The Importance of Staff Meal

[chezlamere]

I cook in longterm care. The staff pay $1 for soup of the day, (of coarse they insist on the BIG bowl) and $4 for full lunch and $5 for full dinner (again the BIG portion) we pile on as much as we can on the plate. But of coarse the kitchen staff rarely pay or fudge the meal sheet. (what can i say, it's going to be thrown out anyway-right). We have some students working the afternoon shift and I feel sorry for them, because I know this is probably the only good meal they've had all day. I'm writing this as I'm sitting here (my day off) with a plate of wings that somehow found their way into my tupperware container. There was a large banquet the other day, and the next morning the kitchen staff kinda helped themselves to leftovers. Nothing stays in the cooler past 24hrs. It's garberator or garbage can.

My daughter (who is also a student, though not starving, because she only lives less then a mile away and uses my fridge and cupboards as her personal grocery store) works for a very large hotel chain as a banquet server and this hotel chain (shall remain un-names) has a staff cafeteria, ALL FREE OF CHARGE TO EMPLOYEES. Can you beleive it. She loves working there, because she gets to eat for nothing, and most of the other banquet staff are all students as well. Some of them live on campus, well i'll just say that if i was 20 or so and a student, I would move heaven and earth to work in this place too. She usually works three days a week sometimes more. Of coarse she picks her classes so nothing starts before 10 am, because she usually works until 3 or 4 AM.

[GG Mora]

The best staff dessert: A spoonful of Nora's chocolate mousse, and a swallow of Warre's '66 port.

Sounds like communion.

[MGLloyd]

I also worked at a place on Orcas Island, Washington and at the end of serive we got to choose anything...well except the 14 dollar a pound tenderloin...any fish; ahi, salmon, halibut.... I asked the chef once if it were a waste of money to give the good food to staff...he said, "First of all, there isn't many choices of after-service food on the island, secondly a happy staff is a cooperative and hard-working staff."

Was this the Rosario Resort, by any chance? Sounds too upscale for Olga's or the Eastsound Cafe.

[schaem]

I've actually learned quite a lot about cooking from the preparation of staff meals. Mexican cooks have taught me how to make tacos using beef or porkscraps. Dominicans taught me Pernil using inexpensive pork shoulder. I've perfected my Fried Chicken and Buffalo Wings using the afformentioned chicken parts. Taught myself Gyros using lamb scraps and the grinder.

Granted I've also put out 10,000,000 "Bolognese" sauces, and nearly as many "Beef Stews" or "Chilis", and my "Salt and Pepper chicken" is legendary, but when material and time allows family meal can be very educational.

[beans]

This is an amusing thread.

Where I currently work -- no staff meal. Never was, never will. Come to work ready to work and run your ass off is the philosophy.

During in-season (May through October-ish) none of the staff are permitted to order off the menu or to carry a togo out the door at the end of their shift. Exception: they were there on a day off and seated at a table, paying full price. However that doesn't stop that piece of shrimp, that Holly noted, from disappearing. (yes, even the piece that appeared undisturbed from a guests' plate while being bussed.... yuk)

At ClubCorp, our exec chef had a budget for staff meal. He was evil. I loved him. It was Wingdings each and every day. Somehow I got lucky and was able to have a cup of soup and a house salad in lieu of the fried chicken wings, which I loathe. This meal was prepared by our dishwasher. (!) Once in a great while, one server would scream bloody murder that she wasn't going to take it anymore and he told her to go ahead and prepare the meal. Then we had grilled cheese sandwiches, fries and soup. This is a place that we did do the seasonal menu change tastings, discussing the ingredients and preparation method.

Only once did he feel generous enough to allow us anything off the dinner menu with exception to the lobster or NYStrip. I chose the New Zealand Lamb and made sure I got his drinks that evening after work when we stopped downstairs at the local hangout for a few cocktails.

[evilcartman]

Do most restaurants work on margins where they would be careful to save $100.00 per day!...the chicken legs that seem to proliferate no matter how creative one is with menu writing, and the chains that have been trimmed off of the tenderloins, the case of cauliflower that is going to go bad if you don't do something with it quickly etc.

In most places there is a specific person or station assigned to do a staff meal. And they usually have to use those spare parts, and a little thinking ahead, even though often that seems impossible, makes a huge difference. I've made hundreds of staff meals, usually with only scraps and creative thinking on my side...snag those meat scraps and run them through the grinder...not gonna use em today? freeze it...you can stockpile and make a big batch of ground beef. One chef in my past was so stingy he would not even let us use the burger meat for staff. It was scrounge city!! But, he also said that someone who could make a good staff meal in his restaurant was a darn good cook. I have had better luck getting staff to eat chicken that's off the bone, so poaching (or boiling it!) and picking the meat off for chix salad or a quickie soup or taco meat or what have you is the best way to get them to eat it.

[evilcartman]

In the absence of a formal staff meal, the usual equation in my experience has always been --

Beer to cooks = food to you

very, very true!!! Bread and water!!!

[phaelon56]

This is interesting... I always assumed that at restaurants the staff would just be given an entree free from the menu if they had to take lunch (or dinner, or whatever) at the restaurant... Odd that that isn't the case.

That's a howl! Regrettably it's far from the truth. When I worked in the biz it varied from place to place.

1) A steakhouse where they made up an "employee meal" that varied from horrible to surprisingly good. It was typically starch heavy but on occasion included very dry burgers or meatloaf made from the scraps of dry aged prime beef that were left over (this place did its own dry aging and butchering). On rare occasions we were given some leftover cuts of prime rib.

2) The most shameful award: a popular bistro style restaurant in Syracuse (the first one ever to open in town and it was making buckets of money at the time). At first they picked one or two light entree items that they had extra quantities of but the limited the menuand started CHARGING us $1.50 per day of we opted in for the meal (this was in 1979). The menu was limited to mixed green salad, bread, rice and French Onion soup. Oh.... I almost forgot .... unlimited coffee - whoop te doo.

3) The winner: my boss Jim Sterio at Sterio's Landmark restaurant, where I worked as a busboy in 1979. Every Saturday night after the final tables were cleared he set up a fully dressed table for all the waitstaff, busboys and one or two of the cooks to share a meal (the other cooks took turns cooking for us on alternate weekends, just as the waitresses took turns serving the group). We were allowed to order anything on the menu except Chateaubriand, Rack of Lamb or Lobster. A few bottles of good wine were opened to be shared as well.

Jim was a pro who'd been in the business since his early teens and came from a large Greek family that literally lived in the biz. His menu style and mode of marketing came and went and sadly, his two restaurants closed. I can only hope that some of today;'s restarauteurs are bringing back that kind of dedication to providing a supportive environment for their employees.

[lala]

Hmm..  I realize it wouldn't make fiscal sense to serve the entire staff top notch steaks and other expensive cuts of meat, but just from perusing prices at many restaurants, even middle of the road ones, it always looks like there is a significant markup from what those bare ingredients would cost at the grocery store, and I am sure the restaurant can get them a heck of a lot cheaper than I can at the grocery store.   Of course, I have never been in the restaurant business, so what do I know, but 20 meals that only cost $5 or so in ingredients is still only $100 a night, or do most restaurants actually run on razor thin profit margins?  (This seems highly improbably to me... just considering what alcohol goes for at the bars of most places, wow talk about huge markup there...). 

Ah, but that's not how it's calculated. Restaurant accounting rule #1: If you lose a meal in a restaurant (plated meal hits the floor, or staff eats it), you don't lose it at the cost (say $5.00), you lose it at retail - the price the customer would have paid ($15.00), since you're not making that profit on that item. It's all about Cost of Goods...so if those 20 staff members ate meals that came off the menu (specific meals prepped for retail sale), the restaurant really lost $300 ($$ not earned by that food), not $100 (actual COG). And that that $300 is all lost profit, either...you've got the $100 food cost, then facilities costs, staffing, promotional costs, etc...

While restaurant prices may seem outlandish compared to what you pay for the items in a grocery store, running a restaurant is hellishly expensive, and that $200/night variance we're talking about here could make the difference. You do know that restaurants have a 90% failure rate, right? It's a hard, hard business.

Which is why staff meals are designed to use leftovers, scraps, extraneous cuts of meat (all those chicken legs). Most staff meals cost the restaurant $1 -2 per head. Trust me, you're never as creative as when the Chef looks you in the eye and says "You're in charge of Staff meal tonight".

Edited for clarity, I hope

Edited April 22, 2004 by lala (log)

[bilrus]

One pizza place I worked in did not do "staff meals" per se, but we were allowed to help ourselves from the salad bar (within reason), and any pies that were made wrong (like putting olives on a "no olives" pie) was sliced and put in the break room. Cokes were free. The draft was for after hours. He didn't sell a lot of beer, so we did our best to make sure they didn't waste a keg once it was tapped.

We rarely went without. It is incredibly easy to screw up a pizza. And the crusts were pre-cut and docked, so at the end of the night, the crusts that were about to be thrown out became fair game. You wanna know where cinnamon/sugar sprinkled pizza came from? I was making it 20 years ago...

This owner was extraordinarily cool, though. As long as you didn't abuse it, it was there. No one who worked for him went hungry, even on their days off.

I worked at another place that had free staff meals, but we had to prepare our own. And not get in the way. And not use the expensive stuff. But we had our fair shot at everything else. The chef would look over our shoulders as we were doing it, offering suggestions, and observing. Occasionally, he would sneak a taste. Several staff made meals made it onto the menu. Or at least were sold as a special.

My first job (and only job in a restaurant for as long as I live) was at a Pizza Hut. We had the same system and the cooks were known to make a mistake or two. it was funny how the toppings on the mistakes were always exactly what they liked.

We were also allowed to take home a few personal pan pizzas which were pre-made in the morning.

All in all not too bad, but even with that I couldn't eat a Pizza Hut Pan Pizza for years after that.

[beans]

While restaurant prices may seem outlandish compared to what you pay for the items in a grocery store, running a restaurant is hellishly expensive, and that $200/night variance we're talking about here could make the difference. You do know that restaurants have a 90% failure rate, right? It's a hard, hard business.

Word.

Our "leftovers" turn into what Mario Batali giggled over in calling it "cream of walk-in soup".

[phaelon56]

Then there was the job I had delivering pizzas. Our pizza was well known as the best pie available in the locale. I found it amusing when the kitchen staff of a well known (but truly vile) local German restaurant would order our pie to be delivered to the kitchen's back entrance for their employee meal. They chipped in to buy pizza from us rather than eat the crap the boss was willing to give them.

Even more ironic was the guy who ran the pizza concession at a popular local beer joint down the road - he was their pizza chef and he actually ordered our pizza rather than eat his own for dinnert. Exactly how bad was their pizza? (not that I'll never know - I didn't dare try it).

[McDuff]

The worst staff meals I ever experienced were at OH HO SO (A trendy So Ho Chinese place in the 80's).

I ate there one night. Divine was doing an off off Broadway thing called Women Behind Bars and we went to the rest. after the show, and so did she. I went over and said "We all thought you died for art." She fluttered her eyelashes in what appeared to be an exhausted stupor, and said "Huh?

[KateW]

It's not an upscale place or a "real restaurant" for that matter but at my internship at the racing track we usually have no real meal per se. Once in a while chef will make omelettes in the morning, or if a purveyor came in with some free samples he'll give us that. (Sara Lee came in Monday and today we had a caramel cake type thing.)

Sometimes we'll go down to one of the concession stands and make our own food at the end of the day. Chicken sandwiches, burgers, soup, basically anything we want to make and it's free.

It's really not a bad deal.

[rickster]

Ah, but that's not how it's calculated. Restaurant accounting rule #1: If you lose a meal in a restaurant (plated meal hits the floor, or staff eats it), you don't lose it at the cost (say $5.00), you lose it at retail - the price the customer would have paid ($15.00), since you're not making that profit on that item. It's all about Cost of Goods...so if those 20 staff members ate meals that came off the menu (specific meals prepped for retail sale), the restaurant really lost $300 ($$ not earned by that food), not $100 (actual COG). And that that $300 is all lost profit, either...you've got the $100 food cost, then facilities costs, staffing, promotional costs, etc...

Not to get too far off topic, but the only way a restaurant loses $300 in this case is if they could have sold the meal to a patron and instead gave it to a staff member, which would be an opportunity cost.and not a real cost anyway. As long as no patron is going hungry, the staff meal is just an overhead cost like any other and of course you have to strive to minmize overheads (Note: I am not a restaurant accountant or any other kind of accountant).

[kurl]

Ah, but that's not how it's calculated. Restaurant accounting rule #1: If you lose a meal in a restaurant (plated meal hits the floor, or staff eats it), you don't lose it at the cost (say $5.00), you lose it at retail - the price the customer would have paid ($15.00), since you're not making that profit on that item. It's all about Cost of Goods...so if those 20 staff members ate meals that came off the menu (specific meals prepped for retail sale), the restaurant really lost $300 ($$ not earned by that food), not $100 (actual COG). And that that $300 is all lost profit, either...you've got the $100 food cost, then facilities costs, staffing, promotional costs, etc...

Not to get too far off topic, but the only way a restaurant loses $300 in this case is if they could have sold the meal to a patron and instead gave it to a staff member, which would be an opportunity cost.and not a real cost anyway. As long as no patron is going hungry, the staff meal is just an overhead cost like any other and of course you have to strive to minmize overheads (Note: I am not a restaurant accountant or any other kind of accountant).

But presumably if you don't serve a steak to the staff you can still sell it the next day...

[lala]

With respect, you're not quite right, rickster. To quote you:"the only way a restaurant loses $300 in this case is if they could have sold the meal to a patron and instead gave it to a staff member, which would be an opportunity cost and not a real cost anyway." Food is a very real cost, which must be accounted for, whether it's being eaten by a customer, or staff.

Logistically, while menu leftovers are indeed sometimes a part of staff meals, most restaurants feed their staff before the lunch/dinner service. Thus, they cannot just wait to see what doesn't sell. As well, a major part of maintaining good food Cog is to have an accurate prediction of what will sell, and purchase and prep to accomodate that number, so you don't waste the prime foodstuffs and labor (par list). This also ensures a fresh product for the customer.

Monetarily, if you're giving food to staff from the menu, you lose that food profit and staff production costs, both in prep (many menu items take more time to prep than staff meals do) and a la minute cooking (your line cooks have to stay an extra half hour to cook everyone's meals to order, so you've got 6 cooks working for three hours instead of one guy working for one hour). Not to mention that your overall food Cogs would rise precipitiously if you fed your staff off the menu items and simply threw away the scraps, etc, that are universally used in staff meals. Even at Cost, it makes better sense to give your staff a $2 meal than a $5 meal, and use less labor to do it.

Example: you buy whole chickens to fabricate (because it's cheaper than buying just the breasts, even with your labor cost. It takes about 40 seconds to break down a chicken), so that you can use the breasts in an entree. Bones go into the stock (for the sauce). Do you throw the legs away? No, you feed them to the staff.

That way, the cost of the breasts and bones goes to cog, and the legs cost goes to 'overhead' in the form of staff meals. If you just threw those legs away, it would have to go to the cogs, and raise your cogs on the breasts to an unnacceptable level. As a basic rule, food cogs are an average of 30% ($5.00 in food cost means a $15 entree). If you had to add the cost of food wasted by not utilizing it (both in other menu items and staff meals), your cog could be up to double, if not more, and you would not be in business for very long. Again, I use this chicken as an example. Some restaurants can accomodate more waste and slightly higher cogs due to size. Please extrapolate as you will for the more expensive menu items.

As ample evidence shows on this thread, if it were cheaper to feed staff off of the menu, and absorb the costs of those menu items and associated waste of scrap foods, this would be the norm, and it's not.

I have done restaurant accounting, and have turned excellent profits for the kitchen departments and cafes that I managed. Not that I enjoyed being a numbers wonk, but that's a crucial part of the job

Edited April 23, 2004 by lala (log)

[Holly Moore]

As a basic rule, food cogs are an average of 30% ($5.00 in food cost means a $15 entree)...

... I have done restaurant accounting, and have turned excellent profits for the kitchen departments and cafes that I managed. 

Actually 33%. The dish should sell for $16.50 at 30%. I caught it because I've made the same mistake more than once.

Otherwise, well said.

Edited April 22, 2004 by Holly Moore (log)

[laurel]

Is "Cog" short for something? And what exactly does it mean?

Edited April 23, 2004 by laurel (log)

[Holly Moore]

COG = Cost of Goods = Cost of Goods Sold = Food Cost

The toughest controlable cost in any restaurant.

[lala]

As a basic rule, food cogs are an average of 30% ($5.00 in food cost means a $15 entree)...

... I have done restaurant accounting, and have turned excellent profits for the kitchen departments and cafes that I managed. 

Actually 33%. The dish should sell for $16.50 at 30%. I caught it because I've made the same mistake more than once.

Otherwise, well said. [/quote

(something wierd happened to the quotes here)

Fortunately, for all concerned, Lala has not actually been in charge of food costs for 7 years. But when she was, she was bitchin'!

You're right, that is the industry standard. I got caught up in the moment, and trying to make it an easy explanation (I Did say 'average'!). But it does take 3x33 (fudged just a little!) to make 100%... and as we just demonstrated, every little percentage really does count. That difference between 30% and 33%, based on 10 chicken dinners per night is $5,475 per year. For just one menu item.

Edited to say: Holly, I hope my self congratulations on my math skills was not perceived as hubris. I hate math, and I'm dyslexic. I'd rather eat a plate of stir-fried eyeballs than do COGS, but I managed to get 'em done, accurately. Thank goodness I don't have to do 'em anymore!

Edited April 23, 2004 by lala (log)

[mantee]

The math of feeding the staff, it's tax deductable!

[stovetop]

In Canada you can put a taxable benefit on your staffs check like 2.00 a shift, for them it is a taxable benefit , for you it is a right off, thus not affecting your food costs.

stovetop

[jess mebane]

The math of feeding the staff, it's tax deductable!

This surely must've been the case at Houston's, where the day shift had to be on point by 8:30am for the 10:45 open, and the chef and line cooks were already at work, making every item on the menu for the manager taste test. This meant after mgr had his taster spoon, any menu item was up for grabs once you'd completed your shift duty. About the only thing that got me thru detailing the plantation blinds and dark woods was the thought of a hawaiian ribeye for breakfast. I can hear my arteries closing just at the memory......

And then there was the cajun joint, where you paid $2 for a bowl of red beans 'n rice with all the fixin's. We were the most regular bunch to be toting large trays of fried seafood, but thank god for the walk-in!!!

[LaurieB]

Our "leftovers" turn into what Mario Batali giggled over in calling it "cream of walk-in soup".

Word. I've had "cream of cooler" too.

First place I worked: No staff meal. At the end of the night (or party, if it was a private function), at the chef's discretion, the staff was told what they might or might no be able to eat.

Second place: Complete off premise catering co., not a restaurant. Again, no staff meal, but again, when all was said and done, the chef would make food available.

Third place: As a manager, I was allowed to order whatever I wanted. On paper, this sounds great! But after awhile, you head to the little diner across the street, just for a break.

Fourth place: Part time job for a very large company that provides corporate cafeteria services. We'd start at 6:00am and finish up around 2:00/2:30, at which point we were allowed to have whatever we wanted. For being a cafeteria, the food quality was not too bad, and since it was so large, the choices were extremely varied. We would all range around (and we were a pretty diverse group), picking what we wanted, and then sit down together and eat.

Fifth place: This place was serious. There were two "Family Meals" a day, one about 10:00am and the second at 4:00. This was at a very upscale restaurant, where I was the catering manager. Part of my perks was that I was not supposed to get Family Meal, but instead was entitled to an entree a day (sometimes two, depending on how long I was there) but there were lots of times when I would opt for the Family Meal. The AM family meal was normally handled by one of the cooks, for whom it was a badge of honor to be able to turn scraps into incredibly tasty and innovative dishes. The PM family meal was a little more haphazard, until word got around that "am family meal was LOTS better that this". Then it became a contest.

So I have the utmost respect for ANY cook to be able to turn leftovers and scraps into something really good. It's not that hard to learn to take an exceptional piece of meat, season and cook it properly. It IS hard to have to "make sumthin outta nuttin".

Laurie