By Scott Mechura EBS FOOD COLUMNIST
With NFL playoffs fully underway, the perennial conversations about how much of a team sport football is are back as predicted. I get it. With 11 men on each side of the ball, all with a key role in the execution of each play, who could argue that the team isn’t important?
But I have always maintained baseball is the truest team
sport. Unlike football, the defense controls the ball. And unlike other sports
where the same player can touch the ball again if they had initial success, it
is the next team member who is up, regardless of home run or strike out. You
literally have to rely on each and every team member in equal fashion.
Though if you want to see the ultimate team, you need to
leave the sports arena altogether, and look at the modern restaurant.
The holiday season is the busiest couple of weeks of the
year for the majority of businesses in Big Sky, certainly restaurants. We all
start talking about it and planning for it on a regular basis as early as late
summer. Well, at least I do.
It really hit me this year, right in the middle of service
on New Year’s Eve, what exactly it is that made and makes the holiday season
such a success: it’s the people. A restaurant in the throes of service can be a
thing of beauty yet turn into a tire fire within a few agonizing moments.
Believe me, I’ve seen my share of both.
11:00 –
The day starts with the chef’s and sous chefs’ arrival anywhere between late
morning and midday. We check on prep lists and have a quick chat with each
other for an initial game plan. We start in on any projects we had planned with
tenacity, knowing once the team arrives, our chances of distraction increase
exponentially.
1:00 –
The full kitchen team is in and both the hood fans and music go on
simultaneously. Cooks jump into their prep lists with vigor. Make no mistake,
no matter where they are, no matter what they’re doing, they know exactly what
time it is, because the countdown to doors opening begins when they walk in the
back door.
4:00 –
Bartenders and waitstaff arrive with a laundry list of opening duties: all
small and all vital. This is when the building picks up energy and momentum.
Both black and white uniforms buzzing about, trying to prevent the beehive of
activity from turning into a hornet’s nest.
4:50 – Pre-shift
meeting begins. We go over any specials, any specific game plans or challenges
for that particular evening and address any potential or previous night’s
issues and how to combat them. Everyone breaks and moves to their position of
duty.
5:15 –
First ticket comes in and the music goes off.
7:15 –
The entire building is in high gear. Every single person, from owner, to maître
d’, to dishwasher is on the move. Everyone has a job that has a specific
purpose to the whole. People moving about and passing each other with the
deliberate purpose of a Tokyo crosswalk.
My head and body are spinning. I have dishes from cooks and
voices from servers all coming at me from every angle. Despite this, I take
pause and look around as I take it all in. It’s as if I am in The Matrix, and
time slows to a crawl. Everyone is doing their jobs and contributing to the
whole. A hundred things are happening every minute and we are executing with
confidence.
Yep, tonight was a thing of beauty. The beehive is producing
honey. The hornets will have no nest on this night.
Scott Mechura has
spent a life in the hospitality industry. He is a former certified beer judge
and currently the executive chef at Buck’s T-4 Lodge in Big Sky.