Food Industry Stories

[Jor el]

   White Flight and Gentrification


   White Supremacists ruin everything.

[RAGER]

Remember that place I used to Dawn over quite a while back?  The Woodsman Tavern?  The place where I'd always get oysters, seafood towers, top shelf cocktails and made friends there?   Well it's opening back up in December. Not under the same ownership though. He sold one of his restaurants to the head chef. That guy is the one who put theee kale salad on the map. He opened a hospitality group that has I think 5 places. Now The Woodsman.

He came under fire in the beginning of the pandemic for how he handled things. Fuck who knew what to do?  But....also accused of male dominated management and toxic masculinity in the workplace. Like so many others were called out. Several abandoned ship but sounds like things have changed, we'll see. Excited to sit at that beautiful bar again. I'm romanticizing but I doubt it will be like the old days.

[RAGER]

86 meatloaf.

[RAGER]

Everybody keeps talking about The Bear. I enjoyed it but I think it fell short on several fronts. I get it. Yeah it's a movie and you can only fit in so much and you'd have to leave things out that the public just wouldn't get.

So how about a series?  You could really show a lot over 2-3 seasons. How big of cunts the general public are behave it right in their faces. Address some of those things blatantly while possibly teaching at the same time.

Show the different business models from a one owner/chef operation to small regional hospitality groups that operate 5-10 spots and have several partners. The different types of people that do the work. The dichotomy of FOH to BOH.

One very important aspect would be how a concept and vision come together and that you are there to help experience it and not try to make it your own.

I'd watch the shit out of that. It would have to be fictional of course cuz restaurant people right? 

I gotta find somebody to pitch this to.

[mortlock]

heaviest day yet since i started the catering job at the park. me and one other dude on the other grill went through 10 cases of dogs (100 per case) and 19 cases of burgers (10 lb cases about 100 burgs per) all in 90 degree heat. it was wild. 

[RAGER]

That's crazy dude!  That's a lot more f grill time.   I'll put that in an episode.

[mortlock]

they said it was 1200 people but it wasnt ticketed for only one item, it was an eat all you want event. its so much harder to predict how much food you will go through.

[RAGER]

Sounds like a mistake by the event planner.

[mortlock]

im not really sure what happened but i did over hear a couple of upper management people saying the count was off. not sure why.

[Muffin Man]

I went to a high-end restaurant in NYC one year, high end, as in Frank had a table there. We get a private tour of the prohibition era liquor cave, through the kitchen (probably 20 staff in the kitchen), down the stairs, under the kitchen in the subbasement. Behind a false (or real rock, undoubtedly) rock wall that opened with a coat-hanger via an invisible hole. Inside was metric-tonne of booze stacked about but majestically this giant enormous, like 4foot tall, bottle of vodka perched, with gold flakes suspended. in it. Looked like the effects on the Star Trek transporter - tonnes of gold flakes refracting glitter as they would. Someone ask'd what do the gold flakes do/derp. Apparently "nothing for flavor" (maybe it does though) but a healthy lining from the inny to the outty. I don't recall the label if there was one. But the flakes were proportionate to the bottle size compared to the modern 750ml around. - it was the 21 Club

[RAGER]

Whoah. That's the place with the Jockeys right? 

[Muffin Man]

Had to look that up, and, oh yeah! That's it. Those jockey's were cool, lotta colors, but seemed kinda out of place, that or I missed the theme of the place - other than old-school elite and hard to get in to. We had a group of about 25 on the main floor and the place seemed busy otherwise (not rushed). Over toward the kitchen and right in a primo location was Frank's table, completely empty at the time, like if he'd pop in at anytime without notice.

Industry speaking it was the only major kitchen I had a chance to pass through. All I remember was multiple waiters carrying out large salads above their head squeeing past a long double row of stainless counters. Smells and sizzles gas flames and cabinets or whatever the production line had going on. We had to squeeze past the kitchen crew (about 5 of us). I think it was the entire cooking part of the kitchen, or maybe the whole thing except storage. I could guess a size but would be making it up at this point - 20' wide(max) by 40'?. This was back in the 80's with the original ownership. It was sold shortly thereafter. I guess covid shuttered it.

mortlocks' gold steak thing triggered my memory about the gold, just reminiscing.

that long double row had a wide center top, so 2 walkways, 4 worktops, I guess. Cleeaan and shiney. Trying to find a photo of the kitchen. Covid shuttered the place.


https://www.21club.com/history

[RAGER]

Inflation has officially hit the Asian stores. Today I bought a small deli container of salted shrimp for $13. A little over a year ago it was $4.50.

[mortlock]

i cant tell you how much food and other things i no longer buy because i fucking refuse to be fucked by inflation.