all know that your objective is to get hired for the job you applied for. Same goes for bullshit bullet points in the experience section. Just because you read that people like to hire "leaders" so you throw the word "leadership" into every paragraph doesn't transform your last four dishwasher gigs into "kitchen management." Furthermore, resume coaches tend to encourage people to be ashamed of "menial" jobs. How in the gently caress is it better to say you were unemployed than to say you took a job cleaning bedpans in a hospital to cover your bills? I'm aware that I have an enormous blue-collar-college-kid chip on my shoulder, but really, the job market has just become ridiculous and blind to reality. What worked 20 years ago does not work today.
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| # ? Nov 11, 2011 18:12 |
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Anyone interested in the EMP cookbook?
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| # ? Nov 11, 2011 20:13 |
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magnetic posted:I am pretty tired of "chefs" with "15 years experience" coming through my door who I would not let wash my dishes much less season a gravy. But if people are willing live with a title they don't deserve. My assistant will henceforth be called "Master of the Foodsmiths" instead of Chef. I had a friend at Gordon Ramsay in London who used to tell me they had so many sous chefs and junior sous chefs there they used to make up joke titles for all of them - Dry Storage Chef, Dish Pit Chef, Parsley Chef, etc. It's one of those typical "we'll call you a sous chef so we can put you on salary to cut labor costs" kind of situations probably. Wroughtirony posted:Furthermore, resume coaches tend to encourage people to be ashamed of "menial" jobs. How in the gently caress is it better to say you were unemployed than to say you took a job cleaning bedpans in a hospital to cover your bills? I'm aware that I have an enormous blue-collar-college-kid chip on my shoulder, but really, the job market has just become ridiculous and blind to reality. What worked 20 years ago does not work today. Yeah resume coaching is pretty hilarious, at least in the restaurant world. Things that actually matter to get hired somewhere: resume lists some good experience somewhere, resume is properly formatted, clean and has good spelling. Beyond that no one cares - your resume just helps you get a stage, and it's the stage that determines whether you're hired or not. I've met plenty of cooks with Bernardin or Alinea or whatever dumb crap on their resumes that showed up to stage and couldn't do good knifework and were sent on their way. I dont get the thing about menial tasks either - to me thats a selling point. I wouldnt wanna work with somebody who was unwilling to do menial tasks - people that think certain things are "beneath them". It continually dumbfounds me that in this economy, when jobs are hard-won that we have such trouble finding good cooks and keeping them on staff. We just fired our AM fish guy because the rear end in a top hat couldnt show up to work on time. Is it really that hard to show up? quote:I'm a cook! Jeez this is like almost verbatim of what happens to me every time I see relatives or family friends or something.
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| # ? Nov 11, 2011 22:30 |
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How hard is it really to just say "a chef is restaurant talk for the boss or manager of a kitchen, I am just a cook or one of the kitchen staff" to explain to people the distinction?
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| # ? Nov 11, 2011 22:57 |
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Its a stupid battle to fight. People ask if I'm a chef, they don't care about the super exact meaning of the word. To them a chef is a guy who cooks food professionally, so I just say yes. If they ask me what I do however, I will say that I"m a cook.
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| # ? Nov 11, 2011 23:57 |
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Appl posted:How hard is it really to just say "a chef is restaurant talk for the boss or manager of a kitchen, I am just a cook or one of the kitchen staff" to explain to people the distinction? Hard only because I'm always introduced in the first place by someone else as a "chef" in the first place. It's not difficult really, just annoying that the Food Network or whoever has given the general public the idea that you become a chef when you put on a chef coat and a toque. It's like thinking someone's a professional fireman because they're wearing a FDNY t-shirt.
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| # ? Nov 11, 2011 23:58 |
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In this same vein of conversation, there were like two hundred people walking around the Fab Food Network show today dressed in chef coats. Not like, cooks or students or someone who might have a reason to wear it, a bunch of people who bought chef jackets at some stand and started this odd flashmob of people wearing chef coats. It was really confusing and horribly miserable at the same time.
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| # ? Nov 12, 2011 02:21 |
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Anyone ever have to deal with servers/FoH people not ringing in extra sides that are normally charged for when placed alongside the rest of an order(Extra sauces, sides of celery/carrots etc.)? I can understand that it is a pain in the rear end to have to run to the computer to add it to an order, then send it back to the kitchen rather than just asking a foodrunner to grab it. Especially in the middle of a rush, but this is just one of those little things that is money going out the door.
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| # ? Nov 12, 2011 06:28 |
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Fuzzy Pipe Wrench posted:Anyone ever have to deal with servers/FoH people not ringing in extra sides that are normally charged for when placed alongside the rest of an order(Extra sauces, sides of celery/carrots etc.)? I can understand that it is a pain in the rear end to have to run to the computer to add it to an order, then send it back to the kitchen rather than just asking a foodrunner to grab it. Especially in the middle of a rush, but this is just one of those little things that is money going out the door. We just keep most of that stuff in the kitchen and don't give it to them unless we see a ticket. Except Ranch because apparently the owners think the stuff should just flow, which is lame because even at 25 cents a ramekin we could be making a few hundred extra a week.
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| # ? Nov 12, 2011 08:07 |
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EvilRobot posted:We just keep most of that stuff in the kitchen and don't give it to them unless we see a ticket. Except Ranch because apparently the owners think the stuff should just flow, which is lame because even at 25 cents a ramekin we could be making a few hundred extra a week. Usually the food runners grab it when they head into the kitchen to do other things there since basically everyone uses them as their gopher's to fetch anything/tell people things.
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| # ? Nov 12, 2011 08:21 |
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I think resume presentation and strategy is extremely important if you're applying towards high end. Some restaurants get 50~100 resumes a day, if you don't have the first 3 seconds to stand out, then what. In fact, you should have a full curriculum vitae to offer. I've always believed that my cover letter has had a lot to do with my success in getting desired jobs.
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| # ? Nov 12, 2011 09:32 |
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EvilRobot posted:We just keep most of that stuff in the kitchen and don't give it to them unless we see a ticket. Except Ranch because apparently the owners think the stuff should just flow, which is lame because even at 25 cents a ramekin we could be making a few hundred extra a week. Yeah, it took me doing a cost breakdown on the five gallons of the poo poo a week that went out of the kitchen I was managing last to get the owner to realize how much he was losing to the waitstaff pouring someone a soup cup of it for their fries. Made my food cost just a little happier.
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| # ? Nov 12, 2011 14:52 |
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Fuzzy Pipe Wrench posted:Anyone ever have to deal with servers/FoH people not ringing in extra sides that are normally charged for when placed alongside the rest of an order(Extra sauces, sides of celery/carrots etc.)? I can understand that it is a pain in the rear end to have to run to the computer to add it to an order, then send it back to the kitchen rather than just asking a foodrunner to grab it. Especially in the middle of a rush, but this is just one of those little things that is money going out the door. At Le Bernardin if you finish the truffle emulsion before you finish your skatewing they will come by with a little copper urn and sauce your plate again tableside. For free. I'm not saying that this is the law by which all restaurants should operate (particularly if it's the kind of business where people dip fries into bowls of ranch and the chef has to measure soda syrup boxes at the end of the month) but it does illustrate the point that the damage done by nickel and diming customers with stuff like 25 cent sides of ranch can be worse than the food cost hit of sending out some free celery.
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| # ? Nov 12, 2011 15:25 |
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Well, this illustrates that Le Bernardin != Liquid Communism's place != EvilRobot's place. People aren't going to Le Bernardin specifically for that truffle emulsion. Theyre going for the whole experience and all that. At some other place, you might specifically be going for those fries with ranch. In that case, customers are going to be willing to pay for it separately. Conversely, customers also hate being nickled and dimed. Even at the Four Seasons, they charge for wiFi and people loving HATE IT. Every time you take the wallet out, it hurts, so to speak. So you could totally just keep doing what you're doing -- 64 2oz ramekins * 25 cents = 16 dollars for your gallon o ranch. Or you could just up all the fries by like, 10 cents -- perhaps that won't be enough to deter people, and you'll definitely end up covering your ranch cost. OR if ranch is a BFD in bumfuck middle america or wherever you are, make some ranch fries, make it a BFD, toss them in dry ranch powder or something, and charge $1.50 extra.
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| # ? Nov 12, 2011 19:03 |
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I baked for a bagel chain for a while and when it was time to make nametags I eschewed the title of "Baker" for "Minister of Bagel Production." Also putting frozen bagels in a convection oven isn't really "baking" At my current job I asked for the title of "Utility Chef in French" but chef said no and also was laughing too hard to tell me how to say it and now she refuses to Turkeybone posted:toss them in dry ranch powder or something, and charge $1.50 extra. I've done this, they fly out the door so fast I ran out of ranch powder pile of brown fucked around with this message at Nov 12, 2011 around 21:09 |
| # ? Nov 12, 2011 21:02 |
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infiniteguest posted:At Le Bernardin if you finish the truffle emulsion before you finish your skatewing they will come by with a little copper urn and sauce your plate again tableside. For free. Yeah, it wouldn't have been a big deal, except the place I was working was a hot-sandwich heavy bar and grill setup trying to run fast food levels of labor and food costs so they could keep their menu items in the $6 range. Mind you, even McDonald's here runs that range on combos.
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| # ? Nov 12, 2011 21:27 |
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pile of brown posted:I've done this, they fly out the door so fast I ran out of ranch powder Why is this not a special or on your menu, the manager in me is screaming opportunity. There are some things you should charge for, like additions that are not on the menu (putting avocado on sandwich x, I want bacon on this veggie burger, etc...) but trying to get $.25 per ranch cup is just going to piss them off. Adjust your pricing to account for it and move on.
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| # ? Nov 13, 2011 04:42 |
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Buffalo Wild Wings is one of the most successful restaurant chains, and sells more beer than any other restaurant in the nation. When you buy their wings you get your first sauce for free, but they charge you for every extra sauce and your celery. I don't foresee them changing.
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| # ? Nov 13, 2011 05:37 |
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Oh God I'm going to talk about the Pizza Shack. Ewww. Anyway. All of our sides are $0.49/ea. Ranch, marinara, whatever. Most of it comes in individually packaged. I'd say that 85% (and that's conservative) of the sauces we give out are not rung up. We have managers who don't know how to ring up extra sauces. Our food cost is so out of control that employees have only one option for meals (as opposed to X$ off whatever menu item) and servers have been instructed not to allow dine-in customers free tap water but to make them buy bottled. Now, this is a corporate concept that won't allow for novel menu items like ranch fries or anything of the like. And corporate are the ones who calculate our food cost each month. And our management is sufficiently delusional that cracking down on employee fountain drink usage makes more sense than enforcing "no ticket no sauce." 8 more days.
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| # ? Nov 13, 2011 05:47 |
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Micros has the ability to make 1 touch additions to "non-sides" but with additional charges. You can even have the ability to second ring to a specific dish with less than three touches and no second print. It's how a lot of places that will have to ring in 12 to 30 course options with inserts and sub inserts work, as well as add supplement charges to optional courses. It still holds true to any Mircos based POS, so pretty much everyone. The first sign of a failing business is one that doesn't micromanage their POS. The incompetence will spread like a virus. In most cases, tightening up your POS accuracy will give you more than 1~2% gain at the minimum. heyfresh888 fucked around with this message at Nov 13, 2011 around 07:48 |
| # ? Nov 13, 2011 07:43 |
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Garregus posted:Why is this not a special or on your menu, the manager in me is screaming opportunity. was at an old job, place I work now isn't a fries kind of place and doesn't have a fryer in the kitchen anyways pile of brown fucked around with this message at Nov 13, 2011 around 08:38 |
| # ? Nov 13, 2011 08:32 |
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On the other hand; if 2% kills your business, then you're really not doing it right in the first place. I've been on both the server and the management side of this equation. Customers do not like to nickel and dimed. There is a food cost involved. The solution I've used as both BOH and FOH is the first ramekin of whatever gets an, "I'm supposed to charge you for this but-". The second gets, "okay, guys, now don't take advantage." The third gets, "I need to charge you for at least one of these." I think that this tactic portrays to the customer that you're willing to go the extra mile, bend a rule or two to satisfy them but also by the third it instills that there is still value to the product. in the end two ounces or ranch or marinara is what, 5 cents? So buy the third if they're charged 25 cents a ramekin the company is still making 10 cents and the customer feels like the server is looking out for them. It's all about perception of value.
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| # ? Nov 13, 2011 08:35 |
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pile of brown posted:was at an old job, place I work now isn't a fries kind of place and doesn't have a fryer in the kitchen anyways So, what, just take your fries, fry them and dust them with dry ranch mix or do that before frying?
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| # ? Nov 13, 2011 15:17 |
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It's far easier to just factor in the cost of an extra portion of ranch into the cost of the fries then it is to charge extra. People wouldn't even notice the difference.
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| # ? Nov 13, 2011 15:28 |
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meatcookie posted:So, what, just take your fries, fry them and dust them with dry ranch mix or do that before frying? I'm assuming it's after so you don't gently caress up your oil.
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| # ? Nov 13, 2011 15:35 |
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brick cow posted:On the other hand; if 2% kills your business, then you're really not doing it right in the first place. What's 2% of 3 million dollars -- it's not necessarily a matter of killing the business. Also, .05 x64 is $3.20. Pretty sure that sauces are a bit more costly. But yeah, I mean as long as it isn't 50% of the people asking for more sides, I'm inclined to just up the price of the item some tiny amount and just give the sauce away.
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| # ? Nov 13, 2011 17:21 |
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| # ? May 26, 2013 03:15 |
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meatcookie posted:So, what, just take your fries, fry them and dust them with dry ranch mix or do that before frying? they come out of the fryer and into a bowl of ranch powder/salt and get tossed around in it and the hot oil picks it up and makes it stick onto the fries
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| # ? Nov 13, 2011 18:52 |
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