So I started at this spot that is just a couple steps up from a sports bar in semi-rural area after working more upscale & fine dining kitchens in larger cities. I knew from the get-go that standards were going to be low & that everyone around me was going to have little-to-no experience, or at least not much experience with actual/more technical cooking (these guys used to mostly cook with microwaves, fryers, and flat tops). But I was/am optimistic about all of this and viewed the downsides as opportunities. Especially since the chef/owner (who has a pretty decent/diverse experience) stressed heavily in my interview that he is trying to cultivate quality dining in this area.

I’m about a month in and I’m really starting to see just how little he cares about quality and more about doing things his way. I understand you get to do that in your own spot, but I don’t understand being resistant to ideas/suggestions that preserve quality & that adhere to health codes. I’ve started to bite my tongue about little things here & there (filtering fryer oil daily/every other day, properly seasoning food, calling out tickets & organizing/communicating selling tables), but I’m starting to see some fucked up shit.

Stuff like in the pictures and especially concerning properly cooling foods. I constantly see foods taken from the pot, placed into plastic containers (lids on), and then put right into the walk-in. I’ve heard people talk about having to throw out sauces (like demi) that have molded over in just a few days after being put away warm with a lid. The event that led me to write this post happened when I was cooling sauces in metal pans, uncovered in the walk-in. Shortly after the chef/owner & “sous chef” came up to me and instructed me place them both into plastic containers with lids (one in the walk-in & the other to sit on the dry goods shelf), explaining to me that what I had done was an “unnecessary step” & not part of their SOP. They further told me that since the ingredients were shelf stable and that this also made the final cooked sauce “shelf stable.” I acknowledged that yes they were very basic sauces of shelf stable items (sugar, hot sauce, mustard, & corn starch), but I tried to explain that the process of exposing all of this to the air, cooking/heating it, and doing nothing to cool it all creates perfect conditions for bacteria. I was further told they “knew all about health codes” and tried to get me to “understand.” Now I feel like every effort I do to properly cool things before putting away (like the precooked wings that were thrown into a bus tub warm/still hot) is looked at with suspicion or defiance.

Am I wrong in this? How do I navigate people who are so willfully ignorant?

I see all of this as motivation to land a chef position somewhere and to build my own business, but I could definitely use some advice to approach these situations as professionally & courteous as possible.