Supply and Demand

Sixth in a series documenting A. Chef’s first year as an executive chef.

It’s no secret that we as Chefs and kitchen managers spend a good portion of our days acting as purchasers. The human side of the job – scheduling, hiring, firing, training and of course being a leader is only half of it. Cooking and cleaning are usually the other half, but every day before and after everything else there’s money to be spent.

Sometimes it’s new equipment, often it’s repairs and always it’s food. A really big part of the gig is to make sure the materials are there to get the job done and the tools are there to make it happen. It’s not as easy as it might seem. Order too much and you are generating waste. Order too little and you are making last minute substitutions or heading out to the grocery store, which is taking you away from what you really should be doing.

With many suppliers, you need to order the day before. With specialty meat or veg producers, you might have to order three or four days in advance. For many months of the year, business volume is tricky to predict. Coordinating trades to come and service equipment or the building itself can be even trickier, especially since the ice machine and dishwasher and air conditioning almost never break down during regular business hours, and almost always do on a Saturday evening. You get good at fixing things, and thank Christ the linen company still has the good sense to use wire coat hangers, which will fix just about any mechanical malfunction and snake just about any clogged drain.

Of course, a good deal of this is about building relationships. Need a credit on an item because you messed up? Don’t want a big hassle? Make friends with the sales rep. Run out of butter on Friday afternoon and can’t make it to the store? If you’re friendly with the sales rep, they might go and pick some up from the grocery store for you, or pilfer it from another restaurant where they are friendly with the kitchen. The other side of this is that you’d better make time when they have a product to show you, or have a distributor who wants to show you the Next Big Thing in window-cut, easy-peel widgets that you’re gonna just love, at a price (per portion) that’s less than you are paying for your widgets right now. None of this applies to wine and beer reps, because you always have time to sit down with them for product sampling, and chances are you’re gonna buy. They know it, you know it – and they are friends with just about everyone.

Paying in full on time helps a lot too. If your line cooler goes down on Friday night, fat chance getting your HVAC repair guy out if you still owe him three grand, and were late paying the first half. Again, this doesn’t apply to beer and wine reps. If you’ve planned like you should, you’ve already sold the product by the time you have to settle up. 30 day terms are king.

Building relationships extends to your staff, too. Making friends is all nice and good and touchy-feely, but it can really get in the way when it’s time to make someone a shit sandwich. Showing your cooks trust after it’s been earned is important, but taking accountability for your own mistakes and leading by example is key. Yanking on the leash when somebody fucks up is just as important, because it’s always good to make sure nobody forgets who’s boss.