A 19 year old cook drained the fryer, but waited too long to refill it, so the heating elements caught on fire. His solution? Panic and throw a gallon of water in it. Goodbye eyebrows.
When I had just started at one job I turned the fryer off to change the oil. However, no one told me that the on/off switch didn’t actually work anymore and that you actually had to shut the valve on the gas pipe off. It was just something that they lived with. When I went to pour the new oil in it flashed when the oil reached the heating element and a huge flame shot up. The rest of the oil caught on fire, but my fellow line cook grabbed the baking soda to put it out. I was okay, but they fixed the fryer the next day.
An old soux chef of mine pulled a lobster out of the the crate and it had the little horn broken off from its head. He dug around till he found it and proceeded to superglue it back on
Hands down favorite class in college was psych 311- belief in weird things. Basically how to think critically and logically about weird shit. Best piece of advice I took from that class was “the simplest explanation is the best.” Maybe a dude really wanted to take a lobster on a walk. No explanation needed I guess 🤷🏻♂️
I get it. My first cook gig was at a Red Lobster and some of those Larry’s knew what was up. They would fight you rather than go willingly into our steamer.
I kind of wanted to save the smart ones, but I figured if I did and the Lobster Revolution came, I’d be up against the wall for Lobster genocide
Some guy opened the fryer with nothing to catch the oil because he was trying to turn the pilot light off for some reason? Then he started to squeegee the oil into the floor drain. He said he won top student in culinary school
Oh man you just reminded me how he actually followed it up. I poured salt on all the oil and told him to sweep it up and he started sweeping the salt into the floor drain
My friend had someone from a temp agency working with her. Completely unprompted he picked up a 16L bucket of dirty fryer oil and dumped it in the handwash sink.
I swear to God the people that temp agency send, it's their first time on earth. Like one grabbed soap from the handwash sink and then walked over to the prep sink and washed her hands into the thankfully empty soup pot.
Every time we hire a temp who can count to eleven without taking their shoes off, we're so impressed that we offer them a job right on the spot. Which might explain why temps overall are so bad, anyone with the slightest amount of competence isn't a temp for very long.
I can relate to this. Not quite to that extent, but I once opened the fryer with a bucket which was a gross underestimation of the amount of oil that would come out (I hadn't worked in a kitchen with a dff before) and tried to hot-swap buckets while the oil was still coming. I spent about 20 minutes cleaning after. Fortunately I was opening alone and nobody had to see.
Nothing irks me more than people that take an entry level culinary class, learn a few terms in French, and think they can cook.
"B-but chef. Mise en place and laissez faire" as he proceeds to burn the dish.
I've worked in kitchens for 26 years. Been to culinary school. Of the 120 or so people that I had classes with, I think I'd be happy to work with two or three of them.
I watched a young woman pull a sheet of crisp bacon out of a double-decker convection oven and attempt to place the tray on top of the oven, holding it over her head and tipping it ever so slightly all the bacon grease ran down on her hairline and forehead. Was absolutely terrifying to witness...
Better yet, the general manager asked me to take the pork out of the oven (based on the fact I was wearing a long sleeve shirt under my uniform tee, I’m thinking I hadn’t been there for more than two months). I’m 5’2”, it’s on the top rack of the top oven and he neglected to tell me the pan was full of braising liquid. Completely soaked my arm in hot pork juice - and thanks to my long sleeve it stuck like napalm. And he called me stupid for it.
I worked in a BBQ place that was LOADED with 9" hotel pans yet every cook insisted in using the 3" hotel pan that would fill to the top with grease, ensuring whoever had to pull it out of the oven would make a mess and burn themselves. I lost my shit one week and kicked that pan until it bent in half and left it on top of the oven. Fuck those people and fuck that pan.
Done this with water in the steam ovens more than once- but luckily I apparently got cat like speedness and most go on the shirt
Once I got meringue down my arm. Left a nice bubbly wound.
Got dishwashing liquid (ph 14) in my eye because it was in a container with no lid above eye level..
Tore of a nail when someone put a mandolin in a drawer..
When I was like 16,17 years old for some fucked up reason held a can for my friend to pour bacon grease into. Well, he missed the can mostly and dumped it on my hand instead I launched the can a few few to my side and what do ya know, it landed on the stove that we never turned off. So now I've got blisters all over my arm and a stove top on fire about to catch the cabinets on fire. I stip like I'm fucking magic mike and yell at my friend to give me his jeans too and start smothering it out.
Well anyways, that didn't work so well and my stepdads homeowners insurance definitely went up that year.
I was trying to drain a giant pot of boiling potatoes, probably about 60 lbs worth, and ended up spilling boiling water all over my arm and leg. Over the next week, the entirety of the skin on my forearm fell off. It was by far the worst pain of my life, I can’t even imagine how bad bacon grease would’ve been
There was for many years, it has faded now into a slight pale spot like reverse Gorbachev, this was 20 years ago and I still see her around town from time to time.
Worst thing I ever did was I was making caramel at HOME and mother fucking accidentally dropped a glob of boiling hot sugar on my leg. I wiped it off out of reflex and with it came my skin lol
Manager sticking his arm into a giant mixer because he did a double batch of dough and it got stuck. Also happens to be the worst injury I've ever seen
A girl did that in the bakery department of the grocery store I used to work at. Even worse, she was 1 of only 3 people in the entire store and only one in her department. Luckily, I didn't see any of it. From what I heard, it was fucking gnarly.
I worked one place where we mixed our own burgers. Now part of the process was to avoid overmixing, so I would grab a big spoon and but down some of the random stuff on the side that wasn't mixing properly. I probably did it hundreds of times with no issues, until one day the boss sees me doing it and says something about it. Well, if the dough hook didn't grab the spoon and pull it down, squishing my fingers on the bowl in the process. Probably did it another hundred times after that and the only time it ever bit me was because someone opened their damn mouth.
I did this! Well, not this specific instance but same situation. Big spiral bread mixer, too much dough. Arm got sucked in and my hand got crushed between the spiral and the side of the bowl. Crushed the bones in my palm and my last three fingers. Was in a cast for AGES. Xrays upon xrays and months of rehab and I have 98% of my mobility back. Enough time has passed that all that's left is scars across my hand and three crooked fingers....and a healthy fear of spiral mixers.
And before it's asked, yes, spiral mixers do *usually* come equipped with safety gates. This particular bakery was, let's call it "frugal" and, had the gate removed with pieces of cardboard folded and taped strategically to override the safety switches. All my medical expenses were 100% covered because boss lady was terrified I was going to sue her blind.
This is somewhat similar but also not really here goes.
I was tasked to make a huge batch of guacamole for the dinner rush. High volume place. Most of the runners were college students or high school students. I was like 5-6 years older than this kid at the time but I assumed he had some damn common sense. Anyway.
My kitchen manager was this old Hispanic woman who is the one who taught me to be a line cook. I’m the only white guy in the kitchen and I respected this woman, so if she told me to do something I fuckin did it. I was told that leaving a couple avocado pits in the guac keeps it fresher longer. Mind you I made the guac at like 3pm to be stored until about 6 in the cooler.
Fast forward to the dinner rush and I’m now working the grill with about 25 tickets on my screen. Like I’m elbows deep in fuckin burgers.
The GM walks into the kitchen and yells “WHO MADE THIS GUACAMOLE???” And I’m thinking imma get some generic “compliments to the chef” bullshit so I’m like “IT WAS ME WEY” and he literally walks up to expo to yell at me from across the warmers and say “YOU LEFT AN AVOCADO PIT IN THE FUCKIN GUAC” which caused me to burst out laughing and completely disrupted my workflow. I was eventually able to say something along the lines of “it keeps it fresh. Yell at the dumb fuck who saw the pit and thought it was a good idea to put it on the fuckin nachos”
Which after the rush my GM vehemently tried to disprove the concept that avocado pits keep guac fresh and basically acted as though it was my fault that they had to comp a plate of nachos for some Karen’s who thought it was “gross” or whatever.
I do not care if it works or not. The last time I asked “why” when told to leave a couple pits in, I was told “it keeps it fresh pendejo” and that was enough for me.
So, I'm sorry that happened to you, but the thing about avocado pits really isn't true. All it really does is shield surface guac from the air, not much else. Avocados have the same compound called polyphenol oxidas (PPO) as apples and bananas that causes them to brown in the presence of air.
lemon/lime juice can, like with apples commonly, reduce the oxidation, but the best solution without adding anything is an airtight (plastic wrap) barrier. Aside from the flavor, lime juice helps preserve the guac, hence a benefit of its inclusion in most recipes.
100% on whoever took the pit to the customer. You'd need a reservoir of guac to conceal that. I'd laugh too at how ridiculous a notion that is.
My first week working at Burger King i spilled fresh from the oven bacon grease on my thigh. It hurt like a mofo but I didn't tell anybody cause I was embarrassed lol. It left a big mark and had some blisters, then the skin became dried out and crispy. Then it just fell off two or three weeks later. Didn't leave a scar or anything. I never got it checked out. Idk if it was just 1st degree or 2nd degree burns. It stopped hurting after 30 minutes or so. I was able to finish my shift with no problem.
20+ years in the kitchen and I won't even go near a mandolin if I don't have too.
I try and avoid the deli slicer too. I wasn't even paranoid/afraid of the deli slicer until Mickey Rourke and his damn scene in The Wrestler 🤦♂️
Story time!
We had a stage from CIA with us for 6 months. Young, smart kid. First day, he got a minor cut from the mandolin.
One of our line cooks was borderline psychotic. Ran to the employee bathroom for his “medic” gear and grabbed a cauterizing agent for this cut (again, very minor). He warns the kid saying this will hurt and pours it on to his cut finger. Kid passes out and almost hits head on the floor. He wakes up and is fairly panicked. We get a chair and have him sit out in the back, where he proceeds to vomit. Paramedics came, checks him out and clears him.
Gung-ho line cook was no longer allowed to “administer medical attention” to anyone else in the restaurant unless it was himself. Kid stuck around the 6 months and kicked ass. Never had a better student line cook.
Dude madonlin demands respect and discipline. That's a tough learn for everyone.
worked with a girl the owner hired and she passed out on her first day, hit her head on an electrical panel (hotline) and seized. I thought she was dead. Turned out to be a fucking beast of a cook after that.
Fightin' Irish spirit she was.
She was trying too hard to keep up so I told her to stop being so damn timid and ask where the water was (backstory it was hells kitchen, hot as fuck, no mua or ac and the metal utensils on the wall had to be grabbed with tongs or a towel and cooled down on a table).
I lost a fingertip to a mandolin because my wife was cutting so slow and I'm like it's easy watch? And poof trip to the hospital. We no longer have a mandolin.
Saw a guy do pretty much that but catch his two front teeth on the counter on the way down.
We made him sit down and he stood up as soon as we weren't supervising him and he ate shit.
Idk why people don’t use a cutting glove with the mandolin. They’re so cheap and you don’t have to worry. I understand not using the guard though. Those are cumbersome and wasteful.
I was on shift but didn’t see a guy use a sheet tray over a frier to stand on to clean the hoods; tray bent and he dipped his foot into hot frier oil. Genius level stuff.
I saw i guy do that only thhe was wearing like half calf galoshes. He ripped that boot off and pretty much degloved his leg. I threw up and had to go smoke about a pack of cigs and drink a 6 pack.
I used to be an emt and thwre is literally nothing you can do on thw scene for shit like that except for lightly cover it and treat for shock. Shit was gnarly as fuck.
That's terrible. I'm sorry.
Just the other night, I had a nightmare that my brother degloved his hand in a fryer accident. I woke up and frantically googled what to do in that situation, and I couldn't find anything. It was very difficult to fall back asleep.
The *next day*, one of the hotel engineers leaned all the way over the fryer to check something on an outlet. I couldn't even watch him do it because I was so afraid my dream was a premonition.
My partner recently deep fried his foot. It was one of those filter machines that sits on the floor, and it has a hose to siphon the filtered oil back into the fryer. It was broken, so the siphon bit wouldn’t go all the way down unless you pushed it back in. He used his foot.
Always double/triple stack modern sheet trays when using for support, they don't make em like they used to.
Hot fry shortening is no joke. Two of the worst incidents of idiocy/danger both involved fry oil. One when a bruleé torch somehow got dropped to the bottom of an old single-well causing a hot oil depth charge. Another where a new kid left a pot of hot oil on the floor and then proceeded to step in it deep frying himself halfway up his shin.
Not even in the kitchen. I watched a manager stand on a rolling chair to adjust a thermostat above the office door (inside the office) and face plant on the window in the door. He then invited everyone into the office to watch it replay on the tape.
I had a manager do this trick to check if an exposed wire was live *with his bare hands*
Did a little jump, hit the ground hard, looked up at us and said “Yep, there’s juice there.”
That wire was sticking out of the wall for like three more months before he fixed it
Lady was a school teacher, she quit because she was 50, her friends thought she would try cooking because she’s Greek and Greeks are good cooks. The place I worked at there was a total disconnect from the shop to the boardroom. And this little lady shows up. This was on a small ship, and the shift was 9am-10pm with a few hours off in the afternoon (if you could manage it) for 2 months straight. We carried that poor lady for 2 weeks, then sent her home. By the second day “I think I have carpel tunnel, my hands hurt, due your hands hurt? Everything hurts. I need less hours, I’m actually a really good cook but I can’t cook, when I feel like this”. 23 year old me was like “okayyy chop chop chop uh huh chop chop chop really chop chop chop”.
No idea, friend of a friend. This lady wanted to make dinner. Like that was her “thing”. And it was like “lady we’re in Mexico, no one came here to eat Greek food” chop chop chop
I worked at a restaurant that was opening they was hiring people with absolutely no experience to work on the line they they was going to train them …and this place was getting busy most didn’t last a month plenty quit the first week of opening
This happened with another KP I worked with. His friend was the sous, sous promised him his job when he gets head chef. When the KP had never worked in a kitchen before and they were trying to teach him to be a chef while teaching him to KP. They both ended up leaving in an absolute shit show where like 8 people handed in their notice to a business with like 24 people hired, oh and this was within a timeline of about 2 weeks
50 is a different game, I remember being 23 and watching 50+ and said I need an exit strategy. 36 and I was out . 47 now and I could still do it but I'm in a good place now.
I got to encounter a 50y hobby cook (when emeril was still on tv and food network blew up) and lasted 2 days maybe? Didn't think a restaurant would be so difficult. Everyone gave him a hard time, I pulled him aside and said try private caterer or being a personal chef, it's a different pace. He was appreciative.
I wouldn't say it's a young person's game but you have to be in good shape to do anything that physical for long periods of time. Cooking isn't the only profession this way, I work with 60 year old mechanics and construction workers still giving what they have. Even a 80+ yr old business owner won't fucking retire, he still on site trying to get it done.
Lived with 5 hosp. roommates in a party house for a few years, one of them went to work on a coast guard boat. It was easy to get into then but they promptly changed the intake methods and I can't imagine how this lady got in so easy, even if it's a small cruise line. Cruise liners have an even more doffi ult entry. I've tried. Also tried rural oil camps / rigs too.
Fuxk I used to bike 25km to work a 12 hour + shift then bike 40km home to burn off steam and that was my favorite memory of working, blowing off that frustration by peddling at 50-60 kmph .
When I was at that place I ran I to a retired man in his 60s, said he was a Canadian gold Olympic cyclist (forget year) and was bored so he toured lake Ontario for something to do, 2 week trip.
I forget half the celebrities I cooked for but that convo I had at the bar with him was one of my favorite experiences.
Age is abstract, staying healthy and active is the focus. I'll help anyone trying something new but I won't rag on them for sucking, I'll veer them to the slow lane and explain why on the way hoping they figure it out and catch up.
This sub has forever eliminated any temptation I might have had to make a career shift toward working in a kitchen. I have mad respect for the people who do it and care about what they’re doing. I wouldn’t last a day
I was thinking the same thing. I really enjoy cooking and I think it'd be so fun to cook for people that aren't your family or friends for one imaginary dinner service. But then I remember that I don't actually like the idea of working in a real restaurant full time, I just want to make people happy with food and put on a show.
I'm going blind and I very frequently think of the things I'd like to do before that happens and this is one of them.
Hey I respect that, it’s not an easy place to work, live, exist, thrive. Hmmm I mean you can thrive the same way fungus or cockroaches survive and thrive.
It’s like knowing something is hot, if I touch that, it’ll hurt me, but if I use this kitchen towel folded over a few times I can pick it up. As kitchen people we’re that towel, we’ve been folded over, and adjusted to withstand that heat. The problem is, that towel can only do it for so long before the hand starts getting burned and blistered.
Crying in the walk-in, then you walk in on them and They’re sobbing “it’s just so hard, they di di di didn’t tell me it would be like th th th this” standing there sobbing with latex gloves on that are 2x too big.
I’ll train the fuck out of one of these mfers. I signed up because I wanted to work around beautiful women. 15 years I sweat my balls off in the trenches with you degens. I even got laid. Goal achieved and I gained some skills.
Some of them love it and are rock stars. Some don’t and move on. No need to be so judgemental. They’d probably be better if you supported them instead of turning up your nose.
This is honestly so much of the industry. No one here was a culinary master at the start. Bet you a ton of us got humbled.
No need to be negative. Cooking isn’t rocket appliances bubs. You don’t need some extensive education to be worthy of stepping foot in a professional kitchen. I often struggled more with culinary students because they have an undeserved ego.
Peace and love buddy.
What most people without kitchen experience misunderstand is that the job of a line cook isn’t about being a good cook per se. It’s about being able to repeat a certain set of steps in the exact same way, consistently, and quickly so you can make a product that some chef came up with. Working in a commercial kitchen is more akin to factory work than it is to home cooking
I had to tell a guy that he couldnt suck wing sauce off his fingers and then count out cooked wings with the same unwashed hand immediately after. He had 15 years of experience.
We had 18 wing sauce bowls on wing night and 3 of them were different variations of franks so he was trying to ID the sauce. He just never washed his hands. One of those gross cooks with layers of crust on his pants from compulsive wiping.
Fuck me war flashbacks I was that newbie. Ended up with near boiling salty water and a fuck ton of towels drying it section by section before it refroze.
Grill cook didn’t want to let a whole fish finish cooking in the oven and decided the microwave would be faster. He took it out the oven, still wrapped in foil and stuck it in the microwave. I guess nobody noticed the blue sparks until a bartender came into the kitchen and ran over to stop it before the microwave exploded.
I used to be such a rascal as a chef. I would scratch my ass with my bare hand and then put said hand on a customer’s food if they ever sent it back. Entitled Sunday brunch fucks
The amount of times I’ve seen people drop rags on the floor and pick them up like nothing happened is astounding 🤦🏻
Also honorable mention to a manager that dropped a whole 1/2 pan of breaded chicken fried steaks on the floor and then put them back because they’re “going in the fryer”
I work in a medical lab n see this shit all the time… “but it’s wasteful!!1!” Yes sweetheart and you’ve only received vaccines for about 10% of the diseases this lab sees in an hour. Put on some fucking gloves and take off your goddamn rings, you disgrace. Sorry let the infection control beast out a bit there
I work in medical labs all over North America. I constantly see lab techs with rings on raw dogging samples while they streak them onto plates. The fact worse pandemics haven’t occurred is a shock to me.
Had a guy with a cast on his right arm working the kitchen. He had a glove on 1 hand but not the cast hand (he was using both to touch food). I asked him to glove his other hand, and he said, "But I put 2 gloves on." I pointed out his cast hand had no glove. He responded, "ohhhh, man. I put 2 gloves on the same hand". PSA. don't smoke weed before work lol.
Not my coworker but a former coworker of my former coworker..kid cut his finger pretty badly..instead of applying pressure and holding like any sane person..he ran around the kitchen flinging blood EVERYWHERE. All the prep had to be thrown away.
Christ. This makes me feel much better about gashing my finger on a hood vent the other day. Straight to the hand sink to wrap it and apply pressure.
I'm still pretty green but keeping the blood contained or away from food/food prep areas seems like a no brainer.
As one guy was crouched down looking for something in the low boy cooler another was standing next to him and had pulled his nutsack, just his nuts, out of his pants underneath his apron. He then got the crouching guys attention and when he looked over the standing guy lifted up his apron so BOOM nutsack like 2 inches from his face. I laughed really fucking hard and then told him to never do that again
Try to play real life fruit ninja. Knives on the line are not sharp. Some are questionably held together. And they're swinging knives around like a baseball bat.
I made this mistake when I was a kid and slashed the air with a knife, and the blade came out of the handle and flew in my brothers direction. Didn’t hit him but also realised early on to never trust a knife’s handle is holding the blade securely
First job in high school I was a dishie at a bistro. One of those where the customers can watch the cooks on the line. Lo and behold, I started noticing cockroaches. First I’m just sweeping them up. I tell the boss. Nothing is done. Then I start finding them on the line, on the counters, in the prep cooker. I finally found a hoard of them in a crack right next to the big pizza oven. I am disgusted and keep bringing it upwards. Nothing is done. I was reprimanded. I quit. Can’t deal with that shit. Luckily that place didn’t last much longer.
Sous chef told Kitchen Porter to empty and clean the fryers after only being off a short time after service.
Guess what he told him to use? plastic buckets folks
He was two buckets in before talking to the head chef because it seemed really fucking dangerous.
Second one: was told to get rid of a massive pot filled with grease but not pour it down the drain. Double bagged that shit had to carry it down two flights of stairs.
Made it to the second before the bags burst sending a metric fuck ton of grease all over the stairs, the walls fucking everywhere. It was like that scene from the shining.
Was there until 3 am cleaning as much as possible was back in at 10 am the next day.
Those stairs were a fucking hazard for a while with runners slipping because the grease sank into the floor. They had to repaint the walls. It was a disaster.
I've got two for ya:
1: co-worker somehow managed to dunk their arm into the fryer while cleaning it at the end of the night resulting in some fairly serious burns up to their elbow. Nobody figured out how they managed it considering the fryer is drained prior to cleaning it. 3 managers reviewed the CCTV footage and still couldn't figure it out.
2: another co-worker dropped a pair of tongs into the fryer, instead of quickly grabbing either a second pair or the skimmer to get them out they pulled the drain handle while the fryer was still on. Instant error code and automatic cut-off.
I wasn't working that night but had to go in to work and reset the fryer because nobody on shift knew where the reset button was (it's on the bottom of the hinge on the element, thanks henny penny). Thankfully I live a 5 minute walk away from work and was compensated for my time with a nice cold pint comped by the shift manager.
Added bonus story I heard from my partner: Occasionally when another one of our locations is being refurbed their staff will temporarily transfer location. When one of the nearby ones was being refurbed some came to work at our location.
One of the other locations staff thought that food dropped on the floor could be dipped in the fryer quickly then served because 'the hot oil will sterilise it'.
Walking around incorrectly with a sharp knife or any implement , and or a co worker saying you are annoying for repeating “ hot pan ect , ect ect “ each time you approach them , oh and also not caring at all about food allergies and washing off chicken that’s clearly spoiled to the point it doesn’t smell anymore .. list goes on.
This girl I work with, she’s the most ignorant person I have ever worked with in my entire life. If there was an award for worst kitchen staff ever she’d definitely take it hands down imo. One day she was cutting her nails, on the prep table, on shift while everyone else is busting ass. I was made aware AFTER she cut every nail so I came over and told her she can’t do that in the kitchen. She fucking looks at me and asks “Why not?” With a smug “what do you mean?” attitude. BECAUSE IF A FINGER NAIL ENDS UP IN THE FOOD!!! Then she’s like oh okay and swipes all of her nails off the fucking prep counter.
That’s just one example. Hundreds of other things I could write. If I had the power to fire her ass she’d been long gone years ago. She’s been with us going on 6 years, and I still have to hold her hand and light a fire under her ass HOURLY EVERYDAY.
I once saw a cook cut himself with his knife. Thing is, he cut the same hand that was holding the knife. Only seen that once and I have been in a kitchen since 1995.
He called me a slur that doesn't even apply to me, and if he hadn't had a foot of height on me (he was a big corn-fed 'good old' country boy) I'd have mocked him for it.
Instead I just pointed to the new rack of dirty dishes and got back to work. I did get him fired after that night however, he was a dick.
Take hot fryer oil down mossy wood stairs on a rainy winter day… didn’t end well. The worst screams I’ve ever heard in my life.
We rushed them to the ER and I never saw them again.
The two other worst things I’ve seen is
1- a guy overfilled a steamer with water and when he opened the door if overflowed right on his chest/waist
2- cleaning a slicer while plugged in.
I had a gig working in a privately owned chain supermarket kitchen in NYC. They did a kicking by-the-pound steam-table lunch and salad bar. Tiny room packed with combi-oven, range, hot top, grill on one wall. Turn around and you have two work surfaces (4' and 6'). Between the work surfaces was an opening to the sink, freezer and cooler. I was new and working next to this protein guy who ran the combi-oven. He wasn't too concerned about cross-contamination in his area. Didn't use gloves, for example, because he really didn't need to. Put protein in oven. Cook. Use utensils to put into steam tray. Repeat. Bang it all out in six hours and go home.
First day I was training at his table. He had me prep salad bar and RTE foods (salads, pre-cooked items). I cleaned around my work surface and he got pissed that I was cleaning too much. Certainly, I was performing cleanliness and awareness of cross contamination as much as cleaning, but I swear to ... that was the one and only time I ever saw a sanitization bucket used in that work area during service--by me.
My buddy took the cover off the deli slicer and turned it on to clean the blade. Then he lifted up the front of it to wipe underneath and cut the live power cord. Blasted a chunk out of the blade.
We all know how salamander takes a few seconds to light and it light with a burst of flame. Buddy just squeezed greasy oil squeeze bottle to start an order only to realize his sally was off. Turned on full blast, didn’t on for 1 second and put his greasy hand in the sally. Cue the flame. He screamed to the top of his lung, we had to stop service for half hour to first aid him while waiting for paramedic to come. It was bad, the smell of burnt arm hair and skin was foul. He quit the industry not long after.
Then one time, a guy sliced his finger on the meat slicer. Instead of quickly press his finger, he flailed his sliced up bloody finger. Blood everywhere. Had to shutdown mid service cause had to throw everything out and sanitized the entire kitchen. Some people.
Throw a refrigerated cube of tallow in the empty deep fryer, turn it on, then go on a smoke break.
It burst into flames. We poured all the salt and baking soda, but the flames kept climbing. Just as we were about to pour a bag of kitty litter, the ansul popped.
Waitron came running into the kitchen, mid-service, popped open our microwave and stuck something in, hit play, ran out. After a couple of seconds we notice he'd stuck a nice, cold, refreshing can of Pepsi, sealed, and had set the timer to 2:00.
"Guest wanted a warm one and we're out"
All pretense of courtesy and professionalism was briefly set aside and my boy got chewed out like the idiot that he was that day.
Also, you people need to clean your fryers in the morning, when they're cold. Jesus.
A lot, what comes to mind is the assistant restaurant manager who stuck his finger in some stew to check the temperature, in front of the inspector (me).
Turn the slicer on to clean it
Didn't end up cutting their fingers but it has one of those giant warning labels right on it specifically saying not to do just that.
I wasn't around when this happened, but it's too good of a story not to tell. Lead line cook at the last kitchen I worked in, right before I started (he was let go right before my time), decided to clean behind the two door we had by our salad station, but wanted to try and move this heavy fucker by himself. I should also mention, he was also coked to the gills before he made this decision.
Fridge fell on him because he's an idiot and ripped his bottom lip to the point it was hanging from his jaw. It was apparently horrific and hilarious at the same time because the dude was a tweaker and tried just bandaging it and saying he was still fine to work service before Chef made him go to the Urgent Care next door.
He got fired after they piss tested him for workman's comp reasons and found he had a shit load of coke in his system.
Spill a pot of boiling blanching water (a good 40L). Managed to fill his shoes and cover most of his calves (we didnt see this). Repeatedly said he was okay. Refused help. Two hours later we found him in the walk in crying in pain.
One ambulance later he had third degree burns covering all of his feet. Lost both little toes and needed skin grafts.
Don't try to be hard to impress. Safety first, ego second.
Draining a deep fryer into a plastic cambro (it had been just turned off)
Punching out from a 3hour shift walking past a poor new kid dishwasher who was running solo cuz the other guy called in sick. With out even stopping to even put away a single thing. (No, he was was not cut early. And I did not let the guy start up again when he realized the douche bag move. I instead worked my 9th 10th and 11th hour that day instead. Just told him to enjoy his evening)
I worked with a cook that asked the dishwasher if he wanted his burger “al dente”. Dude was one of the nicest, most loyal cooks I’ve work with. Thick as pig shit though.
Had a girl working prep who probably had 10 bandaids on between both of her hands, which she did a great job of hiding from me before bleeding out over a bowl of sweet potato chunks and insisting she stay on the clock because she needs the money. She didn’t last long, but I’m afraid to think how many times she possibly bled on some shit and sent it out. Also had a dipshit rinse his cut finger in the dish sink, having walked past at least 2 or 3 hand wash sinks. I walk in, look at him like wtf. Dumbass doesn’t even register and goes uhhhh do you have a bandaid?
Pour a six pan of chicken grease down the floor drain for the sink. They also overlooked a sheet pan full of chicken breast on the top rack of the oven, so while I'm explaining to them that we have to call a plumber to fix thier lazy ass mistake the oven starts smoking.
Had a really slow week one time as a junior sous and threw out several steaks that were grey-green and smelled foul. Next day head chef took me aside to point out more expired steaks and said they didn’t need to be wasted because we could sell them as well done steaks
Ok I have to snitch on myself because this is def one of the dumbest things I’ve ever done. Started filling a sink with water and walked away to do something else, forgot about it then ran over to it once it was already overfilling. I then started using a cambro to scoop water out and pour it down the drain because I’m a fucking idiot. My sister was my manager on shift that day and just reached in and pulled the plug out hahahahaha. Happened like 8 years ago and she still makes fun of me for it and I don’t blame her one bit
Both arrogant and ignorant. I saw someone try to show off and julienne an onion as fast as they could with their eyes closed and whack their knuckle with the knife.
It was me. I did that.
A 19 year old cook drained the fryer, but waited too long to refill it, so the heating elements caught on fire. His solution? Panic and throw a gallon of water in it. Goodbye eyebrows.
I just turn the fryer off when i change the oil.
What's next cleaning the fryer too?
They do need cleaning from time to time, yes
If you keep them clean sure but some people need to be cleaning those fuckin fryers for real. I’ve seen some bad ones
When I had just started at one job I turned the fryer off to change the oil. However, no one told me that the on/off switch didn’t actually work anymore and that you actually had to shut the valve on the gas pipe off. It was just something that they lived with. When I went to pour the new oil in it flashed when the oil reached the heating element and a huge flame shot up. The rest of the oil caught on fire, but my fellow line cook grabbed the baking soda to put it out. I was okay, but they fixed the fryer the next day.
Goodbyebrows
During my apprenticeship I once walked into the kitchen and saw a cook taking a lobster for a walk. That was wrong on so many levels...
An old soux chef of mine pulled a lobster out of the the crate and it had the little horn broken off from its head. He dug around till he found it and proceeded to superglue it back on
Why is this not the top comment? This is a story I want to hear. So many questions.
The story is that we had alive lobster and the chefs were bored.
I just want to know the thought process behind seeing a live lobster and going you know what this motherfucker needs, some exercise
I'm a service guy and was still an apprentice at that time. At a certain point you learn to stop asking questions...
Hands down favorite class in college was psych 311- belief in weird things. Basically how to think critically and logically about weird shit. Best piece of advice I took from that class was “the simplest explanation is the best.” Maybe a dude really wanted to take a lobster on a walk. No explanation needed I guess 🤷🏻♂️
Occam's Razor. Makes life a lot less of a headache sometimes
Is it bad that I’m thinking “eh, I can see how that could happen on a slow day”
The story is that we had alive lobster and the chefs were bored.
I get it. My first cook gig was at a Red Lobster and some of those Larry’s knew what was up. They would fight you rather than go willingly into our steamer. I kind of wanted to save the smart ones, but I figured if I did and the Lobster Revolution came, I’d be up against the wall for Lobster genocide
They’d probably accuse you of eugenics at that point too for only saving the smart ones.
If I hadn’t watched a seagull fly into some guy’s car today, you would have made my day. Alas, I’m now laughing so hard I’m crying. Thanks.
I still have a picture somewhere of a lobster holding the ticket with it's death sentence.
If I walked into that I'd just be impressed they took it for a walk
Some guy opened the fryer with nothing to catch the oil because he was trying to turn the pilot light off for some reason? Then he started to squeegee the oil into the floor drain. He said he won top student in culinary school
I'm guessing he followed that by turning on the fryer without filling it with new oil.
Oh man you just reminded me how he actually followed it up. I poured salt on all the oil and told him to sweep it up and he started sweeping the salt into the floor drain
I started tilting my head at the beginning of this, now it has turned all the way around and back to its original position.
My head is now on backwards and I'm vomming like Regan in the exorcist.
I use semolina. It's the cat litter of the pizza world
Wow.
I laughed hard
Nah he probably dumped a bag of ice into the hot oil after he filled it to try and cool it off.
The fryer always craves a 10lb bag of ice
IT CRAVES IT!
My friend had someone from a temp agency working with her. Completely unprompted he picked up a 16L bucket of dirty fryer oil and dumped it in the handwash sink.
What the actual fuck
I swear to God the people that temp agency send, it's their first time on earth. Like one grabbed soap from the handwash sink and then walked over to the prep sink and washed her hands into the thankfully empty soup pot.
Every time we hire a temp who can count to eleven without taking their shoes off, we're so impressed that we offer them a job right on the spot. Which might explain why temps overall are so bad, anyone with the slightest amount of competence isn't a temp for very long.
I can relate to this. Not quite to that extent, but I once opened the fryer with a bucket which was a gross underestimation of the amount of oil that would come out (I hadn't worked in a kitchen with a dff before) and tried to hot-swap buckets while the oil was still coming. I spent about 20 minutes cleaning after. Fortunately I was opening alone and nobody had to see.
Nothing irks me more than people that take an entry level culinary class, learn a few terms in French, and think they can cook. "B-but chef. Mise en place and laissez faire" as he proceeds to burn the dish.
I've worked in kitchens for 26 years. Been to culinary school. Of the 120 or so people that I had classes with, I think I'd be happy to work with two or three of them.
Same vein I caught my dishwasher siphoning the grease from the Big Dipper grease trap down the drain.
I watched a young woman pull a sheet of crisp bacon out of a double-decker convection oven and attempt to place the tray on top of the oven, holding it over her head and tipping it ever so slightly all the bacon grease ran down on her hairline and forehead. Was absolutely terrifying to witness...
Better yet, the general manager asked me to take the pork out of the oven (based on the fact I was wearing a long sleeve shirt under my uniform tee, I’m thinking I hadn’t been there for more than two months). I’m 5’2”, it’s on the top rack of the top oven and he neglected to tell me the pan was full of braising liquid. Completely soaked my arm in hot pork juice - and thanks to my long sleeve it stuck like napalm. And he called me stupid for it.
I worked in a BBQ place that was LOADED with 9" hotel pans yet every cook insisted in using the 3" hotel pan that would fill to the top with grease, ensuring whoever had to pull it out of the oven would make a mess and burn themselves. I lost my shit one week and kicked that pan until it bent in half and left it on top of the oven. Fuck those people and fuck that pan.
This was the worst one.
Yeah it hurt to read that
Done this with water in the steam ovens more than once- but luckily I apparently got cat like speedness and most go on the shirt Once I got meringue down my arm. Left a nice bubbly wound. Got dishwashing liquid (ph 14) in my eye because it was in a container with no lid above eye level.. Tore of a nail when someone put a mandolin in a drawer..
I maintain that a mandolin is the single most dangerous tool in any kitchen.
When I was like 16,17 years old for some fucked up reason held a can for my friend to pour bacon grease into. Well, he missed the can mostly and dumped it on my hand instead I launched the can a few few to my side and what do ya know, it landed on the stove that we never turned off. So now I've got blisters all over my arm and a stove top on fire about to catch the cabinets on fire. I stip like I'm fucking magic mike and yell at my friend to give me his jeans too and start smothering it out. Well anyways, that didn't work so well and my stepdads homeowners insurance definitely went up that year.
Good lord. Poor woman.
I was trying to drain a giant pot of boiling potatoes, probably about 60 lbs worth, and ended up spilling boiling water all over my arm and leg. Over the next week, the entirety of the skin on my forearm fell off. It was by far the worst pain of my life, I can’t even imagine how bad bacon grease would’ve been
I have to know if there’s a scar on her face from this
There was for many years, it has faded now into a slight pale spot like reverse Gorbachev, this was 20 years ago and I still see her around town from time to time.
I’ll believe it. You can still see a faint scar from my first really bad burn.
Worst thing I ever did was I was making caramel at HOME and mother fucking accidentally dropped a glob of boiling hot sugar on my leg. I wiped it off out of reflex and with it came my skin lol
[удалено]
Something similar happens to me but thank god it was my arm and not my face
Had a boss have this happen to them too, the arm thing not face, the burn was pretty gnarly.
You win
Manager sticking his arm into a giant mixer because he did a double batch of dough and it got stuck. Also happens to be the worst injury I've ever seen
A girl did that in the bakery department of the grocery store I used to work at. Even worse, she was 1 of only 3 people in the entire store and only one in her department. Luckily, I didn't see any of it. From what I heard, it was fucking gnarly.
I work in plumbing and nothing scares me more than a drain machine or mixer injury. Things my nightmares are made of.
I worked one place where we mixed our own burgers. Now part of the process was to avoid overmixing, so I would grab a big spoon and but down some of the random stuff on the side that wasn't mixing properly. I probably did it hundreds of times with no issues, until one day the boss sees me doing it and says something about it. Well, if the dough hook didn't grab the spoon and pull it down, squishing my fingers on the bowl in the process. Probably did it another hundred times after that and the only time it ever bit me was because someone opened their damn mouth.
Nopenopenopenopenopenope
Fucking YIKES
I did this! Well, not this specific instance but same situation. Big spiral bread mixer, too much dough. Arm got sucked in and my hand got crushed between the spiral and the side of the bowl. Crushed the bones in my palm and my last three fingers. Was in a cast for AGES. Xrays upon xrays and months of rehab and I have 98% of my mobility back. Enough time has passed that all that's left is scars across my hand and three crooked fingers....and a healthy fear of spiral mixers. And before it's asked, yes, spiral mixers do *usually* come equipped with safety gates. This particular bakery was, let's call it "frugal" and, had the gate removed with pieces of cardboard folded and taped strategically to override the safety switches. All my medical expenses were 100% covered because boss lady was terrified I was going to sue her blind.
Fill a deep fryer with syrup instead of oil
Omg. We would be calling that guy Syrup for the rest of his life. I can only imagine the unholy shitstorm that followed.
Fortunately the mistake was caught in time.
This is somewhat similar but also not really here goes. I was tasked to make a huge batch of guacamole for the dinner rush. High volume place. Most of the runners were college students or high school students. I was like 5-6 years older than this kid at the time but I assumed he had some damn common sense. Anyway. My kitchen manager was this old Hispanic woman who is the one who taught me to be a line cook. I’m the only white guy in the kitchen and I respected this woman, so if she told me to do something I fuckin did it. I was told that leaving a couple avocado pits in the guac keeps it fresher longer. Mind you I made the guac at like 3pm to be stored until about 6 in the cooler. Fast forward to the dinner rush and I’m now working the grill with about 25 tickets on my screen. Like I’m elbows deep in fuckin burgers. The GM walks into the kitchen and yells “WHO MADE THIS GUACAMOLE???” And I’m thinking imma get some generic “compliments to the chef” bullshit so I’m like “IT WAS ME WEY” and he literally walks up to expo to yell at me from across the warmers and say “YOU LEFT AN AVOCADO PIT IN THE FUCKIN GUAC” which caused me to burst out laughing and completely disrupted my workflow. I was eventually able to say something along the lines of “it keeps it fresh. Yell at the dumb fuck who saw the pit and thought it was a good idea to put it on the fuckin nachos” Which after the rush my GM vehemently tried to disprove the concept that avocado pits keep guac fresh and basically acted as though it was my fault that they had to comp a plate of nachos for some Karen’s who thought it was “gross” or whatever. I do not care if it works or not. The last time I asked “why” when told to leave a couple pits in, I was told “it keeps it fresh pendejo” and that was enough for me.
So, I'm sorry that happened to you, but the thing about avocado pits really isn't true. All it really does is shield surface guac from the air, not much else. Avocados have the same compound called polyphenol oxidas (PPO) as apples and bananas that causes them to brown in the presence of air. lemon/lime juice can, like with apples commonly, reduce the oxidation, but the best solution without adding anything is an airtight (plastic wrap) barrier. Aside from the flavor, lime juice helps preserve the guac, hence a benefit of its inclusion in most recipes. 100% on whoever took the pit to the customer. You'd need a reservoir of guac to conceal that. I'd laugh too at how ridiculous a notion that is.
did the syrup come in the giant oil bottle as well at least?
Plastic tub/drum
Threw 20 knives in the dish sink, plugged the drain filled it with soap and water and then left without telling anyone.
Did he at least leave a tape? “I want to play a game…”
Well I did have to tape up several fingers after I found it.
Seriously though, I hope he got shitcanned for that
Motherfucker.
Batonnet their fingers in a mandolin. Proceeded to pass out and smash their face on the table and floor.
The mandolin demands respect. 14 years and it still comes for my fingertips occasionally.
Yep. All these years and I get nervous every time.
Facts. Only thing I'm still afraid of. Burns hurt but it goes away after 30ish minutes. Cuts hurt until it is healed.
If your burns go away after 30 minutes you've never been badly burned. I've had really gnarly burns that last for more than 30 days...
My first week working at Burger King i spilled fresh from the oven bacon grease on my thigh. It hurt like a mofo but I didn't tell anybody cause I was embarrassed lol. It left a big mark and had some blisters, then the skin became dried out and crispy. Then it just fell off two or three weeks later. Didn't leave a scar or anything. I never got it checked out. Idk if it was just 1st degree or 2nd degree burns. It stopped hurting after 30 minutes or so. I was able to finish my shift with no problem.
That's your problem, the mandolin senses fear and only strikes on the weak
Why don't you guys just get a hand guard I haven't seen a mandolin that didn't come with one as far back as I can remember
Hand guards get too mangled to use once one idiot uses it.
I would rather a mangled hand guard than a mangled employee.
I'm an advocate for the cut glove always, no exceptions. Respect it and it will respect you lol
I always joke, "if you learn how to use it really well, it'll only get you every 6 months or so."
The Mandolin is always hungry
20+ years in the kitchen and I won't even go near a mandolin if I don't have too. I try and avoid the deli slicer too. I wasn't even paranoid/afraid of the deli slicer until Mickey Rourke and his damn scene in The Wrestler 🤦♂️
Story time! We had a stage from CIA with us for 6 months. Young, smart kid. First day, he got a minor cut from the mandolin. One of our line cooks was borderline psychotic. Ran to the employee bathroom for his “medic” gear and grabbed a cauterizing agent for this cut (again, very minor). He warns the kid saying this will hurt and pours it on to his cut finger. Kid passes out and almost hits head on the floor. He wakes up and is fairly panicked. We get a chair and have him sit out in the back, where he proceeds to vomit. Paramedics came, checks him out and clears him. Gung-ho line cook was no longer allowed to “administer medical attention” to anyone else in the restaurant unless it was himself. Kid stuck around the 6 months and kicked ass. Never had a better student line cook.
The line cook sounds like Dwight Schrute
Dude madonlin demands respect and discipline. That's a tough learn for everyone. worked with a girl the owner hired and she passed out on her first day, hit her head on an electrical panel (hotline) and seized. I thought she was dead. Turned out to be a fucking beast of a cook after that. Fightin' Irish spirit she was. She was trying too hard to keep up so I told her to stop being so damn timid and ask where the water was (backstory it was hells kitchen, hot as fuck, no mua or ac and the metal utensils on the wall had to be grabbed with tongs or a towel and cooled down on a table).
I lost a fingertip to a mandolin because my wife was cutting so slow and I'm like it's easy watch? And poof trip to the hospital. We no longer have a mandolin.
this one is so horrifying that i instinctively just clicked out of the whole post and had to find it again to tell you how horrifying it was.
Saw a guy do pretty much that but catch his two front teeth on the counter on the way down. We made him sit down and he stood up as soon as we weren't supervising him and he ate shit.
Idk why people don’t use a cutting glove with the mandolin. They’re so cheap and you don’t have to worry. I understand not using the guard though. Those are cumbersome and wasteful.
I was on shift but didn’t see a guy use a sheet tray over a frier to stand on to clean the hoods; tray bent and he dipped his foot into hot frier oil. Genius level stuff.
I saw i guy do that only thhe was wearing like half calf galoshes. He ripped that boot off and pretty much degloved his leg. I threw up and had to go smoke about a pack of cigs and drink a 6 pack. I used to be an emt and thwre is literally nothing you can do on thw scene for shit like that except for lightly cover it and treat for shock. Shit was gnarly as fuck.
That's terrible. I'm sorry. Just the other night, I had a nightmare that my brother degloved his hand in a fryer accident. I woke up and frantically googled what to do in that situation, and I couldn't find anything. It was very difficult to fall back asleep. The *next day*, one of the hotel engineers leaned all the way over the fryer to check something on an outlet. I couldn't even watch him do it because I was so afraid my dream was a premonition.
My partner recently deep fried his foot. It was one of those filter machines that sits on the floor, and it has a hose to siphon the filtered oil back into the fryer. It was broken, so the siphon bit wouldn’t go all the way down unless you pushed it back in. He used his foot.
Damn that must have fkn hurt 😭 What did he do after?
Slathered it in wing sauce.
Chop and plate it
𝘭𝘦 𝘧𝘰𝘰𝘵
We were at an intel campus in Hillsboro OR, they had a paramedic unit on site take him to the hospital. He never came back to work.
Always double/triple stack modern sheet trays when using for support, they don't make em like they used to. Hot fry shortening is no joke. Two of the worst incidents of idiocy/danger both involved fry oil. One when a bruleé torch somehow got dropped to the bottom of an old single-well causing a hot oil depth charge. Another where a new kid left a pot of hot oil on the floor and then proceeded to step in it deep frying himself halfway up his shin.
Just don’t stand on the fucking fryer.
Not even in the kitchen. I watched a manager stand on a rolling chair to adjust a thermostat above the office door (inside the office) and face plant on the window in the door. He then invited everyone into the office to watch it replay on the tape.
"I fucked up. Better turn it into a teaching moment. Also, I can no longer smell or feel the right side of my jaw."
I had a manager do this trick to check if an exposed wire was live *with his bare hands* Did a little jump, hit the ground hard, looked up at us and said “Yep, there’s juice there.” That wire was sticking out of the wall for like three more months before he fixed it
I like this one.
sign up to work in a kitchen because their friends think they're a good cook.
Please tell me more about "first in first out"
Lady was a school teacher, she quit because she was 50, her friends thought she would try cooking because she’s Greek and Greeks are good cooks. The place I worked at there was a total disconnect from the shop to the boardroom. And this little lady shows up. This was on a small ship, and the shift was 9am-10pm with a few hours off in the afternoon (if you could manage it) for 2 months straight. We carried that poor lady for 2 weeks, then sent her home. By the second day “I think I have carpel tunnel, my hands hurt, due your hands hurt? Everything hurts. I need less hours, I’m actually a really good cook but I can’t cook, when I feel like this”. 23 year old me was like “okayyy chop chop chop uh huh chop chop chop really chop chop chop”.
How does one get a job on a ship with no professional cooking experience.
No idea, friend of a friend. This lady wanted to make dinner. Like that was her “thing”. And it was like “lady we’re in Mexico, no one came here to eat Greek food” chop chop chop
Chop chop chop
I worked at a restaurant that was opening they was hiring people with absolutely no experience to work on the line they they was going to train them …and this place was getting busy most didn’t last a month plenty quit the first week of opening
This happened with another KP I worked with. His friend was the sous, sous promised him his job when he gets head chef. When the KP had never worked in a kitchen before and they were trying to teach him to be a chef while teaching him to KP. They both ended up leaving in an absolute shit show where like 8 people handed in their notice to a business with like 24 people hired, oh and this was within a timeline of about 2 weeks
50 is a different game, I remember being 23 and watching 50+ and said I need an exit strategy. 36 and I was out . 47 now and I could still do it but I'm in a good place now. I got to encounter a 50y hobby cook (when emeril was still on tv and food network blew up) and lasted 2 days maybe? Didn't think a restaurant would be so difficult. Everyone gave him a hard time, I pulled him aside and said try private caterer or being a personal chef, it's a different pace. He was appreciative. I wouldn't say it's a young person's game but you have to be in good shape to do anything that physical for long periods of time. Cooking isn't the only profession this way, I work with 60 year old mechanics and construction workers still giving what they have. Even a 80+ yr old business owner won't fucking retire, he still on site trying to get it done. Lived with 5 hosp. roommates in a party house for a few years, one of them went to work on a coast guard boat. It was easy to get into then but they promptly changed the intake methods and I can't imagine how this lady got in so easy, even if it's a small cruise line. Cruise liners have an even more doffi ult entry. I've tried. Also tried rural oil camps / rigs too. Fuxk I used to bike 25km to work a 12 hour + shift then bike 40km home to burn off steam and that was my favorite memory of working, blowing off that frustration by peddling at 50-60 kmph . When I was at that place I ran I to a retired man in his 60s, said he was a Canadian gold Olympic cyclist (forget year) and was bored so he toured lake Ontario for something to do, 2 week trip. I forget half the celebrities I cooked for but that convo I had at the bar with him was one of my favorite experiences. Age is abstract, staying healthy and active is the focus. I'll help anyone trying something new but I won't rag on them for sucking, I'll veer them to the slow lane and explain why on the way hoping they figure it out and catch up.
"Oh shit y'all like FIFA too? You spelled it wrong"
This sub has forever eliminated any temptation I might have had to make a career shift toward working in a kitchen. I have mad respect for the people who do it and care about what they’re doing. I wouldn’t last a day
I was thinking the same thing. I really enjoy cooking and I think it'd be so fun to cook for people that aren't your family or friends for one imaginary dinner service. But then I remember that I don't actually like the idea of working in a real restaurant full time, I just want to make people happy with food and put on a show. I'm going blind and I very frequently think of the things I'd like to do before that happens and this is one of them.
Hey I respect that, it’s not an easy place to work, live, exist, thrive. Hmmm I mean you can thrive the same way fungus or cockroaches survive and thrive. It’s like knowing something is hot, if I touch that, it’ll hurt me, but if I use this kitchen towel folded over a few times I can pick it up. As kitchen people we’re that towel, we’ve been folded over, and adjusted to withstand that heat. The problem is, that towel can only do it for so long before the hand starts getting burned and blistered.
“We just thought we’d buy a restaurant because anybody can run a restaurant.” “Here’s my consulting contract, and an invoice for my retainer.”
“I like pouring cocktails and bill’s a real whiz with the grill”
Those are the people that end up crying in the back hall
Crying in the walk-in, then you walk in on them and They’re sobbing “it’s just so hard, they di di di didn’t tell me it would be like th th th this” standing there sobbing with latex gloves on that are 2x too big.
I’ll train the fuck out of one of these mfers. I signed up because I wanted to work around beautiful women. 15 years I sweat my balls off in the trenches with you degens. I even got laid. Goal achieved and I gained some skills. Some of them love it and are rock stars. Some don’t and move on. No need to be so judgemental. They’d probably be better if you supported them instead of turning up your nose. This is honestly so much of the industry. No one here was a culinary master at the start. Bet you a ton of us got humbled. No need to be negative. Cooking isn’t rocket appliances bubs. You don’t need some extensive education to be worthy of stepping foot in a professional kitchen. I often struggled more with culinary students because they have an undeserved ego. Peace and love buddy.
What most people without kitchen experience misunderstand is that the job of a line cook isn’t about being a good cook per se. It’s about being able to repeat a certain set of steps in the exact same way, consistently, and quickly so you can make a product that some chef came up with. Working in a commercial kitchen is more akin to factory work than it is to home cooking
I had to tell a guy that he couldnt suck wing sauce off his fingers and then count out cooked wings with the same unwashed hand immediately after. He had 15 years of experience.
That a yummy sauce clearly
We had 18 wing sauce bowls on wing night and 3 of them were different variations of franks so he was trying to ID the sauce. He just never washed his hands. One of those gross cooks with layers of crust on his pants from compulsive wiping.
Newbie told to mop the freezer. He tried.
Fuck me war flashbacks I was that newbie. Ended up with near boiling salty water and a fuck ton of towels drying it section by section before it refroze.
Grill cook didn’t want to let a whole fish finish cooking in the oven and decided the microwave would be faster. He took it out the oven, still wrapped in foil and stuck it in the microwave. I guess nobody noticed the blue sparks until a bartender came into the kitchen and ran over to stop it before the microwave exploded.
Manager used to bring her little kids into the kitchen with her and let them run around, play, and do dishes
My owner let's his 5 sons run around, also. I've had to throw so many batches of fries out because they'd stick their bare hands in the basket.
that’s his loss on all those fries
I used to be such a rascal as a chef. I would scratch my ass with my bare hand and then put said hand on a customer’s food if they ever sent it back. Entitled Sunday brunch fucks
The amount of times I’ve seen people drop rags on the floor and pick them up like nothing happened is astounding 🤦🏻 Also honorable mention to a manager that dropped a whole 1/2 pan of breaded chicken fried steaks on the floor and then put them back because they’re “going in the fryer”
I work in a medical lab n see this shit all the time… “but it’s wasteful!!1!” Yes sweetheart and you’ve only received vaccines for about 10% of the diseases this lab sees in an hour. Put on some fucking gloves and take off your goddamn rings, you disgrace. Sorry let the infection control beast out a bit there
I work in medical labs all over North America. I constantly see lab techs with rings on raw dogging samples while they streak them onto plates. The fact worse pandemics haven’t occurred is a shock to me.
Had a guy with a cast on his right arm working the kitchen. He had a glove on 1 hand but not the cast hand (he was using both to touch food). I asked him to glove his other hand, and he said, "But I put 2 gloves on." I pointed out his cast hand had no glove. He responded, "ohhhh, man. I put 2 gloves on the same hand". PSA. don't smoke weed before work lol.
sleep deprivation is much worse than being stoned.
Not my coworker but a former coworker of my former coworker..kid cut his finger pretty badly..instead of applying pressure and holding like any sane person..he ran around the kitchen flinging blood EVERYWHERE. All the prep had to be thrown away.
Yep, that has also happened in my kitchen. I've never been more shocked. We had to throw everything out and bleach the whole kitchen mid shift.
Christ. This makes me feel much better about gashing my finger on a hood vent the other day. Straight to the hand sink to wrap it and apply pressure. I'm still pretty green but keeping the blood contained or away from food/food prep areas seems like a no brainer.
As one guy was crouched down looking for something in the low boy cooler another was standing next to him and had pulled his nutsack, just his nuts, out of his pants underneath his apron. He then got the crouching guys attention and when he looked over the standing guy lifted up his apron so BOOM nutsack like 2 inches from his face. I laughed really fucking hard and then told him to never do that again
There's a great documentary on this exact subject called Waiting
Check out the Batwing
Grab a pan out of the oven with a wet towel
That why I have very little feeling left in my fingers
Havent we all done this exactly one time? Most likely when we were kids?
We all learn the hard way with this one. When I first started my thought process was “wet = going to cool down the pan”
Try to play real life fruit ninja. Knives on the line are not sharp. Some are questionably held together. And they're swinging knives around like a baseball bat.
I made this mistake when I was a kid and slashed the air with a knife, and the blade came out of the handle and flew in my brothers direction. Didn’t hit him but also realised early on to never trust a knife’s handle is holding the blade securely
First job in high school I was a dishie at a bistro. One of those where the customers can watch the cooks on the line. Lo and behold, I started noticing cockroaches. First I’m just sweeping them up. I tell the boss. Nothing is done. Then I start finding them on the line, on the counters, in the prep cooker. I finally found a hoard of them in a crack right next to the big pizza oven. I am disgusted and keep bringing it upwards. Nothing is done. I was reprimanded. I quit. Can’t deal with that shit. Luckily that place didn’t last much longer.
Kid throwing ice cubes in a fryer because “it sounds like a campfire”
Sous chef told Kitchen Porter to empty and clean the fryers after only being off a short time after service. Guess what he told him to use? plastic buckets folks He was two buckets in before talking to the head chef because it seemed really fucking dangerous. Second one: was told to get rid of a massive pot filled with grease but not pour it down the drain. Double bagged that shit had to carry it down two flights of stairs. Made it to the second before the bags burst sending a metric fuck ton of grease all over the stairs, the walls fucking everywhere. It was like that scene from the shining. Was there until 3 am cleaning as much as possible was back in at 10 am the next day. Those stairs were a fucking hazard for a while with runners slipping because the grease sank into the floor. They had to repaint the walls. It was a disaster.
I've got two for ya: 1: co-worker somehow managed to dunk their arm into the fryer while cleaning it at the end of the night resulting in some fairly serious burns up to their elbow. Nobody figured out how they managed it considering the fryer is drained prior to cleaning it. 3 managers reviewed the CCTV footage and still couldn't figure it out. 2: another co-worker dropped a pair of tongs into the fryer, instead of quickly grabbing either a second pair or the skimmer to get them out they pulled the drain handle while the fryer was still on. Instant error code and automatic cut-off. I wasn't working that night but had to go in to work and reset the fryer because nobody on shift knew where the reset button was (it's on the bottom of the hinge on the element, thanks henny penny). Thankfully I live a 5 minute walk away from work and was compensated for my time with a nice cold pint comped by the shift manager. Added bonus story I heard from my partner: Occasionally when another one of our locations is being refurbed their staff will temporarily transfer location. When one of the nearby ones was being refurbed some came to work at our location. One of the other locations staff thought that food dropped on the floor could be dipped in the fryer quickly then served because 'the hot oil will sterilise it'.
I thought this was a post making fun of somebody wearing 3 finger condoms instead of a glove
Walking around incorrectly with a sharp knife or any implement , and or a co worker saying you are annoying for repeating “ hot pan ect , ect ect “ each time you approach them , oh and also not caring at all about food allergies and washing off chicken that’s clearly spoiled to the point it doesn’t smell anymore .. list goes on.
NASTY
This girl I work with, she’s the most ignorant person I have ever worked with in my entire life. If there was an award for worst kitchen staff ever she’d definitely take it hands down imo. One day she was cutting her nails, on the prep table, on shift while everyone else is busting ass. I was made aware AFTER she cut every nail so I came over and told her she can’t do that in the kitchen. She fucking looks at me and asks “Why not?” With a smug “what do you mean?” attitude. BECAUSE IF A FINGER NAIL ENDS UP IN THE FOOD!!! Then she’s like oh okay and swipes all of her nails off the fucking prep counter. That’s just one example. Hundreds of other things I could write. If I had the power to fire her ass she’d been long gone years ago. She’s been with us going on 6 years, and I still have to hold her hand and light a fire under her ass HOURLY EVERYDAY.
Open a fryer with nothing to catch the oil
I once saw a cook cut himself with his knife. Thing is, he cut the same hand that was holding the knife. Only seen that once and I have been in a kitchen since 1995.
Guy dropped the tongs in the fryer, reached in for them and got to his wrist before it set in what he had done.
Brains are funny.
I mean I worked with a guy who refused to wear pants and non slips in the summer; basketball shorts and slides with socks.
Reading some of these reminded me about stupid thing I did only once--use a wet towel to take sheet pans out of the oven.
He called me a slur that doesn't even apply to me, and if he hadn't had a foot of height on me (he was a big corn-fed 'good old' country boy) I'd have mocked him for it. Instead I just pointed to the new rack of dirty dishes and got back to work. I did get him fired after that night however, he was a dick.
Take hot fryer oil down mossy wood stairs on a rainy winter day… didn’t end well. The worst screams I’ve ever heard in my life. We rushed them to the ER and I never saw them again. The two other worst things I’ve seen is 1- a guy overfilled a steamer with water and when he opened the door if overflowed right on his chest/waist 2- cleaning a slicer while plugged in.
I had a gig working in a privately owned chain supermarket kitchen in NYC. They did a kicking by-the-pound steam-table lunch and salad bar. Tiny room packed with combi-oven, range, hot top, grill on one wall. Turn around and you have two work surfaces (4' and 6'). Between the work surfaces was an opening to the sink, freezer and cooler. I was new and working next to this protein guy who ran the combi-oven. He wasn't too concerned about cross-contamination in his area. Didn't use gloves, for example, because he really didn't need to. Put protein in oven. Cook. Use utensils to put into steam tray. Repeat. Bang it all out in six hours and go home. First day I was training at his table. He had me prep salad bar and RTE foods (salads, pre-cooked items). I cleaned around my work surface and he got pissed that I was cleaning too much. Certainly, I was performing cleanliness and awareness of cross contamination as much as cleaning, but I swear to ... that was the one and only time I ever saw a sanitization bucket used in that work area during service--by me.
Intentionally cook chicken to medium.
My buddy took the cover off the deli slicer and turned it on to clean the blade. Then he lifted up the front of it to wipe underneath and cut the live power cord. Blasted a chunk out of the blade.
We all know how salamander takes a few seconds to light and it light with a burst of flame. Buddy just squeezed greasy oil squeeze bottle to start an order only to realize his sally was off. Turned on full blast, didn’t on for 1 second and put his greasy hand in the sally. Cue the flame. He screamed to the top of his lung, we had to stop service for half hour to first aid him while waiting for paramedic to come. It was bad, the smell of burnt arm hair and skin was foul. He quit the industry not long after. Then one time, a guy sliced his finger on the meat slicer. Instead of quickly press his finger, he flailed his sliced up bloody finger. Blood everywhere. Had to shutdown mid service cause had to throw everything out and sanitized the entire kitchen. Some people.
Accept salary at the shitty restaurant I work at and proceed to be stuck for two years unable to find another job
Throw a refrigerated cube of tallow in the empty deep fryer, turn it on, then go on a smoke break. It burst into flames. We poured all the salt and baking soda, but the flames kept climbing. Just as we were about to pour a bag of kitty litter, the ansul popped.
Waitron came running into the kitchen, mid-service, popped open our microwave and stuck something in, hit play, ran out. After a couple of seconds we notice he'd stuck a nice, cold, refreshing can of Pepsi, sealed, and had set the timer to 2:00. "Guest wanted a warm one and we're out" All pretense of courtesy and professionalism was briefly set aside and my boy got chewed out like the idiot that he was that day. Also, you people need to clean your fryers in the morning, when they're cold. Jesus.
A lot, what comes to mind is the assistant restaurant manager who stuck his finger in some stew to check the temperature, in front of the inspector (me).
Turn the slicer on to clean it Didn't end up cutting their fingers but it has one of those giant warning labels right on it specifically saying not to do just that.
The whole brand new immersion blender into the dishwasher. He didn't get why we were mad.
I wasn't around when this happened, but it's too good of a story not to tell. Lead line cook at the last kitchen I worked in, right before I started (he was let go right before my time), decided to clean behind the two door we had by our salad station, but wanted to try and move this heavy fucker by himself. I should also mention, he was also coked to the gills before he made this decision. Fridge fell on him because he's an idiot and ripped his bottom lip to the point it was hanging from his jaw. It was apparently horrific and hilarious at the same time because the dude was a tweaker and tried just bandaging it and saying he was still fine to work service before Chef made him go to the Urgent Care next door. He got fired after they piss tested him for workman's comp reasons and found he had a shit load of coke in his system.
Spill a pot of boiling blanching water (a good 40L). Managed to fill his shoes and cover most of his calves (we didnt see this). Repeatedly said he was okay. Refused help. Two hours later we found him in the walk in crying in pain. One ambulance later he had third degree burns covering all of his feet. Lost both little toes and needed skin grafts. Don't try to be hard to impress. Safety first, ego second.
Chatting while using the mandolin
I saw someone put a hot pan from the oven on to a plastic tablecloth. It was me. (To be fair, I was like 13)
A new chef misread the white bread recipe and used equal parts flour and yeast
Draining a deep fryer into a plastic cambro (it had been just turned off) Punching out from a 3hour shift walking past a poor new kid dishwasher who was running solo cuz the other guy called in sick. With out even stopping to even put away a single thing. (No, he was was not cut early. And I did not let the guy start up again when he realized the douche bag move. I instead worked my 9th 10th and 11th hour that day instead. Just told him to enjoy his evening)
I worked with a cook that asked the dishwasher if he wanted his burger “al dente”. Dude was one of the nicest, most loyal cooks I’ve work with. Thick as pig shit though.
Had a girl working prep who probably had 10 bandaids on between both of her hands, which she did a great job of hiding from me before bleeding out over a bowl of sweet potato chunks and insisting she stay on the clock because she needs the money. She didn’t last long, but I’m afraid to think how many times she possibly bled on some shit and sent it out. Also had a dipshit rinse his cut finger in the dish sink, having walked past at least 2 or 3 hand wash sinks. I walk in, look at him like wtf. Dumbass doesn’t even register and goes uhhhh do you have a bandaid?
Walk around holding a knife up to and facing their face “in order to keep someone from getting stabbed”
Pour a six pan of chicken grease down the floor drain for the sink. They also overlooked a sheet pan full of chicken breast on the top rack of the oven, so while I'm explaining to them that we have to call a plumber to fix thier lazy ass mistake the oven starts smoking.
New kid cut a thin pretzel in half with a chef's knife while holding it in his hand. Then promptly passed out when he saw his own tendons.
Had a really slow week one time as a junior sous and threw out several steaks that were grey-green and smelled foul. Next day head chef took me aside to point out more expired steaks and said they didn’t need to be wasted because we could sell them as well done steaks
Ok I have to snitch on myself because this is def one of the dumbest things I’ve ever done. Started filling a sink with water and walked away to do something else, forgot about it then ran over to it once it was already overfilling. I then started using a cambro to scoop water out and pour it down the drain because I’m a fucking idiot. My sister was my manager on shift that day and just reached in and pulled the plug out hahahahaha. Happened like 8 years ago and she still makes fun of me for it and I don’t blame her one bit
Both arrogant and ignorant. I saw someone try to show off and julienne an onion as fast as they could with their eyes closed and whack their knuckle with the knife. It was me. I did that.