/ck/ - Food & Cooking

[Anonymous No.4058300]

Good day /ck/.

I am taking a job as a prep cook/dishwasher at a fast-casual chain restaurant. Its part time evenings and I don't plan on doing it for very long. Really the only reason I'm working there is so I can learn the basics of working in a kitchen and how a restaurant is run, its not even about the money I just want a little experience because I am interested in getting into the business. What exactly should I expect? And do you guys have any advice for me?

I've never actually worked in a kitchen but I do work in the food industry, I do catering for another place. That job is pretty nice and the tips are excellent but I'd like to get more hands on experience in the actual kitchen. The reason I'm doing this is because I would like to open up a food truck someday. I already know how to cook and have my recipes but I know nothing about how to manage a place and prep stuff for a days worth of food for customers, I only cook for myself and for friends.

Do you guys think I might be able to learn some things by doing some prep work temporarily? I have no problem washing dishes and slicing veggies all evening but I'm very observant and inquisitive, I'm thinking I might be able to learn and gain experience at the same time. And like I said I've never actually worked in a kitchen and I feel like it might be important to have experience with that before I decide to go all in and get my truck and equipment.

What are your thoughts /ck/?

[Anonymous No.4058323]

doesn't matter, a chain will train you in their style which will be quite different from other chains and drastically different from a "real" restaurant

only words of advice, have a spare change of clothes in the car, trust me

[Anonymous No.4058361]

>>4058323
I know every place will be different but there must be some crossover, right? I mean having experience as a prep cook and dishwasher is at least better than having zero experience at all. And I'm there to learn, I'll be able to quietly observe what seems to work and what doesn't work.

[Anonymous No.4058539]

I learned everything I know about the restaurant industry in a local, up and coming restaurant. Since I was actually apart of the restaurant acclimating itself to its customers and environment, it was probably the best hands on learning there was. Your position is perfect to start with. If you are proficient, you will move up to work the line rather quickly or expo. If you invest some time in with the kitchen manager (who was really just a dutiful line cook at that place), you will learn about ordering, storage, industry practices/regulations etc. which in the end will aid you with your business in the future not only economically but (internally) functionally. Good luck!

[Anonymous No.4058551]

OP: assuming you're serious and not trolling:

expect at least 80% of your cow-orkers to be deranged crackheads who just got out of prison, and/or wetbacks with ten-word English vocabularies. These categories are not mutually exclusive.

Expect it to be hot, sweaty, nasty work. Expect it to be noisy. Expect floors to be soapy and greasy. Expect to be an environment where the dishwashing machine makes so much noise that everybody has to scream at one another at the top of their lungs to be heard over it.

And if you're the bright white college kid who shows up every day on time and sober, unlike Rastus and Wootie and Ray-Ray, expect EVERY GODDAMN THING to be your fault. Customer bitching because there was a fleck of pepper on his coffee cup? Your fault. Waitresses bitching because there's not enough silverware? Your fault. Busboy locked himself in the restroom to smoke a rock? Your fault. Wootie's out by the dumpster dealing nickel bags to his homeboys again? Your fault. Manager's wife is leaving him because he's a drunk and he beats her? YOUR. FUCKING. FAULT.

Been there. Done that. Got the t-shirt.

Don't do this to yourself. Learn to type and register with a temp service. Seriously.

[Anonymous No.4058585]

>>4058539
Awesome. I'd like to get on with a more local and upscale place, but like I said I have zero kitchen experience outside of catering and food delivery. I think taking this job temporarily will at least give me enough experience and confidence so that when the manager of the better place asks me if I've ever worked in a kitchen I can say yes I have. Yes I have stayed at the store until after midnight washing dishes, slicing tomatoes, cleaning grease traps, prepping shit and doing all the menial kitchen labor. It isn't glorious work but at least I'll understand it with firsthand experience. IMO it can only get better and it'll help to know the ropes. But yes, I'd love to work in a better kitchen eventually, until I have enough confidence and knowledge to open my food truck.

>>4058551
Sounds about right, and about what I expected. I mean its the back kitchen at a damn fast casual joint, I expect I'll be the only whitey back there other than the manager. I'm used to it. For awhile I worked third shift downstacking dozens of pallets of produce in the wee hours of morning, I was the only white dude there and nobody really spoken English very well. Looking back yea it was hell, but I managed. Also I once worked at a ghetto WalMart. I can get along fine with crack fiends and Mexi-folk whose first language isn't English, been there and done it. And everything is gonna be my fault? Fuck it, I don't care. I work to the best of my ability and if they wanna blame me then....fuck it. I know it isn't my fault and I don't really care. I just wanna see how it really is in those seedy smelly dank kitchens, and I wanna take it in and think about how I can improve it when I decide to do my own thing.

[Anonymous No.4058601]

>>4058300
I like the work. I like feeling like a second-class citizen. Being the only guy walking home at 2:00 AM is exciting to me. I used to cut through this park and there was a point where it was so dark I couldn't see where I was walking. I knew the path by daylight, so I would trust my instincts. It was so scary, fun, thrilling...I loved it. If someone had learned my routine (hah! in a kitchen), it would have been really easy to murder me.

Believe it or not, some people actually choose to be homeless or fat. If you're not ready for the lifestyle (and that's exactly what it is), then don't do it.

Pros:

>free food
>free alcohol
>don't need a rolodex to find drugs
>waitresses are actually sluts and not just a myth (I was skeptical!)
>you get to cook food and get paid!

Cons:

>shit hours
>usually no insurance
>if you desire a social life outside of work, forget it
>on your feet
>move, move, move! soldier!
>failure is not an option
>creativity exists, but is rare (kitchen nightmares is the most accurate glimpse into the life of a chef ever filmed)
>chefs and service stay clean, line cooks and below are filthy

The cool thing is that the pro list is 100% of the time. The con list is 15-30% of the time.

[Anonymous No.4058612]

>>4058601
Sounds about like what I expected to hear. And......I have no social life. But as I said before I'm doing OK financially, the only reason I'm taking the job is for the experience. I want to know. I want to know how it really is for the kitchen staff. I have a Bachelor of Science degree which I don't plan on using, I want to open a food truck and maybe possibly eventually open a restaurant. In the meantime I wanna dive head first into the shit of being a prep cook and dishwasher. I can leave any time I like. I don't have to do this to pay the bills. I want to do this to get in touch with the type of folk behind the scenes. This is sort of a sociological experiment for me, for me its like enrolling in a class. Of course I won't let the people there know all of this, I'm not expecting special treatment and I dont' want it. I just want to see. How things are done and what kind of people do them. I want to learn and judge and be judged by my 'superiors'. Taking a head-first dive straight into the shit.

[Anonymous No.4058624]

>>4058612
Since you are determined to do this...

>sociological experiment

hoo boy. When you get your first paycheck, don't let Rastus shank you in the men's room for it.

[Anonymous No.4058634]

>>4058624
Rastus is probably an alright guy. I've worked with gang bangers, thugs, and illegal immigrants. I've made friends with em and hung out after work. I have education and have my head on straight but I grew up in the hood and can blend and mesh with that rougher "colorful" crowd. Rastus won't do shit to me, we'll probably end up smoking blunts and drinking shit liquor after work. Nobody there knows I have a degree and I get along nicely with blacks and druggies.

[Anonymous No.4058641]

>part time evenings

say good bye to your social life.

[Anonymous No.4058644]

>>4058641
>say good bye to your social life
I have none.

[Anonymous No.4058649]

>>4058612
I'm the anon you're replying to. You sound mentally and maybe even physically prepared. I do think you have some delusions and over-excitement, though.

>I want to know. I want to know how it really is
>How things are done and what kind of people do them.
> I want to learn and judge and be judged by my 'superiors'

Excuse me, but will you please hoist this living body into the furnace so we may kill the Jew, "our one true enemy."

If you're this excited, then just do it. It's shit work, and some sign up because it's all they can do. You won't know without trying.

[Anonymous No.4058682]

>>4058649
>delusions

...yeah. I had not a racist bone in my body until I had to spend a few years working food service. It was quite an education.

You're going to have to do everybody else's job, plus your own. But you're not going to get all the paychecks, because the company gets a big fat "vocational rehab" welfare check for every homicidal/bipolar/paranoid schizophrenic/heroin addict ex-convict they can recruit, but if you're the bright college-educated white boy, they're not getting a check for you--so you're going to be everybody's bitch. And you're the one who can be fired.

And it doesn't matter if you quit at Captain D's and go across the street to Olive Garden, it's the same cesspit full of retards and crackheads and people who just got out of Rahway, who will boast to you that they stabbed seven honky muhfuggas but plea-bargained to two counts of manslaughter, and the voices in his head tell him he has to kill three more blue-eyed devils for his gang initiation. If you eat in restaurants, by the way, this is who washes the dishes and handles your food, along with the lispy waiter who's a hepatitis carrier, but the company won't fire him because he'll sue them for "transphobic discrimination."

Bitter? Yes. Yes, I am.

I loved to cook until I had to do it for a living. It's miserable fucking work and it pays minimum wage. I loved to date black women until I worked with black men, now I cannot fucking STAND to be around any of them and am slowly reaching a point where I want to be a goddamn hermit.

It robbed me of my social life, my dignity, my health, and my will to live.

[Anonymous No.4058705]

>>4058682
>It robbed me of my social life, my dignity, my health, and my will to live.

But not your lifetime supply of bread sticks right? :D

[Anonymous No.4058709]

>>4058649
OP here, I don't feel like I have any delusions about what I'm getting into. I'm certain thats its going to be hard, brain numbing, sweaty and dirty work. I'd guess that my coworkers will be hispanic, poor, angry, and drug addled. I'm not hoping to have a good time, in fact I am expecting the entire experience to be awful. I'm white as fuck and I will be an outcast in the kitchen at first, I know I'll have to gain respect from my coworkers as well as my managers. To put it bluntly, I'll be the nigger in the kitchen.

And I'm OK with this. I've done it before. I'll be there to learn firsthand from the actual workers. I can get along fine with them. I've worked alongside the worst of the worst and have been fine. I won't be babbling on about my food truck and my future restaurant to the guys, I'm there to work just like they are and I don't figure myself to be in any higher position than they are. Actually they are gonna be above me since I'm the new guy. I am there to learn, to experience. I'll listen to my coworkers with as much attention as I give to my managers. I know little about the restaurant business but I have enough sense to know that everything starts and ends with the bottom-line kitchen staff. What happens back there is the backbone and the structure of everything else. And I respect what they do. I want to do what they do so that when someday I am calling the shots I'll be able to understand and sympathize with the core of the entire operation.

And what the fuck is all of this Jew talk. And the furnace bit. What the actual fuck are you trying to say, I don't get it.

[Anonymous No.4058752]

>>4058682
so the government+business stuck you with every ethnicity of fuck up and then you grew racist bones?
Seriously get your head checked you claim to be a RACIPITIST

[Anonymous No.4058756]

>no slip shoes
buy some no slip shoes before you start. if you dont youll wish you had kitchen floors are wet and greasy and you will fall and bust your ass
>stay out of the drama
there is always somebody cheating on one waitress with another or waitresses that are fucking 2 or 3 diffrent guys that work there.
>dont get caught drinking on the job
if there is a bar there youll find a lot of the people that work there are drunks and drink at work. just dont be obvious about it or get fall down drunk and youll be fine
>fuck all the waitresses you can
as has be said alot of waitresses are sluts and if you have any game at all you should be able to hook up with a few of them
other than that just do what your told and youll be fine. its washing dishes not rocket science

[Anonymous No.4058771]

>>4058752
Oh, I still am a racist. But now I work in IT, and after a few years I slowly regained the ability to enjoy cooking, at least.

Also,

>>4058709
>I know I'll have to gain respect from my coworkers as well as my managers

Real life is not an Afterschool Special. Your cow-orkers will hate you for being the Blue-Eyed Devil. They will tell you so. Frequently. You will have to do their jobs in addition to your own, because fuck you honky muhfugga, that's why. You will not earn their respect. You will not make friends with them. You are subhuman in their eyes.

Your managers, if you are lucky, will be spending too much time locked in the office snorting meth off a waitress's tits and cooking the books to hide how much money they're stealing from the till to spend much time harassing you. If you are not lucky, they will follow you around the store and look over your shoulder and wait for you to slice the onion 1/8" thick when the recipe book says 1/4", or for an order to go out ninety seconds late because you had to go into the dishroom and wash plates for the customer yourself, because Mookie and Jose are out by the dumpster getting high instead of washing the dishes. This will be blamed on you. They will put their noses an inch from yours and scream in your face like Gunny Hartmann because it makes them feel better about their tiny dicks and their ruined marriages and their male pattern baldness.

You can quit at this point, and work for the restaurant across the street, but, as has been mentioned, it's an identical snakepit, and it still pays the same $8.00 an hour.

You want respect? Do data entry for a temp service. It's hard to have self-respect in an environment where everybody spits on you, all day every day. Quitting restaurants and learning other marketable skills was the best decision I ever made.

[Anonymous No.4058803]

>>4058682

Completely right.

Also waiters and waitresses will be more liked by your boss no matter what. Don't be a dishwasher, trust me.