Brining

Simple task of adding flavor and tenderizing of proteins by using salt and liquid. Usually water and or juice, wine, vinegar. Great for poultry, seafood, pickling. Don’t fucking cook that holiday Turkey without brining it first you Luddite.

Marinating

Similar to brining but used more to change the flavor and aromatic profile using the acidic of juices, oils and herbs to tenderize and breakdown the proteins or vegetables. Examples – mojo, chimmichuri, bbq sauces. Works for grilling big ass pieces of meat with no flavor or for when you’re tired of chicken tasting like chicken

Fuck ton

The form of measurement used to describe par levels, stock inventory or basically anything over say… 20.

Examples: Prep cook- “Chef, how many portions of pudding do I need to make for dinner service?”

Chef – “A fuck ton.”

Prep cook – “Heard chef!”

“What do you mean we are out of C folds?? There should be a fuck ton of them in dry storage!”

“We just had a fuck ton of people walk in the restaurant!”

And sometimes used for hyperbole

“We need to pull Chuck off the grill. I’ve had a fuck ton of steaks come back tonight.”

Shit load

See *Fuck Ton

Sharpie

An actually sharpie or magic marker, used for labeling masking tape, making permanent changes on recipe cards, writing prep lists, inventory, kitchen notes, drawing dicks on prep tables and on the back of line cooks necks. A must have for all line cooks usually found shoved behind an ear or in that little slot on the chef coat sleeve only to be forgotten about and ruin your load of whites later that night during laundry. A highly valued possession that if you’re sleight enough you can accumulate a healthy chef bag full by the end of your shift by borrowing every one else’s. Also can be used as currency for buying cigarettes and redbulls off of linecooks.

Bar towel

Also known as a dish rag. These can be seen holstered on the side of line cooks, bussers, bartenders and servers. When properly utilized it’s purpose is to sanitize prep tables, dining room tables, bar wood, kitchen equipment etc. It can also be used as a damp cold compression for 110° kitchens, hangovers and oven burns. Oven mitts, ass stingers, bandanas and bathing when you’re working a hot double. Two of them make for a great pillow when you’re napping off a hangover on the back dock. Bar towels are also another form of restaurant currency. Most places you’re given a small number to last your whole shift. Some line cooks have hidden caches of them in their chef rolls, trunk of their car or hiding in the ceiling tiles. I have had to come between many a cooks when someone has snuck a towel or sharpie from their hiding places. Solid pet peeve- don’t let your employees walk around with bar towels hanging by their side. I know it’s convenient to have a mobile hand dryer at your side during high volume but you’re packing enough bacteria on that towel to flavor kool aid for Jonestown. Restaurant owner wannabes, these little guys can cost you upwards of 3-5k annually on your bottom line.

Julienne

Do you like veggies? Do you like veggies all uniformed and cut to look like fucking matchsticks? That’s all that means.

Back dock

Employee lounge at the back of every restaurant. This is where red bulls and monsters are consumed voraciously. 2 oz soufflé cups of sweet tea and sodas while inhaling a camel wide in between dinner rushes. Gossiping about new key managers while swatting horse flies buzzing around the eight pungent slim jims left for the dumpster run the night before. Hidden flasks are sipped back here while line cooks talk about walking out on that asshole chef. Life long friendships and relationships have been created in this zone. Terminations, promotions and a solid boxing ring for employees to air out their differences. The employee that didn’t pull their weight that day got the sidework of sweeping up the dozens of discarded cigarettes butts by the back dock latern that had probably been burned out or punched out for 4 months.

Heard

Service industry lingo for just about all communication. Heard is the “Roger” or “10-4 good buddy” for restaurants. When asked to perform a task it is reasonable to reply with a resounding “heard” to show your compliance. When outside expo calls out a ticket you damn well better hear a “HEARD” from the line. It’s for when expo, management or hell anyone at the restaurant want to know you’re paying attention.

Walking with a hot ass pan in my hands “Hot behind you!”

“Heard chef”

“Drop two hangers and work me a shrimp and grit!”

“Heard chef”

You’ll find yourself using this term unconsciously while you’re away from work too.

Wife – “can you please for the love of god take the fucking trash out??”

Me – “heard”

Behind, Corner

In the restaurant business you are fucking trucking at 100mph with 500° sauté pans, fajitas that will cook your skin off rushing across the dining room and sharp knives that will could a t-bone. How do we all manage not to run into each other, catch fire, lope off an elbow and die? We communicate with short loud outbursts. “BEHIND!” let’s your crew know you are walking behind them with something that could possibly send them to the emergency room. Usually in the form of blazing fire or sharp jaded glass. Sometimes it’s a grill cook with a $48 center cut ribeye dangling from the clutches of a limping pair of tongs, trying not to rear end inside expo while he argues with the floor manager who he’s been fucking for the last 6 weeks.

Sometimes it’s the lead server navigating the trainee with 8 stem glasses and a pricey vino through the busy dining room with patrons skipping and dancing in reverse. Using the word “behind” can keep a rotund cook from bumping your ass into a deep fryer.

Corner is sort of like honking before you go around a sharp one lane, blindsided turn. When not used properly you’ll have servers with hot loaded tea urns running into cooks with pans on fire and regretting your new upcoming workers comp policy.

Hands

Restaurants that have food runners all have the same commotion coming from the kitchen. “HANDS” or “RUNNERS!” are exclaimed from inside or outside expos when hot food is ready to leave the window. A well run facility will have servers and food runners check for hot food each time they walk by the kitchen window even during rush. When this doesn’t happen you will hear “HANDS!” in loud, frantic outbursts as outside expo gets pummeled with a 40 top plate service all at once. This is usually when you’ll see an upcoming mental breakdown in the making.

Expo

Inside expo is the most important position in the kitchen in my opinion. Inside expo is the quarterback of the line. They communicate with all the other line cooks. They have the menu playbook memorized. You’ve got up to five others on the line all being choreographed by inside expo. They make sure the plates pass in correct order, fry, pantry, grill and saute cooks build the plates in unison. A good inside expo keeps the line guys on the same cadence. They assure that sautéd broccolini in brown butter hits the side plate with the coulette at the same time. Or that the fried chicken hits the top of the Cobb salad right when it’s time to sell a so the lettuce doesn’t wilt. A great expo will keep your tickets below 15 on a busy night and will back up any station in need.

Rush

Rush is fairly self explanatory. In the restaurant business rush time is usually from 12-2 for lunch and 6-9 for dinner. If you’re a late night bar rush may not happen until after 11 when other places have closed and or last call when everyone is either tabbing out or getting that last drink before the mops break out. It’s basically means you’re knee deep in the shit.

The rush can be a smooth sailing busy shift running on all cylinders with servers upselling, kitchen line running 11 minute ticket times, expo is all smiles and the GM is out in the dining room kissing kids and shaking customers. Customers are full bellied burping out 5 star reviews and talking about naming their next child after one do your signature dishes.

The other rush is the hostess keeps leaving the hostess stand because she’s puking in the bathroom from the apartment party one of the line cooks invited her to while a server is crying in front of the POS because she got triple sat by the new manager in training. Bartender is 4 deep at brunch and just 86ed Bloody Mary mix because he thought it wouldn’t be busy enough for a backup. Kitchen line is running 45 minute ticket times because you’re one man down from the pantry cook not paying his child support. Expo is buried in hot plates turning cold and the GM is holding the puking 17 year old hostess’s hair while she continues to puke by the dish room slim Jim

Slim Jims

No these aren’t those long skinny meat sticks you find in roadside gas stations. Slim Jims are tall, skinny trash cans used by restaurants and bars. Their shape is meant to sit flush with walls and in between work stations so your don’t trip or fall into or over them. Also designed somewhat for one or two employees to be able to heave over the big green monsters without being crushed or adding more cost to your workers comp. The shelf life of these cans can me tumultuous due to most employees dragging these by the lip, hundreds of feet down asphalt corridors until they are heaved into the mother trash (dumpsters). Other employees with use hand trucks or a random shopping cart that a homeless person discarded in your parking lot 2 years ago. Some such as many of my old dishwashers will stack them up tits full behind the dumpsters for the morning crew to discover while looking for empty slim jims.

Dry Storage

Usually a long skinny corridor used for storage just wide enough to where you have to fully embrace a 50lb bag of flour to drag it out to the prep area so you can cut it open. 10lb cans stacked on top of one another to roll off like giant logs off of a semi in Final Destination (not as bad but you may get your toe squashed. Normally air controlled like a sauna. Drug deals can be also made here.

Walk-in

Where the weak go to cry and chefs go to scream. Also I suppose it’s used to keep a fuck load of food and prep cooled.

C folds

Those little tri fold towels that get stuck in every fucking towel dispenser and end up sitting on top of the dispenser itself or laying on a wire rack next to the sink. Fancy restaurants will have the big fat soft ones in a germ ridden wicker basket on the center of the vanity between the two copper sinks.

All Day

Expo or linecook slang for “how many fucking steaks do I have on the grill?” Or “how many fries do I need down in the fryer?”

Expo- “You have all day- 8 racks of ribs, 4 tender baskets, 12 fries, 2 Brussels and a Mac n cheese.”

Dead Plate

Someone done fucked up and made one too many shrimp and grits or the hot plate sat too long in the window. Sometimes it’s an overlooked allergy expo caught before it went out. Dead plates are plates/food you can’t fix or repair. Serving burgers open face is ideal for these moments because it’s cheaper throwing away a top bun because you mistakenly put mayo on the no mayo as opposed to trying to wipe the mayo off the whole burger itself or throwing it out. Sometimes the plate sits too long in the window and it gets overcooked from the heat lamp or it turns into a still life painting from being pushed outside of the heat lamps effective range. Dead plates usually end up on the back prep table to be consumed by hungry staff like pigs in a trough.

On the pass

When plating, often times food has to be passed down the line to the main window. Your grill and expo are generally closest to the window and then sauté and pantry might be further down. Sauté will be the guy with the haricots verts flambé and need the protein plated and passed down to him. That plate while in transit is “on the pass” from ine

Weeds

The social equalizer in the industry. Doesn’t matter how you kick ass in this business everyone has experienced it. Whether it’s being triple sat, 40 tickets ringing in at one time, hot food piling up at expo or dishwasher breaking down in the middle of the shit, it’s the restaurant version of losing your fucking mind. You can be in control on a busy night all night and BAM you lose a credit card on the way back to the table or FUCK you forgot to ring in one person’s order on a 20 top, or GODDAMMIT your grill is on fire from all the built up carbon, or MOTHERFUCKER the kitchen printer goes down.

The whole night was as your oyster. You were kicking ass and making bills. You hear the expo screaming “CHECK YOUR TABLES! PRINTER WENT DOWN!” and you’re praying that 10 top got rang in before the printer shit the bed. You’re praying really hard because you rang that food in 20 minutes ago and told your table “it shouldn’t be much longer” only to find out their order has been in short circuited purgatory for the last 20 minutes and now you or the manager on duty (currently crying in the walk-in) have to find a way to let the table know their food hasn’t even been dropped yet because of a frayed wire to the main printer, wrapped in masking tape by a pantry cook just smoked out. It might start with your feet getting cold, your arm going numb or that one bead of sweat running down the side of your cheek but here comes the weeds. There’s no way to defeat the weeds once they arrive. You ride it out like sitting in a dumpster full of rotten chicken during a tornado and hope you aren’t dead when it’s over. At the end of your shift, you funnel a bottle of Stoli and prepare for the next one.

Floor Plan

The front of the house (FOH) atlas, navigation chart and customer corral. This is the laminated scroll that sits masking taped to the top of every the hostess station/desk/stand. Well I’m sure the digital age has reshaped that now to a tablet screen so some romance has been lost in the old days of being able to erase your name with your palm right in front of the hostess and scream “IM CUT GODDAMIT!” and then walk out to smoke before you clock out for the day. Floor plans can make or break a server’s day. The lifers and keys always got to choose which quadrilateral they got to focus on for the shift. Managers will all sing the same song about “There are no bad sections!” which we all know is the biggest pile of horse shit you could ever feed a server.

Some would walk in for service, check the floor plan, nod their head and go about their business. Others will take a glance, mutter “hells yes” under their breath and flip their section 4 times. These sections on the floor plan may resemble 4 booths or 3 booths and a large round. Some prefer high top cocktail tables that you can wine and dine or turn and burn. Then there are the sections where servers look down, drop their shoulders and know it’s going to be either a ghost town or parties with kids in their section all night. These sections usually consist of four tops that float right in the middle of the dining room that are constantly pushed together for large parties to celebrate birthdays filled with discarded wrapping paper, confetti, glitter (the herpes of craft world) deflated balloons and smashed birthday cake stomped into the carpet by a three year lunatic child that needs it’s ass beat. Party is camping the whole evening in your section while everyone passes around baby pictures of birthday girl as she sits in her regal birthday chair with arms, wrapped in a “Birthday Girl” paper sash and a plastic tiara on her head. Settle the fuck down Susan you’re 48 for fuck sake.

Side-work

Seems fairly simple to define and most jobs have some sort of side-work. Mostly it’s daily tasks that help keep the wheels spinning once the restaurant opens. There’s three basic levels of sidework in the restaurant business. Opening side-work such as brewing coffee and tea while slicing lemons, folding linen until you get carpel tunnel, setting up expo with all the condiments and garnishments used to pretty up the plates.

Running side-work usually fell into what you chose as opening side-work. If you were tasked with brewing the tea it usually meant it was your responsibility to maintain that area during shift to insure a steady flow of sweet tea is available at all times. You may have been tasked with wiping down the bathroom sinks from customer backsplashing, picking used hand towels off it’s floor and be the messenger for the manager if someone blows up the handicap stall ther always needs the handle jiggled. A well oiled shift with good staff present doesn’t need running side-work assigned. Everyone pulls for everyone. Shit gets done most of the time and it’s all smiles. Now if Cathy is pissed at Rebecca for texting Nelson the bartender (Cathy has crushed on him since orientation and is waiting for the right moment for Nelson to ask her out even though they’ve been working together for 5 months) then Cathy won’t even press the brew button on the tea machine all shift. She won’t back up ice, lemons, he’ll she might pour a carafe of coffee down the drain just to spite. That’s Rebecca’s sidework and well, fuck Rebecca’s slutty ass for texting Nelson “wyd?” after 4 jagers.

Now closing side-work is always a subject of drama. If you didn’t pull your weight during rush the veteran server will assign you the bullshit sidework. Y’all know exactly what the fuck I’m talking about. If the average sidework chart has say, 10 tasks. Most likely 3 of those will be cakewalk side-work such as sweep waitstation area and marry the tea urns. Another 3 or 4 will be more indignant like sweeping up the bathrooms, changing out the trash liners or diving through the used napkins to fish out silverware that got tangled in the soiled linen bin. Not very time consuming but rolling around in customer’s wadded backwash was never a fun experience. One time we found a diaphragm while pulling out forks.

The last of the sidework tasks always went to the loudest or laziest employee of the shift/week or year for some of us or the closer simply dislikes you and likes to fuck you over via side-work. Maybe you didn’t run any of their food that shift. Maybe their regulars sat in your section and you refused to give up your table. Maybe they found out you slept with their sister the day before and they thought you were liked them just because you sang a scorcher of a duet during Karaoke that same night. Hypothetically.

I always assigned the closing side-work at the beginning of the shift to get all of the screaming out of the way before dinner service. You knew how long your shift was going to be by your closing side-work. If you were sweeping mats and refilling c folds in the bathrooms you were put early. If you’re closing up expo and tea station, you’re there until the doors or locked. Sometimes filling out the side-work chart will turn you into the enemy of the state. Choose your servers wisely. You may walk out to a flat tire after work.

Every night, all 8 servers on the schedule have already made plans for the evening that doesn’t allocate time for them to close or stay late. Usually they are all going to the same venue for the same concert or party. You’d be amazed at how many times one of my servers made plans to be off of work right as dinner rush started.

Camping

No this isn’t the “camping” that I enjoy doing every week. This isn’t the type of camping that involves campfires, burning s’mores while singing Kumbaya, my lord. This term is for patrons that sit rent free in your section all evening. When you’re over quote on seating times on a Friday night the last thing you want to hear is “my whole section is full of campers!” Now as a retired restaurant proprietor I am fully aware that it is paramount for your patrons to feel at home, wined, dined, full relaxed and happy as pigs in shit. It’s called hospitality I get it. But this ain’t your fucking living room. We have other people on the books. The Swansons were supposed to be eating at that exact table 42 minutes ago and you’re sharing pound cake recipes with Ethel. Your table has been so prebussed that even your discarded toothpick has been cleaned off and replaced. Your fucking linen has been laundered. Your server is lifting up your shoe and sweeping discarded Brussels sprouts from underneath. Take the hint Ethel it’s time to move your party elsewhere. Unless your fine dining, restaurant economics don’t translate well with campers. Nor does it help the server’s pocket. On a busy night a restaurant wants at least 3 or 4 table turns for service. We want as many different asses in the seats as possible. Lunch we want you in and out in under 40 minutes. Dinner ideally 60 minutes depending on your level of service. For a 5-10 pm dinner service that gives you the capacity to fill the dining room up to four or five times. As a proprietor this is what you are gunning for every single night. It’s all about balance however. Some tables will arrive, order their entree immediately, pay and leave within half an hour. Others may linger and order espresso, dessert and chat for a bit. As a restaurant manager/owner you never rush a customer regardless. Hospitality can be a lot of lip biting but to remain professional and have at least a tad bit of integrity you treat your customer golden until they decide to leave.

Now with that said. patrons should exercise a little situational awareness. If you’re rimming your cold ass espresso cup with your index finger, pants unbuttoned, cheesecake stain on your napkin that’s been refolded for you over and over after your sixth trip to the bathroom and you gaze up at the herd of hungry customers sardined in front of the hostess stand and think “I could use another water refill” then you’re an asshole. Don’t give me that “I’m spending money in here I’ve got just as much right to sit here as anyone else!” No. You stopped spending money an hour ago and to be honest that $4.00 espresso isn’t worth the extra 45 minutes you’ve spent burping at the table while four tables that went over quote left to go elsewhere and won’t return because they equate the long waiting time as representation of poor management. Sometimes the campers stay for so long we have to send out the crop dusters. Here’s some advice for you. If you smell a barrage of farts after your dinner it’s time to wrap things up and move on. Either that or you fucked up with a last minute reservation and you’re sitting next to the restrooms.

Double/ Triple Sat

When you as a customer get escorted to a table and you’re that asshat that just has to have a booth, or a that corner table or need to sit 100 yards from any child under the age of 17 and ask the hostess to sit you in elsewhere or even better get up and move to another empty table, there’s a good chance you’ve just fucked up the seating rotation. Yes restaurants have sections for servers. Some just rotate tables and have a free for all while others break out little sections for servers. It may be a swell section with all booths or the party table section that gets pulled together for families or just 5 deuces to turn and burn during cocktail hour but there is a method to the seating madness. One server may have just been sat a 6 top and needs a moment to greet, bev up and specialize the table. All the while Nancy just came in for her wine night with Mildred and Inez and she just has to have that corner booth where the air conditioning won’t blow her new blue mop all around. Nancy doesn’t give a shit about server rotation so she walks and sits herself at her fav spot. So the server greeting the 6 top just got double seated. Well suddenly Inez brought her husband Franklin along with his bridge buddy Tom and now they are pulling a table out of another section to join the fun. Now the server is triple seated with a table outside their section and must give away one of their other tables to the neighboring server as to not fuck them for losing a table. Nancy and the rest of the gang proceed to tip the server poorly for taking too long to bring out their first round of drinks.

Low boy

These are wonderful little coolers that sit under grill stations. Great for your back when you are continually bending down to pull out product to throw on the grill. Your sciatica will love you after 400 covers on a Friday night.

On the fly

This term is used about every minute in the restaurant industry. Just about everything is needed immediately or as fast as you can make it.

Server drops a plate, we need another one “on the fly”

Table is sat 20 minutes past their quote time we need their order “on the fly”

Ding Dong McGhee drops a steak on the floor during pass need another one “on the fly”

We can scream this at each other until our faces fall off the food ain’t gonna come out any quicker. If it’s a def con five moment then someone else’s table gets fucked for 4 or 5 minutes while we relocate their food to that guest.

Mise en place

Chef term for “everything in its place”. Having your station set up to handle the shit whether it’s a 20 head count for the night or 400. I have never used the term. I’m not French nor do I use fluffy, cheffy terms to promote and illustrate my chefness. I have found in my 30 years in the industry the ones that throw around the fancy words or demand you address them as “chef” are usually the first ones that melt under pressure.

86

86ed is the restaurant industry is the universal code for “sold out”, “ran out”, “no more”.

86 the special we are sold out!

86 baked potatoes for 25 minutes!

86 the dishwasher he’s already left for the day.

86 Sean, he’s crying in the walk-in. There are some back stories to this term regarding an old restaurant Chumleys in old Greenwich that was located on 86 Worth st that would post a chalkboard put front with all of the items they were out of that would later become the “86 board”. Whether or not that’s true I have no clue nor do I wish to research it anymore. I’m retired..

Kitchen jukebox

Usually a cellphone playing inside of a aluminum sixth pan. It has to be a sixth pan. Anything else the acoustics suck.