Hell's Kitchen Saskatoon

Monday, August 18, 2008 at 8:56pm | Edit Note | Delete
As some of you know, I'm working as the Head Chef of a busy kitchen again. For the last few weeks we've been under renovations, and tomorrow is our opening night. We're going to fill the restaurant to capacity a few times over with guests that we've invited in for a free meal. The idea is to slam my kitchen and the servers as hard as possible, and identify our breaking points so that we can fix them.

You've probably seen similar scenarios on TV if you watch Hell's Kitchen or Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares. He's notorious for hitting the kitchen so hard that they crash.

Here's why my nightmare is a little more serious. Ramsay usually hits a restaurant with a seasoned staff. He hits them with about 90 people, in one seating (or service).

I'll be doing 4 services, each one with substantially more than 100 people. I'll be doing it with a staff that is 70% new guys that have never cooked our menu before. I've also moved everything around on the 30% that do have an idea of what they're doing. Finally, I'll be introducing the kitchen staff to a new style of running the line. Rather than the traditional brigade style, with either the chef or sous-chef calling orders, I'll be using a multiple printer system that uses only table numbers. I have to go on faith that the printers are configured correctly.
The kicker...
I just found out about it all today. I have until 5pm tomorrow to prepare.

Here's why it's going to be a cakewalk. I've spent the last several days preparing to do a sudden launch with no preparation time.
I also know that the multiple printer system I'm introducing is actually easier than the traditional style. The servers are all new as well, and I strongly suspect that we'll outperform the front of house in an outstanding way.

The members of my culinary team that do know what they're doing are damn good at what they do. And so am I. A lot better than the chumps you see Ramsay driving to tears on TV anyway.

So they want to find my team's breaking point. They'll find that we're unbreakable ;)

I love this business.