Walked into a 50-cover dinner rush with no prep at all on Saturday

I work at a busy spot in Austin and the guy before me called in sick without warning. Got there at 4pm and the walk-in was empty, tickets already piling up. Had to butcher 3 whole chickens and blanch 15 pounds of green beans in under an hour. My saucier helped me set up but we still got crushed for 6 hours straight. Chef just looked at me and said "welcome to Saturday kid" then walked off. Has anyone else had a shift where everything went wrong before you even started?

2 comments

2 Comments

grace9264d ago

Four chickens and some green beans really isn't that bad for a Saturday rush, man. My old spot in Houston we'd have to break down four cases of striploins plus 30 pounds of squid on top of our regular prep during a 300-cover graduation weekend. You had a saucier helping out, that's a pretty good situation compared to a lot of places where you'd be alone on the line with a dead phone. Sounds like you got a free lesson in time management and a decent story out of it.

angela_wilson784d agoTop Commenter

Ngl @grace926, I gotta disagree a bit. Four chickens might not sound like much on paper, but when you're juggling tickets and that saucier is bouncing between stations, it adds up fast. Plus green beans might be simple but trimming and blanching them for a rush takes time nobody accounts for. I've been in spots where the prep list looked light but the execution was brutal. Honestly it's not always about the volume, it's about having enough hands to keep your head above water when the tickets start printing.