74: Strategies for Success in High-Pressure Kitchens

Episode Transcript
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Christin Marvin (00:08):
if you are curious about how to run a
better kitchen shift or how toclose the gap between promoting
a line cook to a sous chef, thisis an episode for you.
I'm talking to justin khannatoday.
Chef creator and entrepreneur,he is obsessed with high quality

(00:31):
gear, memorable diningexperiences and building
practical resources that trulyhelp the industry.
He graduated from the CulinaryInstitute of America in 2012,
spent eight plus years trainingat Michelin starred and
critically acclaimed restaurants, and worked at places such as
Per Se, the French Laundry andNoma.
He's going to break down hislearning and basics around total

(00:54):
station domination, how to runa really great shift by
incorporating things like linechecks, reservation checks and
going over your prep list, andhow he made some mistakes in
closing the gap between linecook and sous chef, and some of
the ways that he's working withclients today on how to create

(01:16):
sustainable business practicesfor kitchens moving forward.
Stick around, you're not goingto want to miss this episode.
Welcome to the RestaurantLeadership Podcast, the show
where restaurant leaders learntools, tactics and habits from
the world's greatest operators.
I'm your host, Christin Marvin,with Solutions by Christin.
I've spent the last two decadesin the restaurant industry and

(01:38):
now partner with restaurantowners to develop their leaders
and scale their businessesthrough powerful one-on-one
coaching, group coaching andleadership workshops.
This show is complete withepisodes around coaching,
leadership development andinterviews with powerful
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(01:58):
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(02:19):
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(04:08):
Justin, thanks so much forbeing here, super excited to
share the vast amount ofresources that you have.
My show is more front of housefocused, so I am just super
excited to learn a lot from youtoday and share all of your

(04:28):
amazing well, not all of it,we'd be here all day for years,
right but to share a lot of theknowledge that you have with the
audience today.
So thank you for your time.

Justin Khanna (04:35):
Just appreciate you having me Excited to talk to
your audience.

Absolutely.
Will you talk a little bitabout repertoire and what you do
to kind of kick us off?
And then I'd love to dive intosome of the really big
challenges that you're seeing inkitchens right now.

Yeah, so the name of the company kind of comes
back from a really really oldschool.
I could reference it as acookbook certainly, because I
think that there's a vast swathof culinary knowledge inside of
this book.
It's called Le Repertoire de laCuisine.
It's a very old.
I almost call it like ahandbook or a guidebook for
chefs back in the Frenchhotelier days and basically what

(05:10):
it had is these tabs along thepages and if you needed to
insert mother sauce or insert aderivation of any of these
sauces, you would go into thishandbook.
And basically it was understoodthat you kind of had this
well-built up repertoire.
So if I was going to tell youpoach something or bring

(05:30):
something to a specifictemperature, incorporate some
sort of thickener, it wasunderstood that you kind of had
that in your back pocket.
You kind of understood some ofthese things and so it was more
of a reference guide thananything else.
And that comes back to what Icertainly experienced, which was
high performers, and certainlythe people who are the most
hungry for knowledge, are oftenunder-resourced.
They're the people who, likethe basics are covered by

(05:51):
everybody under the sun, rightStarting with how to dice an
onion.
In any sort of culinaryeducation.
That's where most people start,and as I started to go up in
professional kitchens andespecially get to more advanced
levels starting to getconsidered for sous chef
positions or starting to go foran ambitious kitchen or deciding
I wanted to cook abroad it wasone of those things where there
isn't resources.
Here there's well-trodden paths, but the people who have done

(06:18):
it either play the informationsuper close to their chest or it
just becomes one of thosethings where you have to have
these backdoor conversations tofigure out what's going on here,
and so, as I sit, being reallypassionate about restaurants, I
don't want to see them go away.
We're coming off of somethinglike COVID and I'm like there
needs to be more resources tomake sure that we can continue
to have a robust talent pool inthis industry and having it be

(06:42):
this thing that is gatekeptbehind large culinary school
institutions.
I went to one.
I'm not going to say thatthey're all bad, but I don't
necessarily think that, in theage of the internet, it's
necessarily right for everybodyif we really strip this back to
first principles and think abouthow we're going to get more
folks in and excited about beingin this world, and so that's

(07:04):
why I kind of decided to startthis and then it's just been
fascinating to almost build thiswith the audience that I've
kind of come up with, and sothat's kind of what I specialize
on.
That's the arena that I play inand, yeah, happy to jam on again
to your point.
I put out a lot of stuffbecause I think that there are
so many holes and missing pieces, and maybe it's not even like

(07:24):
I'm not sharing anything novelor new, but I might just be
connecting the dots for peoplein a way that they might not
have thought was possible before.
Or I will do the work to kindof like be the scout, to go off
into another industry, take aninsight, bring it back to our
world and ultimately make surethat teams can perform better.

Yeah, I mean you work in the independent
space, right, and work withrestaurants that are just very
intentional and thoughtfularound every single thing they
do, and I think what you bringup is a really interesting point
.
There's so many vast resourcesout there around cooking
techniques, but not how to run agreat kitchen, and I'm curious

(08:03):
what you're seeing as some ofthe biggest challenges of the
clients that you're working withor people that are reaching out
to you for help.

I call this the difference between chefs with a
recipe and chefs with arepertoire.
So chefs with a recipe it'slike that's the common thing,
especially young culinariansjust kind of like get hungry
about.
It's like, oh well, can I getthe recipe for this, or can I
sit down with chef and maybe prythis information out of this
person's head?
Or I want to spend a little bitof, I want to stay after today
and spend a little bit of extratime on this person's station,

(08:31):
so maybe they'll give me therecipe for this thing.
And as you start to grow andprogress in the industry, you
start to realize that, likethere are other skills that you
ultimately lack, that areprobably preventing you from
getting the outcome that youwant to out of whatever it is
that you're trying to do and Iuse those words very
intentionally.
So skill is how I define itsomething that can be learned,

(08:51):
something that can be taught.
It's not this inherent thingwhere I'll often hear chefs that
I work with talk about, like,just in passing, they'll say
these they're very limitingsentences that they'll say I'm
not a big numbers guy, or I'mnot all that tech savvy, or I
don't actually find myself to bethat prone to speaking to
people in public.
I don't really like talking toguests.
I'm more of the kind of likebehind the scenes kitchen guy

(09:14):
and ultimately that is.
You know that you could seethat as a red flag.
Certainly my optimist brainkind of looks at that and says,
oh, there's interest there.
Kind of looks at that and says,oh, there's interest, there's
something interesting there thatwe could actually develop if we
were to basically just take astep back, acknowledge it as a
skill and then have that besomething that again you can add
to your repertoire.
It's this thing where, yes, youknow how to butcher the
chickens, you know how to makethe sauces, you know how to pan

(09:35):
fry something and plate maybeeven.
But it's this thing where, likeacross the whole guest
experience or across the wholerecruiting process of bringing a
team member on and having themrise up in the brigade and want
to stay with you for a long timeor maybe that's a new concept
that you want to ultimatelylaunch it does become this thing
where you have to be able topull out more stops than just
what's in your Moleskine recipebinder.

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Now let's get back to the show.
You said something reallyinteresting and I'm curious how
you're seeing this showing uptoday In restaurants.
You said you know if somebodystays behind and they want to

(10:45):
jump on a station and learnsomething new, is this happening
?

Yes and no.
So I am also a firm believerwe're going to really spilling
all my philosophies here thatsometimes we paint the word chef
as this broad brush title orstanding you can have in the
industry.
I'm happy to talk about my kindof philosophy there on the
difference between a cook and achef, if you prefer.
But it is one of these funnythings where if you're going

(11:11):
into a situation where you'reprepping at a hotel and that is
the role that you're going intoversus if you're at a one-star
Michelin place, versus if you'reat a more casual bistro versus
if you're at Alchemist inCopenhagen, which is kind of
like on the cutting edge ofeverything they're talking about
doing dinners in space.
There are different.
Like all of us would look ateach of those roles and say, you

(11:32):
know, to the casual person youstop them and you do the man on
the street style interview withthem, they're going to say, yeah
, that's a chef.
But to us, like the folks of usthat are working in the
industry, we know there's nuanceand differences between each of
those and I've certainly hadroles where it didn't make sense
for me to stay after becausethe menu stayed the same and I
just knew that as long as Istayed at this place for long
enough, I was going to kind ofget my hands on XYZ thing.

(11:54):
And then I worked at placeswhere the menu changed every
single day and it was thesituation where if I was going
to work with this specific typeof shellfish, or if we had this
one you know limited piece ofproduce that was only available
for this small, limited time, orchef was doing as an experiment
, if I had one chance to workwith this ingredient or see it
wasn't maybe even me workingwith the ingredient, it was

(12:15):
maybe me seeing how my sous chefprepared it.
I remember one of my mentors washe had just gotten onto the
foie gras projects at therestaurant, so he was making the
torchons at this restaurant andI basically got to see the sous
chef above him teach him how todo the foie gras torchons at
the same time that I was kind oflike on this lower rung of the

(12:36):
totem pole, so to speak, and soI looked at that and said, hey,
like well, everybody else wenthome.
Is there a world where I couldjust stay after for 45 minutes?
Politely ask and thenultimately have that be
something that I could, you know, like add to this thing that I
can say that I've, I've seen, orat least I've, you know, like,
gotten at least a baselineknowledge, the one-on-one class
of whatever it is that thatthing happens to be.
And I think again to come bringit back to you know, culinary

(12:59):
school education.
You can take a six monthprogram, you can take a 12 month
program, you can take a fouryear program.
Culinary Institute of America isnow talking about a master's
program that they're going tobring to people in culinary arts
and the reality is, I think,like all of us learn through
just consistent stagesthroughout our career and the
learning doesn't stop, at leastfor most of us.

(13:21):
I think there are certainlypeople where they do this.
I call it learn and coast, sothey learn something that's
their thing and then they canjust coast on that.
For you know 20 years and Ithink that you know, like, if
you want to build your businessthat way, that's great.
But I think that there are acertain number of people who
kind of look at that path andthey say you know, and you're
going to take a look, you'regoing to look up in five, seven,

(13:48):
12 years and you're going to bereally surprised where you've
ended up.

What is it about you Like?
What specific characteristicsattributed to you?
Wanting to stay after and learnmore?

I'll be vulnerable for a second and just
be honest, like there was aninadequacy, like there was truly
a sense of just like.
I'm not good enough to hangwith these savages that were in.
That was a three Michelin starkitchen that I was referencing
to that story, and these werekillers.
These were truly the people whowere at the peak of finesse.
This was the restaurant thatSam Sifton, in 2011, called the

(14:23):
best restaurant in New York atthe time, in New York city, like
like.
And this is back in 2011, rightwhen Copenhagen was just
starting to become aninteresting city to go to and
eat where Noma was the onlyplace you would basically go.
Obviously, there's other places, but for all intents and
purposes, it was like New York,you know, was still, unless
you're going to go to Paris.
It was like when we're talkingabout, you know, the North

(14:45):
America, it was like thepinnacle of things, and so that
was one of those funny thingswhere I was like I had just come
off of a culinary education.
I had a couple of kitchens undermy belt, but it was not a
situation where I felt like Iwas, I was worthy of being in
the presence of some of thesefolks, and so I looked at that
in two ways.
One, there was the knowledgegap.

(15:07):
I didn't know how to look at athing like foie gras, how to
clean chicken legs, how to kindof take any of these sauces or
purees or even some of thevegetable juicing projects we do
.
They had specific settings thatthey would want on the juicer
so that the temperature didn'texceed a specific place, so that
it wouldn't damage, you know,any of the like.
If we're juicing somethinggreen, we don't want to have the

(15:28):
temperature go too high whereit's going to damage the
chlorophyll in any of thesethings.
And then the other one was justthe raw experience, right, so
like being able to be put insituations where you inch
outside of your comfort zoneover and over and over again.
And that's again talking aboutthe space that I play in, which
is in this education space,especially on the back of house
side.
I think people conflate the two.
They spend so much time buyingthe giant, you know, like swath

(15:52):
of cookbooks and they say, lookat all this knowledge that I
have, and it's that funny.
The analogy that I like toshare with folks that I think
resonates with people, is likehow many books about read, about
pushups.
Do I have to read before I geta big chest?
And it's like that's not youknow what I mean, like that's
not how you're going to getthere.
You have to kind of learn atleast the baseline, and then you
have to go out and do the thing.
And again, even in this world ofcontent creators making immense

(16:14):
, you know amounts of value andincome and reach and impact,
publishing their thoughts online, I think that can kind of like
skew the perception of folks alittle bit, saying, oh well, all
I'm going to do is watch acouple of these content creators
, I'm going to create things athome.
Yes, the recipes might be fromsome of these high caliber
kitchens and you're still goingto get at least the baseline
level of knowledge, but that'sstill knowledge, which, in my

(16:37):
opinion, is not always asubstitute for experience.

Yeah, I love that.
I want to.
I'm going to go back again, uh,because I think that you and
thank you for being vulnerableand sharing that I think that
your vulnerability and thatimposter syndrome shows up a lot
in kitchens these days and Iwonder how, like what advice
would you give to restaurantowners and chefs on how to
cultivate an environment wherepeople feel comfortable speaking
up and recognize that there areopportunities to stay late and

(17:10):
go above and beyond, but notnecessarily?
Have it looked at as this isjust going to be more work for
me.

Sure.
So this was one of the biggestchallenges I had.
As I was reflecting on thatinadequacy, I felt the steps I
took to kind of like get out ofthat slump and then ultimately
turn it into something that Icould give to folks as a
resource.
And so I got stuck with a senseof my first version of my kind
of like how to run a stationeffectively, kitchen

(17:39):
productivity being adaptable andhigh caliber environments was
basically a series of me talkingjust like this to a group of
people from my audience who youknow, came in and decided
willingly to basically beta testthis you know kind of like
program for me.
And it was a set of stories.
It was basically kind of like,when encountered with this
situation, here's how Iapproached it.
Here's what I would havepotentially done differently,

(18:01):
and here are some basic stepsyou can take, regardless of the
station that you're running, topotentially improve there.
And the real thing that kickedit off for me was going from
stories to quantified measuresand that was like a really big
breakthrough for me.
And so I basically takestations and you can apply this
to anybody that's working inyour team if you're a restaurant
owner that's listening andbasically evaluate them across.

(18:23):
I have nine.
You can certainly add on moreif that decides to be something
that you're interested in.
I evaluated in something calleda station score and it basically
takes these more holistic viewof how this person is performing
.
Because how does it typicallyhappen?
You walk up to the personstation.
You probably don't have thatmuch time because you need to go
into a meeting or you knowsomebody else is asking for your
ear, has a bunch of questionsfor you.

(18:44):
It's the question of how areyou looking today, right?
Or it's like how are you doingthis week?
Or like so, very casual, likeoh, I checked in with my team,
yeah.
And then you look at the teammember and it's kind of like how
do I voice this to my boss thatis basically relying on me to
consistently perform on a dailybasis.
You are not incentivized as anemployee member to kind of like

(19:06):
voice the fact that I'm reallystruggling with the fact that,
like you told me that thisplayed up was really bad
yesterday and it's stilldwelling on my mind.
I actually measure that in afeedback category and there's a
basic rubric that takes peoplethrough.
I basically say there's fourlevels.
Which one of these most alignswith you and then you as the
business owner, basically getthat fed to you as a report

(19:27):
across all your team members and, listen, you might have there
might be a distribution here itmight be a prior distribution of
80, 20.
You might have only 20% of yourteam members who actually want
to have that growth mindset andimprove, and there might be
other people who just like Idon't think it's necessarily bad
to have people in yourorganization who wants to just
have the position they want toshow up and do the job well, and

(19:48):
then they want to get paid andthey want to go home Like I
think that's okay.
I don't think every singleperson needs to be a high
performer, but I still thinkthat a system like this at least
gets us closer to being able toevaluate folks in a way that
actually aligns with more opencommunication, because you're
directly positioning thequestions in a way that speaks
to what their actual experienceis on their station, versus this

(20:09):
just kind of like well, I thinkyou maybe could be a little bit
more organized and it's like weboth maybe know that you know
what I mean.
But then there's the how topotentially back that up and so
that to kind of get to the coreof your question.
It's kind of like I don't thinkpeople are always approaching
these conversations with enoughdepth and nuance and data
ideally, and that's what youknow, like I'm trying to solve

(20:32):
for some of these things, andit's been immensely helpful on
the folks that I work with,because it's like, oh, now we're
actually having a conversation.
Now it's this funny thing oflike, instead of you and I
sitting on opposite ends of thetable and I'm almost doing this
interrogation thing to a teammember, it turns into this thing
where we have this report andwe can both sit on the same side
of the table, look at thereport together and say, look,

(20:55):
you're really crushing it here.
There's a couple things herethat I think could potentially
be improved on.
And then that's when, like, thefolks that really kind of like
decide to work with me, go fullscore, full score, total, same
total, station nomination, theyget.
The ones who like have the fullvideo library, they get the
lessons, and then, ultimately,there's also people that get
coaching.

For me too, will you break down the basics?
I know this is your world.

Totally yeah, yeah, happy to share whatever.

What is a great kitchen shift look like.

Oh cool.
So I folks who are working inrestaurants on the day to day
will kind of know this.
There's almost like a vibecheck you can do at the start of
the day, which is this kind oflike amalgamation of a couple
things.
It is like what's ahead,obviously, how busy are we today
?
I think everybody, like ontheir coming into their shift.

(21:40):
If they were here yesterday,they want to know that, even if
they're coming off of theirweekend.
It's this question of just kindof like how many are on the
books today?
How many covers do we have?
If you're at a place that youknow is taking pre-orders, it's
kind of like maybe like what'sthe line out the door?

(22:01):
Like right now?
There's that.
You know those funny memes ofyou know, you see the what am I
looking like today.
Then there's the kind of likewhat energy are you bringing in
from potentially yesterday?
So if you guys crushed ityesterday and you're just like
everybody was fist bumping andjust saying like see you
tomorrow, yesterday, you cansometimes carry a little bit of
that energy.
And, conversely, what if it wasreally bad?
Chef got really upset, a guestgave a piece of feedback that

(22:23):
wasn't great.
Food took a little bit too long.
Do you know what I mean?
Like any of those things, youcan sometimes often bring that
into the next day and differentteams and different individuals
kind of like come up, come atthis in different ways.
One thing is like, oh man, Ihope that doesn't happen again,
and the other side of it is,ideally, we will make sure that
does not happen again and that'sa really good place to be.

(22:44):
So there's like that, thatenergy check you know like at
the start of the day.
Then I think, like the bestteams that I've been a part of
or that I've either led or likejust had secondhand experience
seeing it's this very kind oflike open communication.
I teach this premise, thisprinciple in total station
nomination called getting eyeson at the start of your day.

(23:04):
And so what do you know?
A lot of people do they'll, youknow, just kind of like take
the easy cherry picked projectsat the beginning of their day,
the things that are just like Iknow I need to do this, or I
know I'm running low on this, orI know this is like a
relatively easy thing to get onIn some of the high caliber
environments that I had thepleasure of being a part of it
was always this like you show upa little bit early so you can

(23:25):
have that 15 minute window whereyou're going to check what the
books look like tonight.
You're going to check it in thewalk-in and you're going to see
exactly how many eggplant wehave.
You're going to check your lowboy and just see, did somebody
come on my station and I thoughtI had sliced radishes?
But somebody came in and we hada private event for lunch today
and one of the cooks decided tocome in and the sous chef told

(23:45):
them to just take the radishesoff my station.
That's, in a lot of ways, notnecessarily 100% of my control,
but what is in my control is thefact that I can take that time.
And again, I'm saying 15 minuteshere because I really want it
to be like the first time you dothis, it might take a half hour
, and if there's multiple levelsto the restaurant and you need
to take the elevator to godownstairs to the walk-in,

(24:06):
that's actually what I'msuggesting you do, because what
does that do?
It gives you confidence in whatyour day is going to look like,
going forward, and then youultimately do that.
Again, the communicationhappens both interpersonally so
I'm talking to my sous chef, I'mtalking to my station partner,
we're talking about what staffmeal today, but then it's also
this kind of like almost insularcommunication with yourself,

(24:29):
combined with some sort of preplist.
That's like, again, one of thebigger things that I've seen.
You don't have to follow thetemplate that I am probably,
you're probably, going to linkin the show notes and that I
share for free with folks, butit is this idea of like you have
to keep track of tasks in someway, shape or form, because
relying on your brain to storethat information is just like
pardon the pun, but a recipe fordisaster.
Like you deciding that like, oh, I have enough of this and I'm

(24:50):
going to keep track of this andI'm going to make sure that I
put this on anybody who's likeput something in the oven and
not set a timer on it and thenyou know, 43 minutes later
you're like, oh shoot.
You know what I mean.
Like had that feeling.
The prep list is exactly thesame thing.
It's like offloading thatinformation from your brain onto
this source of truth that youcan keep track of.

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(25:54):
I love it.
So I hear you talking aboutprep lists.
I hear you talking about linechecks.
I hear you talking aboutreservation checks.
What other systems are criticalto success for a shift and for
a week from a chef's perspective?

Totally so.
The next piece is like ideally,that's the start of your day
and then you can really get intothe meat of things and really
get going.
I think the other piece, thatplace that people get stuck is
that continued communicationthroughout the entire shift.
And so what typically happenswe got a case of something and,
for whatever reason, a fifth ofit 20% was bad, and so does that

(26:33):
make it means that I need toorder more, or is that going to
be the thing where I just kindof like try to squeak, to get by
and cross my fingers and holdmy breath and hope that it's
going to potentially be enough?
Same thing comes with timing.
It's like oh my goodness, aproject came out of nowhere, I
dropped something Again.
Notice, in each of thesesituations I'm not talking about
picture perfect performanceevery single time.
I'm talking about the fact thatall of us encounter problems in

(26:56):
our workday and sometimes thebehavior that we exhibit can
compound the problem, make itworse fuel, pour more gasoline
on the fire because we want toprotect what Our egos, the
relationships we have withpeople.
We don't want to look like anidiot, and so some of that, just
like encouraging people tospeak up more if and when
there's a problem that needs tocome up and then ultimately

(27:18):
doing it from a sense of can Iprovide a solution here, not
this, you know, like woe is me,I'm going to put my hand up and
say like, hey guys, I'm goingdown, because then you turn into
chicken.
Little in the sky is fallingand again, talking about the
vibe and the energy of thekitchen, you start to shift that
a little bit right.
Like you become the personwho's dragging the team down and
you're saying I'm not going tobe there, I'm not going to be

(27:38):
set up on time, I'm pan.
It's like everybody else startsto like they don't come to your
rescue all the time.
They start to say, oh man, thisperson is going to get chewed
out, I'm going to make sure I'mgood, and that turns into a
problem.
First is this idea of like hey,is there any world where you're
going to be set up early on timetoday?
Like you're going to be set upearly today, is there a world

(28:01):
where you could potentially jumpin for 15 minutes right before
service and help me pick thecilantro, because I think that
I'm, you know, going to be.
It's going to be kind of tightfor me today, like there's a way
to communicate these thingsthat is a little bit more you
know what I mean Like cohesive.
And then, lastly, I think that,like I talk about this problem
solving just kind of like pillarin my program because I think
that that is another thing thatagain I talked about the

(28:22):
speaking up part, but we cantake a step beyond this because
problems are unavoidable, likein a lot of ways, like yes, you
can kind of like be ahead andstart to preempt them, but
they're still going to happen.

(28:49):
No-transcript, being able tohave some of those conversations
again through, you know, likeproactive communication before
service even starts, ideally theday before, and being able to
order something special so thatif you have a gluten free guests
and they can't have the pasta,what are they going to have, it
can make the world of differenceagain from the way the team

(29:10):
feels, from the way the guestexperiences, from the way that
the financials come out at theend of the month.
And that's why I like to bringup all of those things, because
different people have differentpreferences that they like to
put on a pedestal.
And some people could like, ifyou're a chef de partie, it's
like I don't see the financialstatement at the end of the
month.
So, framing any of theselessons from the sense of like,

(29:31):
oh, it's going to make your youknow, like you're going to be
more profitable at the end ofthis thing, it's just kind of do
you close the gap between linecook and chef Totally?
I like to think of this asthere's a little bit of a

(29:54):
combination of it's mostlyresponsibility.
The first time I was asked tomove into a sous chef position
from a lead line cook position,I felt it it very much so, felt
like they were taking the knifeout of my hand and I was being
handed a clipboard and I stillfelt like I needed to show my
line cooks, my team, basicallythat I was still like the most
capable you know cook quoteunquote in the kitchen.

(30:17):
In that regard, from a techniqueperspective, from a speed
perspective, from anorganization perspective, and
what I failed to kind of see wasthis principle of like I'm
working for my team now and thatwas just a fundamental again
shift that I that I failed tosee in that first management
position and it was a painfullesson that like.
That's why I try to share thisstuff, because I don't want, I

(30:39):
want to make sure that peopleare at least aware of these
things and that they can, youknow, ultimately maybe make make
steps to to make thistransition less painful.
But it's little things.
When it's like, what doesworking for your team look like?
I think a lot of people hearthat sentence and they're like
cool, I'm going to go to Kristenstation and I'm going to take
stuff off of her prep list andI'm going to do that work for
her.
But it's it doesn't often looklike that.

(31:08):
Yeah, the example that I like togive was what the sous chef
before me used to do with orderswas, right after service ended,
as people were breaking down,he would go to individual
stations with his clipboard ofthe order list, things that he
needed from people, and he wouldsay what is it that you need
order for tomorrow?
And then you're catching a linecook in this like horrible
place where it's like justcoming off the adrenaline of
service, I haven't got a chanceto see what I need for tomorrow.
I don't even have all my miseen place put away yet, and so I

(31:29):
don't technically know.
And so what would happen fourtimes a week minimum?
Uh, I put seven items on theorder list.
As I'm breaking down or as I godown to the walk-in and see
that somebody else took the lastof the buttermilk, it's like,
oh my God, I need buttermilk.
I need to go tell the sous chefthat I need buttermilk now.
And it would constantly be thisthing of like this headache.
You, as you're stepping intothat, going the shift from line

(31:51):
cook to sous chef, for example,you can take a look at that.
And what I tried to do was like, what if I put a white it's
order list, underline, andeverybody that that's basically
the conversation throughout theday.
Hey, everybody, as you start tocome up with things that you
need throughout your day, putthem on the order list here, and
then I'm only going to come atthe end of the night after

(32:14):
everybody's broken down and I'mgoing to maybe do other things
while you know breakdown ishappening.
Or I'm going to jump in withbreakdown or I'm going to, you
know, like coordinate with frontof house on wine pairing stuff
during that time, and so thatturns into this you're working
for your team in the same waythat, like again, you might
think about making these littletweaks to optimize your station
and make it a little bit fancier.
That, like increasedresponsibility is like it's got

(32:35):
to be number one for me.

Yeah, I love it .
I love it.
Talk to me about the importanceof inventory.

I have a potentially like controversial
take on inventory here, and partof it is because, like, I
worked at places that have, um,you know, like constantly
changing menus, um, and so itwas this thing where inventory
wasn't this thing, that we werejust like we'd get tons and tons
and tons of stuff and just tryto, like, you know, work our way
through it.
It would be this thing where wejust got enough for, you know,
maybe that week and you know,part of it was the last

(33:06):
restaurant where I worked, whereI worked at kind of didn't scar
me in this in this sense, butit did provide a different
perspective where we had agrowing season for produce on
the West coast of Norway thatwas only like four months long
because, like, the fjords areall over the place, so there's
not a lot of flat land and, youknow, the temperature swings are
kind of crazy and the sunlightis also all over the place, and

(33:27):
so you have this funny thingwhere we would get tons and tons
and tons of produce in, youknow, those four months of the
year.
And then I had to create alarger program to basically, you
know, like ferment and preserveand pickle and do all those
things, to have that inventory,and then it's a whole nother can

(33:51):
of worms of like workingthrough that inventory in the
wintertime and all those sortsof things.
I think that like inventoryfrom a from a practical
perspective can really reallyhelp from the sense of like
giving, be able to use that.
As you know, like we're goingto make a fumet block sauce in
the in the in the wintertime,when you know like we need to
use that.

(34:11):
But then I think that there'sthis other funny thing where
like it can almost become thislike dead weight, that you're
feeling where it's like well, wehave this stuff and I preserved
it, and you know like I woulddo things like pickled carrots
with I don't I can't rememberwhat I would do like coriander
seed and black pepper, forexample, and then we'd take a
look at that and be like well,now we have to build this whole
dish around this flavor profilewe used for these carrots.

(34:32):
And so, yeah, I think likethere's the perspective of like
you're keeping track of theinventory and you know like we
need to use it.
We're committed to this thing,we brought it in and we're
keeping track of it and it's onour balance sheet and we need to
kind of like move through this.
But then there's the other sideof it which is like I think
it's okay to like let things gosometimes or relegate things to

(34:53):
staff meal or just decide likewe've been holding onto this for
a little bit too long.
I would much rather peoplefocus on kind of like what are
the heavy hitting things on thetasting menu or on the menu that
are the over and above highperformers?
Because, like anybody who's runan R&D program that has an
inventory of just likeexperimental dry goods or
whatever in their kitchen isjust like, oh my God, again it

(35:14):
feels like that dead weight.
But yeah, from an inventoryperspective it helps to give
that high level view of justkind of like our purveyor
statements look like this whatare we still holding?
And as the person who's steppinginto that first manager role,
you might not see the importanceof it, but ultimately that does
help to make sure that thedecisions that are being made by

(35:37):
the people who are above youcan have more accurate data.
That comes back to exactly thatclean data analogy that I that I
tried to make here.
Um, because when you're inthose early roles it's not
always clear to you whyinventory matters and why some
of these things ultimately likeoh man, um, we had a really good
month, but you know, like we'redown.
Do you know what I mean?
Our food cost is really high.

(35:57):
You know what I mean.
Like sometimes that can comeout in the inventory, um, so
like, again, it's one of thosefunny things where it's the
awareness piece and it'sunderstanding how it fits into
the grander picture.
But ultimately coming to termswith the fact that, like, if
you're the one doing inventoryor even being asked to, like I
used to give some of my linecooks like, hey, I need you to
inventory the dairy this monthbecause I was trying to invest

(36:19):
into them a little bit, tobasically say I want you to see
how this ultimately comestogether in the spreadsheet.
I don't know, it's one of thosefunny things where, like, I
don't think it's the thing thatalways makes or breaks concepts,
but it is this funny thingwhere it's like you can't
completely discount it.
It's a really interestingvariable.

Yeah, it was.
I agree with you.
I think it depends on theconcept.

Totally.

Right and if it makes sense or not.
I know, when I've worked in alot of high volume concepts with
a lot of management turnover,it was so important for us to
make sure those young managersgot eyes on all those products.
And we're looking at expirationdates of things and we're just
blind ordering because theyretired at the end of the day,
right.
But again, that's a conceptwhere the menu never changes
Right, or maybe changesquarterly.

(37:02):
But yeah, I've had thisconversation a lot with people
in the fine dining space.
It's like we don't do inventory, we don't really get it, it
doesn't make sense for us and Iappreciate that perspective too.

Yeah, because if you really look at costing out a
tasting menu, I needed to dothis when I was doing my
culinary school externship.
We had to do this wholeworkbook and the workbook and
the premise of one of theexercises in the workbook was
you need to take a dish from theplace where you're externing at
and you need to do a foodcosting analysis on it.
And my sous chef that I wasworking for was basically like
uh, you know what I mean, likeshrugged his shoulders because

(37:34):
he was like this is one courseon a tasting menu that changes,
that has supplements, that is afixed cost that we're ultimately
maybe doing a loss on this dishbecause we know that the person
who orders this dish is alsogoing to order wine.
It's like this reallycomplicated Rube Goldberg
machine where you can't point toone specific thing and say this

(37:54):
costs this and because thereality is what happens, I give
the example of fish stock.
But we also would dolangoustines, whole live
langoustines, and what we woulddo is we would take the tails
and that would be on the tastingmenu, but then we would make
langoustine stock and we'd takethe meat from the claws and
ultimately save that.
Pick it like boil it, pick it,uh, cryovac it and we would use

(38:16):
that for like a pasta farcelater on, you know, in the, in
the, in the season, and so it'slike costing that is a complete
nightmare, right, because it'slike, yeah, you're adding
additional labor, but thenyou're also able to sell
something further down the line.
We don't know what the price isthat we're going to be able to
sell this for down the track,because we don't know what the
dish is yet.
We just have this raw Langomeat, um, and so it turns into

(38:38):
this thing where you want umgetting super to your point on
the concepts, where the menunever changes and you're getting
stuff from consistent suppliersand nothing has changed.
And you know every singlevariable in the equation is
clean.
Yes, let's get down to the22.1% food cost that you were
able to nail, but when we'retalking about some of these more

(38:59):
nebulous things, where's thewaste going of these more
nebulous things?
Where's the waste going Again,what was labor on this, all
those sorts of unknowns anddynamic variables?
I think people are better offtaking a step back and looking
at the bigger picture of maybemore binary questions of were we
profitable, yes or no?
Have we reached capacity on oneof these storage systems

(39:22):
whether it's a freezer or ashelf in dry storage, yes or no
and then you can make decisions,ideally based off some of those
binary things, versus trying toagonize over, like I don't know
, what my exact food costpercentage is down to the second
decimal point and that, I think, can again help people focus on
the more pertinent problems.

Yeah, and I can only imagine what that type of
stress would do to the entireenvironment of your kitchen.

Yeah, and what is it?
You know how does it help?
You know what I mean?
Like, what's the action thatyou're gonna do from one of
these things?
Yeah, and if the answer isprobably not a lot, it's like
you can take a step back andagain focus on other things.

Yeah, I love it .
Justin, this is awesome, thankyou.
Would you talk a little bitabout your resources and how
people can get a hold of you?

Totally so.
I'm available to search my namebasically anywhere.
I'm incredibly easy to get ahold of if anybody wants to jam
or continue to have theconversation on any of these
pieces.
I am continuing to expand theorganizations that I'm working
with on the total stationnomination side and so using the
nine domination measures as asystem to manage your team

(40:31):
better, decrease turnover,increase performance and
ultimately, like, have thatentire staff happiness
onboarding experience be alittle bit more personalized and
nuanced.
I'd love to get in touch Again.
I think I've given you a linkto share in the show notes, but
if not, please send me a messageand I'm happy to direct you
there.
Any of my content I'm writingvery short form actionable

(40:52):
insights in my newsletter aswell.
That's available atjoinrepertoirecom slash
newsletter and then, yeah, Ithink, just happy to continue
the conversation with anybodywho's interested in moving their
hospitality organizationforward in a positive way.

I love it.
Every restaurant needs this.
If you're in the process ofopening, you're thinking about
what it would look like to run akitchen and start a restaurant,
or you've been in operationsfor 20 years and you need a
refresh, or you want to refreshon how to do things a little bit
differently, justin's your guy,so thank you, you bet.
Thank you.
All right, everybody that'sgoing to do it for us this week.

(41:27):
Please share this episode withanyone you know in the industry
who could benefit and we'll talkto you next week.

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