#007// FOH v. BOH

The division of labor within restaurants is a touchy situation. I know when the lights are on, business is steady, and drinks are poured the front and the back are bosom buddies. They are one team working towards the goal of perfect service and happy customers.
Holy shit, is it a pot of cream permanently about to boil over.
Who knows where it began?
Could be the difference in not only pay scales but pay brackets. Could be the psychology of the creator clashing with the mindset of the salesman. Could simply be that at the end of a service one group is tired, sweaty and smelly with no cash in hand and the other is ready to go to the club straight from work with a pocket full of fives and tens.
Who knows who struck first?
Its so pervasive. Its the chicken and the egg. Ive seen the front start fucking with cooks midservice via the checks sent to the kitchen by ordering the filet "MR - small cocks on side." Retaliation is generally brutal to this sort of treatment. I once witnessed a pair of stainless steel tongs, just out of a line cook's reach, be picked up and handed to the line cook by a server - a server who had made the cook late for the last bus home by not informing him of the dessert check for table 19. The same server trying to help, no doubt out of guilt for the bus mishap, hands the cook the tongs only find to his dismay that the tongs had been sitting in the fryer for the duration of time taken to plate the aforementioned dessert. The brand logo on the hot tongs is scarred into the thumb of the unfortunate waiter to this day, almost fifteen years later.

Whether or not I am the bastard cook responsible is still up for debate.
This might be an extreme example but it exists on a daily basis. I own up to the fact that kitchens generally are more competitive places than dining rooms. Our own motivations for the job we do in the back are contrary to that of the front - namely the self-destructive, achievement-at-whatever-the-cost mentality. Our patois is mildly agressive by nature and therefore so is the demeanor. We carry ourselves with a cockiness. Fuck everyone, we are pirates and rebels in a world of pencil and paper pushing zombies. Yeah we serve those zombies but thats because they cannot serve themselves. That is the general mentality. Where can a server possibly fit in that worldview?
Oh yeah: The body and arms who carry the plate and make more money than we do an hour.
The shit that the waitstaff of any busy establishment has to eat is the reason they do well though. After putting up with our back of the house bullshit, they must put on a smile and entertain guest after guest, very few of them with simple demands. Most have modifications which are perfectly acceptable - except that it will make the garmo guy miserable and his next 10 minutes a living hell while he prepares something from scratch to tend to your wishes and desires and when he's done with that he's gonna throw a tantrum to the chef, whose gonna breathe down the waiter's neck for the rest of the night and he still has three tables yet to order and its only six o clock.
Which leads me to our treaty and our truce, our covenant and peace: Booze. Hooch. Firewater.
At the end of the night, as the last customers are filing out, the staff begins to remove the aprons, put on a fresh t-shirt and circle the bar. Bussers and hostesses get tipped out. The kitchen and front get the greatest invention of morale boosting: Shift drinks. Once the shifties are drained, the front of the house begins to buy beverages for the back, a social lubricant to mend bridges and band-aid new wounds. Then the apologies begin and the chorus of, "Whatever, its over" begin and so it goes.
The one group that lives in a limbo between the Hatfields and the McCoys is the bartenders. They are creators so they understand the kitchen. They serve, too, so they understand the floor. Bartenders hate and love the two factions equally and are also the ones who witness the nightly peace ritual as it occurs. How fascinating it must be to watch this toxic relationship fester.
Generally, a bartender can be bought by simply sliding her/him any and all extra food or mistakes. Final tally?
FOH:0
BOH:1
Fucking righteous.

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Thanks for stopping in to LCFL. Everyday things are happening, things are growing, more support being lent. Thank you. We are going to have some invites for the first live podcast (release date August 26thish) being sent out in a few weeks. Starting a little small, just some of the folks kicking it here in Rochester's NOTA. The second podcast will be released this upcoming Monday, so be on the lookout - better yet, go to iTunes and subscribe. Shit happens automatically. Technology, am I right?!? In this one we discuss lifers and jumpers with Josh, a line cook of a decade of experience in family style Italian-American and a intresting point of view on service.
If you like what you see and hear, please start telling a friend if you haven't already. Word of mouth is all we got to go on at this point. 

Unti next time keep bangin'.

James Pawl Kane
Chef, FOH Fan & BOH Member