Latest / Chef's PSA Podcast / How Chef’s Get Ready for Game Day! Ep. 85

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How Chef’s Get Ready for Game Day! Ep. 85 · Chef's PSA Podcast

• 0:00
  Hello Chefs, This is Chefs PSA Podcast, I'm your host, Andre
• 0:03
  Natera. On today's episode we're going
• 0:05
  to talk about how to get ready for the big day or the big game.
• 0:08
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• 0:10
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  jrmanufacturing.com/offsets. Before we get started, let me
• 1:01
  give you a brief update. I just did a really cool podcast
• 1:04
  where I was interviewed one of my longtime friends and it was a
• 1:08
  great interview. We talked about almost
• 1:10
  everything, but being a chef, it's coming out soon.
• 1:13
  I think you all will really enjoy it and I will make sure I
• 1:15
  put it up on all my social media channels when it's available
• 1:19
  because I'd love for you all to listen to it.
• 1:21
  You get to know me a little bit differently outside of being
• 1:23
  chef from Chef's PSA. So that was pretty fun going and
• 1:26
  having a conversational style interview.
• 1:29
  And we really talked about everything from getting beat up
• 1:33
  to aliens. Anyway, it was a fun
• 1:35
  conversation, so I'm looking forward to that.
• 1:37
  I'll be sharing it here pretty soon if you want to support the
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  show. If you're watching on YouTube,
• 1:41
  make sure you hit the subscribe button like this video.
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  And you're not terrible people because you listen to chef's PSA
• 1:54
  so clearly you're good people. Five stars go to chefspsa.com,
• 1:59
  you can get all the books and all the merch, and I often get
• 2:01
  asked which one is my favorite book.
• 2:03
  And they're they're all different because every single
• 2:06
  book I wrote for you at a different stage in your career.
• 2:08
  Early on the Line Cook Survival Manual is probably the best one.
• 2:12
  If you're a new line cook when you're growing into sous chef
• 2:15
  that's bad Sue Good chef when you're a new leader.
• 2:19
  Culinary Leadership Fundamentals and if you like playing culinary
• 2:24
  chess and thinking strategically Kitchen Art of War.
• 2:27
  I'm still working on bad cooks everywhere.
• 2:30
  That one will be out soon. I've just had a lot of projects
• 2:32
  going on and I haven't been able to wrap that one up.
• 2:35
  I also just recently released the audio version of the 50 Most
• 2:39
  Important chefs. PS As you can go find that, and
• 2:41
  of course I also put out a the GPT for food cost.
• 2:45
  I'll link it in the show notes. It's called Food Cost Oracle.
• 2:48
  So if you're a premium subscriber on Open AI, you could
• 2:50
  go get that. It'll help coach you and maybe
• 2:53
  work through some food cost issues that you may have as a
• 2:56
  chef. Anyway, let's get on with the
• 2:57
  show. It being Super Bowl Sunday,
• 3:00
  which is today when I'm going to release this podcast.
• 3:02
  Got me thinking because I know Valentine's Day is just a couple
• 3:05
  of days away and I started reminiscing about all the years
• 3:07
  as a chef and all the different special events that we'd go
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  through the big day and the big day is different for everybody.
• 3:14
  If you're in Las Vegas, you might be gearing up for the
• 3:16
  Super Bowl and I'm sure it's busy now.
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  A few years ago, I hosted the Super Bowl in Dallas and I was
• 3:22
  the executive chef and I can tell you during Super Bowl time
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  or any of these big events. So being a chef in Dallas, we
• 3:28
  were hosting the Super Bowl and we probably had about 100 small
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  little banquets going on at the same time.
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  Private party pop ups at all hours of the night.
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  Everyone is the VIP. Money's no object.
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  Everyone's flexing and I've never worked so hard at the
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  hotel I was the chef at at that time.
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  I had to check in a few days before Super Bowl and I stayed
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  in the hotel because I just knew I was only going to get about
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  one or two hours of sleep and then check out after Super Bowl
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  was done. And I just remember thinking,
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  boy, there was, I don't know, 100 BE OS with 100 small parties
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  and you know, caviar reception over here, chicken wing lounge
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  over there, VIP over here, tasting menu over there.
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  It was just chaos. We didn't have enough staff, of
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  course, and no matter how much you think you're prepared for
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  it, you never really are. Now, if you're in Vegas right
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  now, shout out to all the chefs in Las Vegas right now that are
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  doing all the pop ups in the private parties, in the after
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  parties, It's chaos. It's outside of what you
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  normally do. You go to work, you're set for
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  dinner, service, lunch, breakfast, whatever the case may
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  be. But during these big events,
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  there's no way you can prepare. You have no idea what's coming,
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  and everything is usually off the menu.
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  Special request. It's not the things that you're
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  used to doing. A lot of times it's set up in
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  locations that you're not used to working.
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  You're working off site, you're in the owner, suite, whatever.
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  And there's constant challenges. Not only that, but there's
• 4:48
  constant changes, the menus and flux.
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  People are throwing new things at you.
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  You never do ice carvings. They want an ice carving with a
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  caviar bar that's thrown in together last minute.
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  And can you make it happen? Expectations are high, and you
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  have to be nimble as a chef and as a cook because you're going
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  to work a ton of hours and you know that going into it.
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  In Austin in particular, as a chef, we would face South by
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  Southwest, which was also very similar, or F1 or these other
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  big citywide buyouts. You know, restaurants are
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  closing down every single day and doing buyouts for a
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  different group every single night.
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  They're buying out the entire restaurant.
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  It's a good opportunity for chefs and restaurants to make a
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  lot of money because everyone's fighting to get into the best
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  spots. And let's just say you're the
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  hottest restaurant in town. Well, if the festival's going on
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  for a week, you could pretty much charge whatever you want,
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  because everyone wants to get into your restaurant and buy it
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  out for the week. People are smart, They know what
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  the hot restaurants are, and everyone's fighting to get that
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  clout and say we own that restaurant for the night.
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  So it's a great opportunity for chefs and restaurants to make
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  money, but it's also a challenge because of those special menus
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  now on top of special events like the Super Bowl or South by
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  Southwest or F1 or whatever the case may be.
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  You also have special days like Valentine's Day, New Year's Eve.
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  Maybe it's Christmas where you're at, or Christmas Eve 7
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  fishes dinner. Whatever the case, you're going
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  to face something that you're not used to doing because you
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  normally serve an A la carte menu in most restaurants.
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  And then there's these special days where all of a sudden a
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  couple of times a year, you turn into a completely different
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  restaurant where you serve a tasting menu and your chefs get
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  ambitious because it's New Year's or it's Valentine's Day.
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  So you start to think, well, what would I do if I was in a
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  tasting menu only restaurant? You don't have time to really
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  plan it out. So you start to put these
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  ambitious dinners together, ambitious menus with ambitious
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  ingredients that cost an arm and a leg that you're not used to
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  spending money on with a team that's not used to cooking that
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  food and the service team that's not used to executing a tasting
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  menu style dinner. And then of course, it's amateur
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  night. The people that never go out to
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  eat, they're going out for Valentine's Day and New Year's
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  Eve because that's the one time that they go out all year.
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  And so you kind of got to write a safe menu, right?
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  Strawberries and chocolate, steak and potatoes.
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  But you also got to write a creative menu, and you also want
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  to elevate it. It's all these different things
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  that are going on at once because there is a sweet spot
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  for the menu to be creative but also be able to pull it off and
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  also have dishes and techniques that your team is familiar with.
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  And you're not going to overwhelm the service team,
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  because they're not used to doing tasting menu all the time
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  and resetting plates and marking the tables with cutlery after
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  every course. And maybe you work in the type
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  of restaurant that doesn't fire its food and now you're back to
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  firing orders. Oh, and you threw in an
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  intermezzo just for fun's sake. And you never do sorbet.
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  You didn't even think that through, and only one person
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  knows how to make a nice canal with a hot spoon.
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  You've got yourself in some trouble.
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  And then don't forget about the wine pairings.
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  You never even sell a bottle of wine.
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  But for some reason, everything is paired with a different wine.
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  Did you factor that into your timing?
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  Something to think about. These are the challenges.
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  Then, of course, there's the big holiday brunches.
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  And now, if you work in a hotel or a Country Club, you know
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  exactly what I'm talking about. The Easter, Mother's Day,
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  Thanksgiving, sometimes Christmas Eve, Christmas Day.
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  You do these massive brunches, you're going to serve 500
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  people. They're all going to come
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  through. You have the carving stations,
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  you have your prime rib and your Wellingtons.
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  You have the raw seafood bar. You got the ice carving. 500
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  people are coming in all dressed up right after church, and
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  you're going to get hit. The omelet station that you
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  never do looks like a mess. You don't have enough cooks to
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  go around, so you might have some temporary workers or
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  contract labor to pick up the slack who don't know what
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  they're doing. You don't have enough
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  dishwashers. Everyone's tired because you
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  stayed super late and you had to come in early the next day to
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  fire the Turkey or the roast or whatever the case may be.
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  These days are extremely difficult for chefs because they
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  are the anomaly. They're not what you do
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  day-to-day, and so how should you plan?
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  I'll tell you what I do. It starts in the menu planning
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  process. The first thing I do if I'm
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  taking over a place as the chef is I try to write the menus for
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  the entire year just so it's done.
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  So I'll write everything from Valentine's Day to New Year's
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  Eve and everything in between, just get it done for the year.
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  So we're not scrambling at the last minute to write menus now.
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  What I what I will do is as we get closer to those events, I'll
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  pull the menus out and I might do a little refresh, but it's
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  probably minimal tweaks based on things that I've learned
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  throughout the year at that operation.
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  But it's done. I don't have to think about it.
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  It's not stressful. The second thing I do is I try
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  not to introduce too many things that the team is not used to
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  cooking. We might just add a little bit
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  more Polish or a little bit more finesse, but I want to do things
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  that they're used to. I also don't want to do things
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  that we don't typically sell because if you're buying a whole
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  bunch of product that you don't typically sell, you might be
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  stuck with it afterwards and then what are you going to do
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  with it. So I try to write the menu based
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  on ingredients that I know I already have on property that we
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  use in the kitchen day-to-day and keep the things that we need
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  to bring in that are new to a minimum if possible.
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  Some things that you want to look out for on these big days
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  is not having enough staff. A lot of places have what's
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  called blackout dates where everyone knows at the beginning
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  of the year these are the dates that you cannot take time off.
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  So it's you're upfront with everyone saying, hey, everyone's
• 10:13
  going to be here Valentine's Day.
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  Everyone's got to be here New Year's Eve or during Super Bowl
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  week or during South by Southwest, because inevitably
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  people want to take time off. And if you're not paying close
• 10:23
  attention to these dates, if you don't have your calendar marked
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  out for the year on what those blackout dates are, you might
• 10:30
  unknowingly, as the chef, start approving time off during your
• 10:33
  busiest time of year because you weren't putting two and two
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  together. So I'm up front with people when
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  they start working for me and say, hey, these are the blackout
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  dates. Vacations cannot be taken during
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  this time. It's all hands on deck.
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  Of course, there's always exceptions to the rule, but
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  that's at your discretion to determine what best suits your
• 10:49
  operation. But in most cases, it's all
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  hands on deck. This is prime time, game time.
• 10:54
  Get ready. It's the Super Bowl for chefs.
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  The other thing is don't underestimate the amount of
• 10:58
  people that you're going to need.
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  Remember, you're doing things that you don't do every day.
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  And sometimes it's easier. You get there and it's like, you
• 11:04
  know what? It's kind of easy.
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  We didn't need that many people. You can make cuts, but other
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  times you think you could do it. And you say, well, how hard
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  could it be to do this? We always do 150 covers.
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  Yeah, but you don't always do 150 covers at A7 course tasting
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  or a six course tasting or A5 course tasting.
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  It's usually a la carte. And now this is a completely
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  different style of service, and maybe the plating is different.
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  Speaking of plating, did you count your plates?
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  Because that seems to be one thing that people overlook
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  sometimes when they're getting ready for these special events
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  is they forget to make sure that they have a plate for every
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  course that's coming up, and then they run out of plates or
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  they run out of silverware. So it's important if you need to
• 11:40
  rent silverware, if you need to rent some plates, or if you need
• 11:43
  to change what plate that dish is going on.
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  You want to think about that before the big day.
• 11:47
  If you do it a buffet style, Do you have enough equipment?
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  Are you doing shafing dishes and pots and things like that?
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  Do you have enough of those? Do you have enough utensils?
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  Did you map out the flow of service?
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  Because sometimes on these special dates, it's not the
• 12:01
  normal flow of service. So maybe people come in the
• 12:03
  kitchen and exit a different place.
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  Maybe they're picking up food somewhere where they don't
• 12:07
  normally pick it up. Maybe it's a buffet and you have
• 12:10
  action stations that are placed in different parts of the room.
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  You got to think these things through.
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  The other thing is to think about the timing.
• 12:17
  If you're setting up a buffet, what time does food need to be
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  ready? What time are you going to walk
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  the room and make sure everything is set?
• 12:23
  And then of course you have to write very detailed prepless.
• 12:26
  As I like to say on Chef's PSA, the three rules of catering, #1
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  count everything, #2 count everything, #3 count everything.
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  Make sure you have a formula for how much you need of everything.
• 12:36
  It's not always going to be perfect, but I promise you
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  having some sort of formula and some sort of estimate is better
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  than having no estimate and just guessing.
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  Count your plates. Count your portions.
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  Count how many pieces of ravioli you're making.
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  Count how many pieces of asparagus are going on the
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  plate. Count the mushrooms.
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  Know exactly how much sauce you're going to make, exactly
• 12:56
  how much soup you need, exactly how many turkeys you need to
• 12:59
  fire, exactly how many portions come out of a Turkey.
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  Make sure you have prep list and everyone knows exactly what
• 13:04
  they're supposed to do to make sure this is successful Event.
• 13:07
  Make sure you're following up and making sure that they're
• 13:10
  actually doing what you told them to do.
• 13:12
  Then be prepared for the chaos and for things to go South and
• 13:15
  keep your cool because if you panic, everyone else panics.
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  Think about worst case scenarios and what would happen.
• 13:23
  What's your mitigation plan? If you were out of Turkey, I
• 13:26
  could tell you years ago I was doing a Thanksgiving buffet.
• 13:29
  This is like, I don't know, about 15 years ago and about
• 13:32
  midway through the Thanksgiving buffet, we ran out of Turkey.
• 13:34
  It's like there's one thing you cannot run out of on
• 13:36
  Thanksgiving and that's Turkey. And it was like, hit the panic
• 13:39
  button, Call every single grocery store, call in every
• 13:42
  favor to get Turkey. I don't.
• 13:45
  I honestly don't remember how we did it, but we didn't run out of
• 13:48
  Turkey because I deployed like 3 different chefs to different
• 13:52
  restaurants to go borrow Turkey and call in favors.
• 13:55
  You only have to make these mistakes one time.
• 13:57
  And So what do they say? Wisdom is learning from other
• 14:00
  people's mistakes. So learn from my mistake.
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  Make sure you have an exact count of how many portions
• 14:04
  you're getting out of your big protein items.
• 14:06
  And if you know there's a potential for disaster, what's
• 14:09
  your Plan B? Don't try and figure out Plan B
• 14:12
  on the spot in advance. Strategically plan out what the
• 14:15
  potential pitfalls may be and know what you're going to do now
• 14:19
  once you've done this big event and maybe it was successful and
• 14:23
  maybe it wasn't. An important thing to do is make
• 14:25
  sure that you regroup at the end of it.
• 14:28
  A debrief. What went well, what didn't go
• 14:31
  well. I always used to run AP and L
• 14:33
  after big events to see if we made money on them or not, to
• 14:36
  see what we could do differently, see how we could
• 14:38
  make more money next time. And you have a good history
• 14:42
  moving forward. So if you document your history
• 14:45
  next year, a lot happens between events and you may forget some
• 14:49
  of the pitfalls. So if you if you have a recap
• 14:51
  what went well, what didn't, and it's documented, it's always
• 14:54
  good as you're leading up to the event the next year, what went
• 14:56
  wrong and you go back, Oh yeah, I forgot, this is going to be
• 14:59
  the plan. So this doesn't happen this time
• 15:00
  around or you're leaving that for the next team that comes in
• 15:03
  after you. Maybe you're planning on leaving
• 15:05
  and someone's going to take the reins of the kitchen.
• 15:07
  You're setting them up for success and you might not want
• 15:09
  to set them up for success, but you should.
• 15:11
  It's the professional thing to do.
• 15:13
  Set the next chef coming in after you up for success.
• 15:16
  With all that being said, shout out to all the chefs that are
• 15:19
  working hard for those big events, those big holidays.
• 15:22
  Let's have a great Super Bowl service and let's have a great
• 15:26
  Valentine's Day special day for everyone.
• 15:28
  Thank you all very much. If you want to support the show,
• 15:30
  go to chefspsa.com. You get all the merch, all the
• 15:32
  books. Go get culinary leadership
• 15:34
  fundamentals. If you're an aspiring leader, go
• 15:37
  get batsu Good chef. If you're a new sous chef and go
• 15:41
  get the line cook survival manual.
• 15:42
  If you're a new line cook and get this happy cook hat.
• 15:45
  If you're a happy cook like me, we'll see you next week.
• 15:48
  Hit the porno music.