Here is a short story I wrote a few years ago; get comfy, have a read and feel free to ask me about it...
much love
Goose
The walk to work is at least, refreshing and at best invigorating for my tired bones and good for the soul.
It’s neither a trudge nor a march. You wouldn’t even know you were less than five miles from the true hustle and bustle of the city. I know every inch of the Thames Path from Craven Cottage to Hammersmith Bridge, wonky paving slabs, the shellacked dog poo from plenty of walker’s missteps and the unmistakable noise of a rowing coach barking commands down a megaphone.
As commutes go, even by non-London standards, 15 minutes of early morning walking, is a glorious way to get to work. The day is cold, the sky is speeding through red, pink and orange hues so beautiful you could forget the ominous thoughts of the rhyme beginning in your head…
“Red sky in morning, shepherd’s warning...”
The cold wind bites hard as it whips across the Wetlands on the opposite bank and forces me to brace against the gusts as I near the familiar horizon. The restaurant looms like a monolith to my time and energy over the last 6 months. I stop and fiddle with my phone and search for any song, that might heave my soul over the edge of exhaustion. I ignore the screech of bikes braking to avoid me in the middle of the towpath and the patter of dogs as they scamper past. I feel the warmth of music radiating down my back and my legs and stride soften in time to the beat, my mood improves instantly.
“Today will be a good day” I tell myself or maybe I should have paid attention to the f**king weather…
A busy restaurant has an almost indefinable feeling to it in the morning. It is part-olfactory assault and part-performance art. Pans clink, hobs burst into life, oven’s hiss and chefs’ depending on too many variables to ever be truly understood will either be swearing, singing or arguing about food, drink, life and the number of covers last night. As you observe all of this; it’s the smell that adds the texture and context for the day.
Crossing the restaurant threshold, I’m assaulted by the sticky-sweet aromas of roasting chicken wings and bubbling stock pots. It’s only Wednesday but this is the alchemist transformation of chicken jus for the weekend at its most primal. The roasted wings, trim and stock vegetables are shedding copious amounts of collagen and flavour simultaneously to the atmosphere and the pan which, sings its familiar gurgle. Well-worn from many hours of cooking and many scouring’s with wire wool. I smile warmly at my pan; the chef has used it through pre-opening as he lacked enough large capacity stock pots.
This one he’s using, just so happens to be a nineteenth birthday present from my parents. A weird present for most but it is one of my most treasured possessions but completely impractical for most home cooks. It’s just nice to see it being used, like seeing a super car being put to the track rather than parked on Knightsbridge.
I get a nod and a wry smile from chef as that piercing fragrance of caramelising mirepoix hit me in perfect symphony with the roasting meat juices. The savouriness of jus is magical, it elicits a primitive response established over years of working in open-kitchen restaurants. I can feel the butterflies stirring in my stomach with alarming familiarity, I greet them like an old friend.
Taking a moment to observe the ‘Dance of the Chef’; beautiful to see as the kitchen fills with more deliveries, and more energy is transferred into the day’s delights. I can see the exhaustion in everyone’s eyes, the slouch of the back and the tightness in the legs. This restaurant opening in particular, has taken a monumental effort from everyone. This is day ten of soft opening and we are about to run full-steam into our first fully booked weekend.
The excitement gives way to a moment of internal conflict;
“Are we pushing too hard and too fast?” Are we guaranteed to break the team’s spirit quicker than anything else?”
But as anyone who has even a passing interest in hospitality will know historically it has run on two things. The goodwill (and potential exploitation of that goodwill) of many hardworking, dedicated professionals and caffeine. I therefore turn my attention to Coffee!
Crossing the empty bar, leaving the humdrum of kitchen antics to fade into the background of my day. Appearing like a neon-lit messiah the coffee machine sits there like a chrome goddess; the beautiful love child of vintage Italian Moka pot and formula one car. I poke my head around the coffee station and see him sat at his laptop, I cross the threshold of the private dining room;
“Morning! Do you want a coffee?”
“Yes please, black Americano.”
I know what kind of day it will be on preference of coffee order.
Good day; it is an oat milk Cappuccino. Bad day; it is a black Americano.
However, it’s more than just good versus bad this morning; he does not look me in the eye as I talk to him. He finds anything to concentrate on except me, I deflate internally. The last message between the two of us has been one of stark peculiarity, formal but with so much unwritten sub-text from the night before, a clear undertone of words unsaid and feelings unheard;
“See you tomorrow, have a nice evening”
It felt weird and unbalanced but everything is weird and unbalanced at the moment, a new restaurant opening will do that to you. My day is about to kick off and there is little time to focus on this strained interaction right now, I resolve to grab him for a chat later in the day.
My attention returns to ‘my goddess’ the hiss of the coffee machine, the dull moan of the growing pressure and the velvety trickle of crema that hits the cup, interspersed with the high-pitched squeal of a coffee grinder going through its motions. Bittersweet smells of espresso hitting the cup and low mumbles of the filter machine kicking into life as I rip sachets of coffee open with frenzied pace. Inside five minutes we have the usual coffee order for chef, prepared staff drinks and I am in possession of my own mug of potent inky refreshment. I leave two sizeable coffee flasks on the bar ready for the start of the day, I know they will be empty before lunch, Hospitality professionals are nothing if not predictable with coffee, let alone free coffee.
My day, like all good days before starts with the same process, the religious writing of lists. By the time, I have inhaled my first coffee there are 14 items that need completing for the day. If I complete 5 it will be a miracle worthy of saint-hood.
The best laid plans as the wise adage goes “Never survives contact with the enemy”
Horrible notion to think of customers as enemies but just think how much I could get done in a day if I didn’t have any customers to deal with? {Sic}
But then I wouldn’t have a job either, so bask in the glory of that hypocrisy at your pleasure.
I catch glimpses of the team arriving and greet them with abundant warmth and friendliness. When walking into a day of work, early as it is, knowing you will be here long after the sun sets and the weather is already doing its best to worsen your mood; the best thing you can walk into as an employee, is a manager who is genuinely excited to start their day with you. I drift momentarily to 3am that morning as my son woke us up, incandescent with rage lest his appetite be satiated by my ever-exhausted wife. My guilty conscience hits me hard;
“I hope they are ok this morning?” I miss them, plain and simple.
My day won’t finish until midnight earliest and it’s 08:30 right now. The family and I have been here before and whilst I may long for a moment of contact with them both, I am excited for the day to start. The butterflies are still there and they remind me why I love this work so much. The thrill and rush of service, the pace, the shared concentration and the transformation of a new restaurant opening.
My focus returns just as quickly as it wanders and I contemplate the day ahead; it is this moment that I stray outside of my usual routine…normally I would wait until 11:30 before changing into ‘service clothes’ as experience has taught me the chance of ruining a shirt is highest in the setup phase of my morning. As coffee courses through my veins I feel the buzz of the impeding lunch rush. 96 covers booked, a new single service record for this restaurant. I ignore the part of my subconscious that wants an answer as to why I decided to change my routine and I press on. I’m ready for the day at 09:00 and ready for whatever comes my way.
I take a momentary seat at the bar to plan my pre-service briefing, review the day’s menus, the chefs are launching a new dish which I tried yesterday. A main course of Devilled Ox Kidneys & Bavette Steak served on Dripping Toast; as close to gastronomical orgasm as I have found in the past 10 years. Simple, concise and a face full of flavour. I wax lyrical to my Assistant Managers who have just arrived; the spicing, the meatiness, the liberal application of salt & butter, simply gorgeous.
The day then presses on with alarming pace, I glimpse at the sky through the full height windows and observe the change, the beautiful reds have given way to hard and heavy clouds, dark and ominous tones outside juxtaposed to a restaurant designed with lightness and conviviality at its core.
Boom! Like a terrible thunderclap!
I hear my name shouted across the restaurant. The tone is hostile and it informs instantly, I know it will be an uncomfortable exchange, to put it mildly. I am treated to the kind of dressing down that in the current modern climate would be considered inappropriate but I know it’s the stress. He has been showing it more and more, I see his weight dropping at an alarming rate and his temper boiling over at alarming regularity in the last few weeks. It’s always and inevitably directed at me which, for the moment at least, I am comfortable with assuming the position of verbal punching bag as it will not last forever, I hope.
The catalyst for this latest debacle is the printer running out of black ink. Not something that would normally require a tongue lashing but his concern is more macro-level than micro-level. I internalise some relief. He would have been even more incandescent if I was still in a sweatshirt and jeans!
“You’re not on top of issues in the restaurant” he labours his point at high volume.
He vociferously repeats
“Last weekend, we ran out of three-ply paper for the kitchen order printers, one mistake is allowable, two has me worried and three is considered a pattern and a problem”
I look around and see everyone staring, managers, chefs and employees. It’s 10:00 and this timing is not coincidental, classic power play. It’s not the first and it won’t be the last dressing down I get, so I steal myself and move to ‘problem solving mode’ in an instant. Within 15 minutes I have the menus being printed, with a favour owed to a local IT Manager, in classic restaurant barter fashion I will get him a round of drinks at a later date.
The rest of my morning goes in a similar ‘Problem vs Solution’ fashion, the hours, minutes & seconds fly by and we reach the moment of truth.
The time for jobs is finished, the resumption of tasks will begin in the break between Lunch and Dinner service. I gather the team, briefing notes and ask the chefs for the new dish so the front of house team can sample it before the rush.
Completion of four items on my list by 11:30 is a mini-celebration, someone needs to call the Pope but I won’t hold my breath. The positive momentum I am feeling will run into Lunch service with a welcome energy and vibrancy. The pre-service briefing goes off without a hitch, I am not interrupted once in those fifteen minutes and he has been prowling around me like the gathering storm clouds outside. It’s a first for last ten days , again I internalise my confusion,
“Why has he not interrupted me? He always likes to add something and have the final word.”
“Maybe he is more relaxed today and is working on trusting me?”
Or maybe as I suspect, I have adequately covered all the necessary information in my team briefing. I've had an effective morning and the restaurant feels ready for the day, trust may be a bridge too far today but I'm at least putting in the energy.
Ask anyone in the trade, the last fifteen minutes before service are packed with an hour’s worth of tasks. The intensity of activity in my experience puts customers at ease as they arrive, crucial given the weather outside has turned to rain and is hammering at the restaurant sideways. The beacon-like verdant green of Hammersmith Bridge is lost to the grey-black hues caste by the weather.
I remember very little specifics of the Lunch service; it is stressful, certainly. It does however conclude with 103 customers served as we pick up a walk-in or two, prepared to brave the elements. 12 broken glasses ensuing from a small disagreement between a highly-strung bartender and a waiter are the main casualties of service and a VIP table served expertly by the Assistant Manager (they are writing a review for an industry magazine) and 25 portions of the new Steak & Kidney dish sold.
At 15:36 I am summoned to the private dining room and walking past the entirety of my team at work I feel immense pride at our achievement.
He is sat with his business partner in the spot he had been hours earlier, my stomach drops;
He does not meet my eyes and broodingly stares through the glass partition of the private dining room, his business partner is sat in silence across the table from me, the hot-sick feeling bubbles up instantly…
The business partner starts to talk,
“There is no easy way to say this, it’s just not working out and we are letting you go”
The unrelenting rain continued…I lose track of all the words in conversation.
Unbelievably I hug them, shock & grief is a terrible thing.
I told my team and walked home; crying, bereft and heartbroken…
My life in ruins again, save for the fact I have my baby and wife to lessen the cruelty of it all.
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