Today was wonderful – not perfect by any means but I had love in my heart and meat in my hands. After the nightmare that was our start yesterday, I resolved to do better today. My knees creaked out of bed and I had a thought: Andy, one of my best slicers had to go to slice meat at Ben Zendel’s wedding. I really wanted to go myself (Ward’s Island on a perfect day?) but after the debacle of yesterday I had to send him with Neil Gertler. Neil’s the best of the new slicers and he’s really good. But who would slice for me?
Naomichi’s got the evening shift covered better than anyone could ever dream. Perhaps my last thought last night was of who would slice this morning. I arrive and see its joe. Joe. I look at him and he slices a piece of almost transparently thin meat , hold it up and declares in his Yorkshire accent “I can slice”. While this was true, the fellow standing beside Joe in the slicing station could not slice. He couldn’t do what Joe does best either: make it run smoothly.
I unbuttoned my dry-cleaned shirt and fetched a clean apron from my car, found a stash of bar rags in the manager’s office/smoker storage room in the basement and grabbed a stack of paper deli-man hats. I took a few of them because I figured if i got into the shit I could change hats so people wouldn’t see me sweat. I built that slicing station to be a stage but truth be told I never imagined myself on it. I haven’t sliced for months except at catering functions. If yesterday was any indication, today would be busy. How’d we do?
Joe and I kicked ass. It was fantastic. ”We have a queue,” Joe said around 11 am. That line lasted for over an hour but moved pretty fast. Best: NOT A SINGLE SANDWICH WAS RETURNED and the plates from the kitchen were gorgeous. Danny was on the hot station in the kitchen and Joseph was on the pass. The A Team was in place when Charlie showed up around noon. We have a magnificent team. We invented a system and made it work.
Best of all, Vishanti and Giulia ran the floor like the pros that they are. Computer failures, ice machine glitches, internet meltdowns, irate customers, newbie staffers forgetting stuff, none of these things can dim Vishanti’s 1000 watt smile. I watched her disarm all and sundry with a glance. And Giulia? If she had a pedometer on her she may have run a marathon in the last two days. And complain? Not a word. These are professionals. The reason people think ‘anyone can work in a restaurant’ is because people like these make it look easy.
And its our second day.
