Line Cook stereotypes

I've been a line cook/short order cook for about 5 years now and I friend and I were talking the other day about the best cooks we've worked with and we both agreed that the best cooks (not necessarily chefs) we've worked with all fall into about 3 categories:

1) The quiet mexican dude whose very fast and can crank out orders like nobody's business but isnt the cleanest and plays marachi music 24/7.

2)The late 30's/40's white dude who always heavyset/has a beer belly and usually wears glasses. Has been working in restaurants for longer than you've been alive and is just so over everything. Is usually a sous chef/supervisor. Is knowledgable and fast but needs a smoke break every 2 hours.

3)The mid-late 20's white hipster chef with a full beard, arm tattoos, and wears a backwards snapback/trucker hat/bandana. Most likely a substance abuser. Is fond of the "art" of cooking and is only working at the place your at because he's waiting .

Also worth a mention is the dude whose been to prison but now that he's out he's trying to make it all right and is the best worker ever. May also be 1 of the 3 stated above.

For the record my background is upscale brewpubs, so not necessarily fine dining standards here.

Any other line cooks out there agree? If you had to create a stereotype of the best cooks you've worked with what would it be?

I would be more interested in the worst cooks, list those

Black male
Fat black female
White teen female

does it come to shit talking, personal calls on work time and just poor work?

I work with a number 2. Well not work with. He has the shifts I don't. I swear to god if he doesn't tell me we need to prep more chicken in the communication book one more time I am going sabotage the range to explode.

more chicken user, there is always room for more chicken

yes.

1. The Mexican who abuses coke

2. The Mexican who is addicted to coke

3. The Mexican who is always on coke

The Pastry Girl - Early 20's, usually 0 experience, fresh out of a nice culinary school, kind of slow, working on her cupcake/custom cake side business, gone by like 10AM only the morning crew knows she exists

The Tony Bourdain - Guy or girl, 20-30 years old, took Kitchen Confidential a bit too literally, food tattoos, piercings and colored hair are all likely. Drug habit is guaranteed, usually down for anything type. Often tough as nails and intelligent, can be fiercely excellent link cooks, when they aren't late/high/in jail. The stereotypical bad boy Chef.

The Try Hard - The kind of guy who shows up to a stage with those long ass chopsticks in his sleeve. Plates everything with a pair of tweezers. Probably has a Global knife steel and 350 dollar shoes. Almost always male, probably glasses, without all the macho grab assing of most cooks. Considers himself above them. Fancy cookbook collection and perfectionistic bullshit will ironically make these cooks very knowledgeable and technically skilled.

Those stand out to me. 10 years in this shit so far. You're dead on about the prison guy.

I make people breakfast burritos if that counts.

in my experience, people that actually talk. fuck assholes who sit and stare at a ticket and don't talk.

>mfw I work with all of these

#2 is my favorite though, he is constantly teaching me how to make/prep things and random kitchen tricks etc.

I make them breakfast quesadillas instead.

Lmao is that a dishwashing pepe. Dishwashing is probably the most /comfy/ job in the kitchen.

I love working with the old cooks too, they usually have kitchen banter down and as a result are hilarious to be around.

Do you work in downtown Houston? Holy shit that described my time as a line cook to a T.
>quiet mexican started as a dishwasher and moved on to cooking
>late 30's guy had a bad alcohol problem, but was super nice and respectful towards me (the new kid)
>mid-late 20's chef was a super emotional dickhead and into the 'art' of it all despite not understanding the culture of the food he was cooking (cajun)

Unironically this. People who have never worked in a restaurant will claim dish washing is gruesome. 99% of the day you do nothing but fuck off, stack plates and occasionally chip at a burnt pan. It's the easiest job at a restaurant. Cooks have to work in tight 110 degree spaces, run around constantly and deal with the prick floor manager. Some are unfortunate enough to SERVE the food during rush hours and take orders.

The guy whose just out of culinary school but has never had an actual culinary job before.

Anyone whose passion is to actually be a food blogger, or food network star, or has a cooking youtube channel but is line cooking in the meantime. Those are all completely seperate skillsets and dont always transfer well.

The guy whose been there for years but has never been promoted. He always has all sorts of wonderful ideas on how to run the place better but when the GM is faced with a choice between promoting him or hiring outside for the position he will never get picked.

Anyone who only has the job becuase spouse/parents/government/caretaker made them get one.

The yuppie who has a $600 8 piece knife set in a carry bag that he takes home with him every day, $150 leather non-slip chef crocs, and 5 pairs of pinstriped chef pajama pants but is slow as fuck and complains about everything.

Ive never met a good line cook who was also a mother.

Rule #1 of making excuses in the kitchen:
It's not your fault, it's the fault of the shift before yours.

...

Ants

>If you had to create a stereotype of the best cooks you've worked with what would it be?
You, you dumb dick.
I'm 2 and you and I drink together most nights.

>Ive never met a good line cook who was also a mother.
I'm 46. Been mostly in the BoH industry since 15. I've... I've never worked with a line cook who was a mother. You just made me realize that.
Huh.

>46
>browses Veeky Forums

What keeps you goin old timer?

You must been working in good places

Tell me elder one, are you the 2nd example I pointed out in the OP? What are the stereotypes that you've seen in your kitchen? What's the salary cap for a good head chef in a mid tier restaurant? What's the #1 kitchen trick you wish you knew when starting out?

Teach me your ways, user.

>black males
man, these guys are the laziest workers ever, especially when they're straight first generation immigrants from africa
also i'll get some shit for this but the cambodian, phillipinos and thai are also terrible workers.

>if he doesn't tell me we need to prep more chicken in the communication book one more time
do you want him to come in on his day off and cook it for you too? go to the line and walk-in and check if you need chicken. and of course you need chicken

10/10 post. Ive cooked in Portland for a while and there's so many Bourdain wannabees around here.

>Dishwashing is probably the most /comfy/ job in the kitchen.
Dishwashing is objectively the cushiest job in a restaurant.
>stay in one place all day
>no one fucks with you really
>don't have to appease customers
>any restaurant owner that isnt retarded has enough dishes to go through in a rush even without you actually taking your job seriously

when i was washing dishes i spent most of my day hiding in the freezer to cool off from the summer sun and hot rains/blasting heater in winter. that and browsing /r9k/ on my phone, usually posting about animal porn or cheering myself up by looking at qt kemono men on my phone. rush time would suck because the layout of the place sucked and the "line" was basically the size of an area behind a bar (but there was no actual bar) and I'd have to play busser and server on top of doing dishes but even then it wasn't bad. also setting up the terrasse was annoying but it was all plastic furniture so it more tedious/annoying than actually strenuous.

ironically, the only easier/less stressful job ive had has been in the military.

>The guy whose been there for years but has never been promoted.
an unfortunate rule of management is that you can't promote your stars. anyone competent, once promoted, will take their competence with them, even if they still work for the same place. you can pay them more and give them more responsibility and give them tokens of appreciation on the reg but promoting them will cripple whatever position they work in already.

>Some are unfortunate enough to SERVE the food during rush hours and take orders.
this is always the most tragic fucking sight. even before working in a resto i knew this wasnt ok and meant that shit was getting DIRE for them

let his post be your daily reminder that we are all here forever.

When I was a dishwasher it was an okay job in the kitchen but I didn't have any time for me because there were so many dishes and they just kept coming at me
It really depends on the restaurant you can get raped by dishes sometimes
Some restaurants are just poorly engineered

>Line Cook stereotypes

Weed for the dishwasher.
Coke for the line.

>phillipinos
I'd rather hire a blind, deaf, mute with no arms or legs.

man i worked with a Filipino guy who worked like a mule from sun-up to sun-down, just about slept at the office. Course he did have some trouble with his little wife, maybe he just didn't wanna go home

Lel

The Work Horse
Started out as a disher in some crappy pizza place or family diner. Has forgotten how many restaurants he's worked at. Has no aspirations to be a Chef despite being a really good cook. Just wants to get in, get his shit done, get out and get a beer.

The Jackass
Not without skill, but incredibly immature. Pulls kitchen pranks at the worst possible times. He's sloppy and his station is usually in the weeds. Always shouting dumb shit like "Rock n Roll" or "Dress rehearsal for hell, boys!" Will be out of the business in a year or to when he fucks up huge or his bitchy girlfriend demands he gets a "real job"

Oh yeah, and the Jackass ALWAYS has a bitchy girlfriend he won't shut up about

Late twenties/early thirties white alcoholic who wears bandanas and is the loudest, most obnoxious one in the kitchen, but whom you can't hate because he makes jokes and lightens the mood

The Mexican guy who doesn't chat much but who is great at banging out orders

The young, starry-eyed prep cook who tries really hard to make everything nice but takes forever doing it and gets burned out after a couple of months

The fat pastry girl who is a total bitch and moves very slowly

The chef/kitchen manager who tries to be friends with everybody so he loses grasp of power

The waitress who fucks everybody

But she fine tho.

one of the ladies I work with is the cook on the two days that I'm not in has 3 kids
they're all out of the best tho

>Late twenties/early thirties white alcoholic
Can never get him to do shit until rush comes and he slings shit out like nobody's business

That one line cook that every server is fucking TERRIFIED of. He could scowl a hole through a cement wall

It's funnier when you know what a fake Bourdain is.

>Some restaurants are just poorly engineered
true but also just like go faster, man.

>communication book
i worked as a line cook for a few months and i always had the feeling that something like this would have helped everything, i just didn't know that it was a thing/what it was called.

Easiest dish gig I've ever had was this little cafe/tea room in Alaska of all places. Most of the business came from tour companies so we always knew exactly how many people and when they were coming. We never sat more than 60 people at a time.
I'd come in, knock out the morning prep dishes.
Have a cup of coffee
Wait for salad course.
Bust out salad course
Have a snack
Wait for entree course
Bust out entree course
Staff lunch
Wait for desert course
Bust out desert course
Have another coffee
Clean up dishes from late walk-ins
Lunch tear down
Do a little prep
Have another coffee
Done for the day

Sometimes we'd have catered functions in the garden, but that would only add one or two tubs to the deck.
The only downside was they had all these porcelain tea sets and custom glass serving dishes that had to be washed by hand.

Any good kitchen is going to have either a book or a whiteboard for shit like that.

yeah it wasn't a good kitchen. once i asked the previous cook if there was anything pressing i needed to do, and he just told me (somewhat aggressively) to look for myself.

#3 reporting in. Just got promoted to sous, been there 3 months.

>worked in restaurants on and off since I was 15.
My last and probably final gig was working weekends just over two years to pay off some debt. I'm 28 now. For the weekend one I just stuck to fryers, grill, and prep work. I figured it would be better for me to get familiar and efficient with stocking and prep to help out another station on the fly instead of trying to learn the entire menu and be poor-ok at it since I was there only weekends. I've seen plenty of kitchen drama and stereotypes, don't really have any to add that hasn't been said already though. Glad to be done but I miss the environment even if that included working in a crowded kitchen with 40c humidity during an all day rush cause music festival.

In certain states, you should add "Dude who comes to work high and smokes a joint on break"

Fuck. You combine these two and you've got me. Loved by BOH and eternally loathed by FOH. At least until after shift.
You mean, "all of them"?

>The Work Horse
me

Does your whole shift crew not all crowd into the Walk-in and hotbox it like normal people? Plebs.

Congrats, user. May the god of organization bless your kitchen and ensure you always have backups.

anyone here worked with a tranny, femboy or trap?

Every single person I've met that works in a kitchen is a heavy smoker and alcoholic.

>all crowd into the Walk-in and hotbox it like normal people?
Negro this is not the 90's anymore

The guy that brought me up from dishes, through prep, to line was the most perverted fucking Mexican you could imagine. Dude had a monster fetish for eating buttholes. He was all about it, and had a different story every day. Either he was eating some gnarly chick's butthole, or getting some gnarly chick to eat his butthole. We used to call him "Juan, the Anal Conquistador." Motherfucker could cook though. He was the goddamn master of soup. Give him any three leftovers from the line, and he'd make some bomb fucking soup out of it.

How does one get into a cooking position without prior experience? I assume I'd just go work in a Waffle House for a while and then try and move up from there?

Lol. Sounds like a good guy.

No user, so this might not be the profession for you.

Apply for a prep cook position somewhere, learn and move up the ranks. Dont work at a place like Waffle House, Applebees, or Red Robin though, you wont learn anything real. Try to get a job at a local place.

I also worked with a guy named Juan who liked eating ass. I would ask if we worked with the same Juan, but based on my sample space im just assume every guy I meet named Juan likes eating booty.

>No user, so this might not be the profession for you.
I wouldn't wanna work with it anyways, seems harsh. but I do have some tranny friends that work with it so it doesn't seem that unusual, just really low percentage of the population. Was just curious if they were shit coworkers, decent, or good

I work with a tranny that's part-time. A passable one at that. Think he said he's been on the grillpills for 6 years. He/she is manic as fuck and gets overly mad at customers for special ordering shit. Other than that, I don't have anything bad to say about him/her for the bantz, sorry.
>Funny, doesn't take self too seriously and doesn't care at all if you purposely misgender it.
>Brings the best DUDE WEED LMAO
>We all get him to hit on the new guys for laffs.
>Breddy sure our frat boy dishwasher got head by the dumpster on break from it.

Not necessarily specific to line cooks but i feel that every large restaurant has "that guy". The weird guy with weird habits and who brings up strange things in conversation. The guy who makes the girl servers creeped out. The kind of guy where as soon as he join your table for an after work drink you ask for the tab

My first 2 jobs I was that guy. Last one I was at it was our crackhead dishwasher. This one im at its this 30 yr old busser whose already told the servers he has a foot fetish.

why would you prep chicken in a communication book? seems like an interesting method

>What keeps you goin old timer?
Paycheck
But really, I've found a cush job that doesn't pay shit, but gives me a lot of freedom as far as purchasing goes. ~30K

Hi. yes chef.
Jesus... Fuck. You pretty much nailed it.
Fuck you for doing that.
You have the stereotypes figured.
Seattle cap? Probably 60-80K. I really don't know a pay rate that doesn't specifically involve state/city.
>What's the #1 kitchen trick you wish you knew when starting out?
>Teach me your ways, user.
That's fucking perfect. You want to learn. You can accept that you don't know. A lot of people think that they know.
In my mid 20s I thought I knew it all. I thought I knew the one TRUE way to make stocks and sauces.
...20 years later I have had to re-learn.
I would highly suggest being open to new ideas.
As an old dog, it is difficult to work with new ideas in cooking. Well, it's not difficult, but I definitely go out of my way to try to stay current with ideas in food.
I really think that that is the least you can do for yourself. I was that cunt in the mid 90s shitting on sous vide. And then I shit on foams too. I was wrong.

And if you can't tell, a fifth of bourbon REALLY helps. The voices. Also it's dinner.

I work with a Nigerian, laziest guy here

number 3 turns into number 2 after 10 years

Our head chef lets us keep 6 pickpacks under our stations that we can drink when closing. It has made my time there a lot more bearable

One kid under 18 started working with us. I don't think he was Human

1.Guy who thinks he knows everything and fucks everything up

2.Weird white trash dishwasher who always complains

3.Passive aggressive head chef/sous chef

4.Young 20 something guy who didn't go to college/is working to pay for college

5.Old sage dishwasher who has been washing dishes his whole life

Basically what my workplace is made up of.

I've never been on the line because I'm not a retard, but I know if you want good drugs you get in with the barfolk and talk to a cook. They are all yakked the fuck out the whole time and can find everything for 10 bucks over cost.

haha poorfags.

>the short Russian girl with the best ass ever
Oh Ruth

nah FOH is just full of degenerate homogays

Are there asian line cooks?

in asian restaurants mostly

Work is not a place to socialise you faggot. Do you expect every poor soul who is made to suffer your presence to be your friend?

There are some among us in their 70s.

You forgot the obviously flaming faggot that hides his gayness by overemphasizing all the girls that are asking him out that and him going on break to drink vodka from a plastic bottle...

well a white board doesn't allow for record keeping

Had the same job dishes just kept coming and i should get the dishes myself and bring them to the right places, and wash All the stuff the cocks got dirty IT was a shit job.

You're probably a fucking Mexican.

>blahahahahaspickityspickitytacoburritoblahblah blah
>eyy gringo why don't you talk so much? jajajaja

The Iraq veteran with anger issues that gets arrested every 6 months.

this thread is poetry

yeah you can take it easy most places in dishwasing because there's generally nothing time sensitive but a small place with high volume can get gruesome, they usually don't have extras of shit so you gotta be quick with getting everything washed and ready for another use because every thing that passes through your station will be used at least three times that night

people try to bitch over my hourly smoke breaks but I can be out the door, suck one down, and be back in under two minutes. and the ones bitching are the ones always standing around talking instead of working

I can get away with it because I never take meal breaks or the fifteen minutes we're supposed to get twice a shift. if things are slow enough I could do either of those, I'm either prepping or goin home

Luck bastards

>worked in a small sushi restaurant
>so millions of little dishes, plates, bowls etc
>still somehow not enough of them
>basically be hauling ass for 5 hours straight

I'm 2. I mean you hit the nail on the head holy shit. I never realized I was such a cliche.