In Restaurant Traditions: The Family Meal
Photo by Wiqan Ang for the Globe
A time-honored tradition at many establishments is the "family meal"—when the waitstaff comes together to fill their bellies before a long night's service. (Lucky them; where better for a free meal than a first-class restaurant?) The Globe has a great look at the staff meals served in different Boston-area restaurants. “The best rule to have good staff meal is: Put cheese on it, bake it, and name it,’’ says Jamie Bissonnette at Toro.
Any food-service vets out there with fond memories of staff meals?
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15 Comments:
This Japanese-fusion place (where I worked as a pastry cook) had 2 family meals: an official one before service and an un-official one right before closing, when all the sashimi that didn't get served was shared among the staff.
The official one was usually pretty sucky, and not at all Japanese or fusion: pasta, salads, simple stews and rice. But late at night we'd make little snack bowls out of all the salmon and toro scraps, mixed with ponzu, and all the leftover rock shrimp would get coated in panko and deep fried. That was nice...but got to be pretty samey, day in and day out.
Michele Humes at 2:04PM on 07/31/09
I was a cook at a restaurant in Cambridge, MA. There were a few times that I was responsible for family meal. We always had a salad. The favorites would have to have been meatloaf, "fritata fridays", and chicken chili. We had a different menu on Sundays than on the rest of the week, so the chicken we used for Sunday could be used for family meal, (chicken chili, chicken salad, soup, stew) pretty much whatever the day prep cook felt like using the leftovers for. Leftovers never tasted so good!
sammyjrae at 3:46PM on 07/31/09
I remember one family meal when the prep guy (who couldn't really cook, but he could cut stuff fast) thought he would "help" out and make family meal. It was rice, sour cream, onions, teriyaki chicken, tomato sauce, and something else in it. And there was cheese on top. It was the worst smelling thing ever.
Some of our favorites was frito pie (with homemade chili), beef stew, chicken pot pie, and mac n cheese. And then one of the other cooks and I bought a charcoal grill...
beth1 at 5:02PM on 07/31/09
I worked at a pretty big restaurant that did a big lunch business. Our family meal was pretty decent, leftover quiche, salad, pasta, sometimes the Bengali runners would cook Indian food. One summer though, we had a new chef who was trying to save money by making family mean incredibly crappy. There was never enough, nothing for the vegetarians, it was awful, depressing and demoralizing--not even so much for the waitstaff but more for the busboys and food runners who really couldn't afford to eat elsewhere (the kitchen staff found their own ways to get food). I can't say this was the reason, but he lost his job halfway through the summer.
super salad at 6:48PM on 07/31/09
we had a tiny staff so they could order off the menu at the end of the night, they were like our kids - so they could pretty much get whatever they wanted within reason.
but we used to have a great salsa band once a month (my brother in law's band) and at the end of the night we'd have a meal of roast pork or chicken, rice and beans, salad -- or some sort of pasta ... the band and whoever was left on the dance floor would all come into the kitchen to have a bite. many times we'd leave at sunrise only to come back in a few hours to clean up and get it all going again..... those nights were truly fun.
pooch at 9:02PM on 07/31/09
our restaurant has a small staff also, so we can order off the menu within reason, and after a busy lunch shift and before happy hour starts--everybody sits together in the back, manager servers bussers, and steals from each other's plates and chats about the day and it just fosters this wonderful restaurant-family atmosphere
ladythor at 11:51PM on 07/31/09
I used to work as a waitress at a small Japanese restaurant in southern California. My shifts were usually in the afternoon and the staff's family meal took place after lunch when the restaurant closed down for a few hours until it was time for dinner. We got that day's 'lunch special' (different for each weekday), cooked by either by the chef or the owner (the sushi chef). My favorite meal was the Chirashi Sushi special: a bowl of sushi rice topped with sashimi with a side of chawanmushi (savory egg custard). Yum!
cucumberpandan at 12:41AM on 08/01/09
I worked at a very odd place; a French/Moroccan/Cajun restaurant, with an all-Salvadorian kitchen. At Family Meal time, I once made the mistake of asking for my dish to be 'extra-hot'. Apparently, the Salvadorian Chef took that as a personal insult, because my meal would melt fillings. It was like eating delicious fire, but fire nonetheless. It fit into an odd category: tasty, but not edible.
NotAmerican at 5:13AM on 08/01/09
Not so much a family meal memory, but memories of the restaurant "family" coddling me.
During my first fine dining serving/bussing experience, I was the youngest person in the house, and the most curious about food so one of the chefs would sneak me little bits and pieces of things he was cooking (most memorable--beef cheeks), and the bartender would let me (at age 17) do wine tastings with the rest of the staff.
One of the wines was delicious and tasted like grapefruit--anyone here knows what that is?
veggieout at 6:25AM on 08/01/09
If it tasted like grapefruit, it was most likely Sauvignon Blanc. I'm no expert, but the best Sav Blancs I've had have been mostly 'new world' and have a very creamy and fruity flavour with that hint of grapefruit. The best I've ever had is the house wine at a hotel chain we like, and is from South Africa.
NotAmerican at 8:58AM on 08/01/09
@NotAmerican, Thanks!
veggieout at 11:10AM on 08/01/09
At the restaurant I work at in Manhattan, fine dining, we normally have pretty disgusting family meals but every once in a while, all the cooks collaborate and we have had fiesta days. The best meal was when our meat roast made hamburgers and homemade buns. Everyone made traditional BBQ items to go with it such as pasta salad, potato salad, and different vegetable salads. I was quite impressed at the endeavors of bread baking for family meal!!!!
cfusco1 at 8:09PM on 08/01/09
All this nostalgia. I also used to work at a place for what I can only describe as the wrong type of owners. I bet most of you know what I mean...every penny counted, nothing thrown out until it was runny, nothing comped ever.
I rebelled. They lived an hour's drive away, and only wanted to come in to collect the takings once a week. The cash was kept in a wooden cabinet with--I shit you not--a luggage lock on it. I was basically hired so they would have to do as little as possible. The owner would sign a book of blank cheques once a month so I could pay for all our deliveries and payroll.
Our cooks were great...all one big family (literally). I told them the first thing that I wanted was for them to experiment, and let the staff judge. Don't like the meat supplier? Then he's gone. Tomatoes not fresh? We'll get them from somewhere else. And when it's slow, make something not on the menu and let the staff try it. If it's good, it goes on the menu. And no bad food will ever leave this kitchen. So the staff would gather for taste-tests almost every afternoon. We got some winners, I'll tell you. A fresh-grind burger with sauteed onions and jalapenos with crispy bacon under melted slices of cheddar on a soft roll. A grilled bacon and cheese and tomato soup combo platter. That went down well. I always wanted my cooks to feel they were free to try new things.
Not everything worked...note to anyone still reading, cinnamon is not a good addition to clam chowder...but I would rather throw away a busload of food than have a paint-by-numbers kitchen.
Once, I wandered back during a tasting. The cooks and staff were all gorging themselves on enchiladas. I tried one, and the sauce spoke like a voice from heaven...perfectly spicy, smokey, chunky and with some ingredient or two you couldn't identify. I asked the cook, who made it? He pointed to the dishwasher. 'Manuel makes the sauce'. The enchiladas were on the menu the next week. Manuel got a raise. I forgot somehow to mention this to the owners.
The people you want to keep in this business are the people who like and are excited by food and service. Lose them, and you've lost your way.
NotAmerican at 11:22AM on 08/02/09
I used to work at a tiny Chinese take-out and delivery joint. The owner spoke some english, but his wife and mother did not. The cooks only spoke spanish. At around 2pm, we all sat down for family meal prepared by the owners wife. The food was always great, and very different from the americanized style that was served at the restaurant. Egg dishes, greens, whole shrimp, unusual mushrooms. It was nice, though, because it was a way to bond with a group of people with different languages and backgrounds.
Kerosena at 11:30AM on 08/03/09
Man, I knew I was always getting screwed! The restaurant I worked at never had a staff meal. If we were lucky, the chef would make one plate of the daily special for us to share so that we could sell it. Throughout the night, if food was "mistakenly" ordered, it would go in the back corner for the staff. The management didn't like that though so the manager would come through during the shift to throw out the food. What a waste!
gwmccull at 3:07AM on 08/05/09