Recovering from a Brutal Kitchen Service

Few things feel more brutal than a bad service. Reeling from a hard day in the kitchen is painful. Like an athlete exiting the arena after a loss, the failure is public and haunting. It would be easier to jump aboard the next flight to Bangkok and start a new life than to go through that ever again.

It’s often said that service is just service—that it’s “just food,” not “surgery,” and you’re not “snipping any arteries.” Which is true, of course, but it never really feels that way. In the moment, your nervous system has you storming the beaches of Normandy, even though you’re “just cooking.”

There’s a big lump in your throat, pressure on your chest, you want to throw up, and you feel embarrassed, a little humiliated, angry, and like you never want to step foot in a restaurant ever again. You ask yourself, “Why the hell do I cook anyway? I’m done with this shit!”

Learning Can Be Painful, and Pain Can Be Helpful

Sometimes it feels like trying your best just ain't good enough. The truth is, sometimes it's not. But the truth is also that failure is part of the learning process, however unhelpful that may seem to hear in the moment. Even when you’re an excellent cook or chef, you will still have off days. You might even make mistakes that seem silly to you.

But you must see pain as a signal to learn and improve. As a sign to change course, alter your approach, or learn a new method. Pain is often a sign to keep going and dominate the situation with effective action, instead of a reason to quit. Managing this emotion is what separates success and failure.

The truth about learning your way up in a kitchen is that the first few years typically feel rocky (and they can be), but as you improve, you perform better, and the fail-to-succeed ratio flips in your favor. Failure and mistakes are not a representation of you—if you keep the occasions few and far between.

Mindset Tricks to Get You Through the Weeds

(and Keep You Out of Them)

1. Commit to succeeding and keep going: Many times—whether you’re on the grill station, expediting, or learning administrative processes—the pang of disaster and the feeling that you can’t handle the pressure causes some people to stop, slow down, fake themselves out, or quit. If you don’t commit to a good outcome, then you have no chance of achieving it. There is always a way forward, so commit to finding it, and if you make a mistake, find a way to recover.

2. Focus on the goal, not the crash: The key here is understanding and being aware of the pressures involved in what you’re doing, and not catastrophizing things in your head, making them worse. It’s how you flip the likelihood of a better outcome. By focusing on doing the tasks well, instead of the impending doom of screwing them up, you find solutions and even more time, giving you a greater advantage.

3. Block out the noise: This is core to avoiding the weeds. Do not let the whirlwind of service take you out of focus. People are yelling, pans are clanking, servers are asking questions, all sorts of shit is whizzing around you while you’re struggling, and the fear of failure feels like a spotlight shining at your face with everyone looking at you—ignore it. Ever try to type properly while someone is standing over your shoulder watching? Yeah, you can’t do it. Now try to cook a proper service at high speed while worried that everyone is watching and thinks you suck… If you need help, ask for it. (And if they do think you suck, screw them, you’ll surpass all of them eventually.) Otherwise, block it out and just keep going.

4. Be confident at all times: This might be the hardest thing to do for most people, especially when failing doesn’t really make you feel confident. But the alternative is to fall apart and slip into an existential crisis. So, what would you rather do? In service, you will make mistakes, no matter how good you are or how long you’ve worked in kitchens. It happens at all levels. Confidence allows you the ability to work past your mistakes and be better for having done it. It’s simply a healthy self-belief that propels you forward, instead of being held back or in place by being self-deprecating. This doesn’t mean being arrogant; this means being confident in your ability to get the job done well.

   
   

You Can Get Better, and Come Back Better

Learning sometimes comes with pain, but pain builds strength and resilience, which allows you to move up the ladder and handle more pressure. It’s a never-ending process. This is the real truth of reaching a new career level. Every time you get promoted to a new position, there will be a learning curve, and you might not be very good to start. But if you’re committed to closing the gap quickly, then those difficult things become second nature—they become “easy.” That’s how you rise up the ranks.

Everything feels hard at first before becoming easy. Many young, aspiring chefs and culinary students (and even seasoned veterans) don’t necessarily understand this process and become demoralized. But remember that if you’re doing it right, pain is a positive and temporary feeling that can be used to help you learn, adapt, and avoid bigger mistakes.

You can do anything. Just don’t quit.