Hit 200 covers solo last Saturday and barely survived

I've been a line cook for about 4 years, mostly at a 80 seat spot in Portland. Last weekend our second guy called in sick and I ended up running the whole station alone. 200 plates flew through my section in 5 hours, I burned my arm twice, and my legs were dead by the end. Anyone else have a night where you looked at the ticket count and just laughed?

2 comments

2 Comments

briancarter25d ago

Whoa, you gotta give your chef a heads up before you put all that on yourself, that's a ticket to a real bad burnout.

morganhill25d ago

Respectfully, I gotta disagree a little. Some of the best nights in my career were the ones where everything went sideways and I had to just lock in. That feeling of killing 200 covers solo is rough but it's also how you learn to move faster, think ahead, and handle the heat. Your body pays for it the next day, sure, but that kind of night is what separates line cooks who can hang from ones who can't. Chef might not even know he pushed you that hard, but now you know what you're capable of.