Restaurants Are Not A Great Place To Work: How Did We Get Here? What Now?
Read time: 8 min
By Jensen Cummings
I often reflect on my personal journey from punk kid to dishwasher to line cook to chef to owner and to restaurant burnout. I reminisce on moments of joy and finding a purpose, my people, and a community that I had never imagined. I also remember dark times of substance abuse and burning bridges. What I realize now is that I found a sense of belonging in restaurants that allowed me to feel more like myself than I ever had before. That is the quintessential thing that a restaurant provides for those who find it. We’re this misfit family, this band of rebels, Bourdain’s “pirates.” We all want to belong.
Yet now, we find ourselves on a journey, from outcasts to becoming the “cool kids.” And I, for one, didn’t know how to handle it. I began to focus so much on the policy and procedure and systems and metrics for “success.” Trying to be more and more efficient. Yet, I now recognize that was not the success I imagined for myself and my team. It was an arbitrary measuring stick established by those who we never wanted to become. As a leader, when I succeeded, it was because I worked for my people; that I was meant to create space for them to grow and thrive. When I failed, it was because I took them for granted, thought they were “lucky to be here,” and I didn’t serve them like I was meant to. This is the greatest issue plaguing the industry today. When we lose our sense of belonging, we turn this restaurant thing into just a job.
I believe so profoundly in the power of food to inspire us, to teach us, to challenge us, to bring us together. It is the people who feed their community with whom I feel a fundamental bond. They carry with them a nobility that they often cannot fathom and that largely goes unacknowledged. I see them through grateful eyes and a full belly. I’ve let them down in my past, so I am working tirelessly to uplift them in the future of where restaurants go from here. Every success and failure I’ve experienced has taught me intense lessons on the reality (not the facade) of how things worked in the past, how they are working now, and how things will work in this next phase of our industry.
It’s important for me to preface that I’m not the Chef-Owner of a restaurant anymore. I’ve put all of myself into that pursuit, and it gave me so much, and took so very much also. While I’m not “on the field” and perhaps I don’t have the right to speak on what’s what with restaurants, I do have memories, experiences, and the ability to speak from the heart.
Will my children become the sixth generation of our family to take up the charge of feeding their community? If they do, I hope I can hold my head high, knowing that I left it better than I found it. Today, painfully, when I ask myself, is it better than when I found it (twenty-two years ago as a 17-year-old punk kid), the answer is: No. Restaurants are not a great place to work, and it’s my fault. I became a caricature of a “Chef” and perpetuated many of the toxic tropes that plague this work and that exploit the workers it is meant to be responsible for. This Dark Knight quote haunts me, “You either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain.” Far too many of you reading this, know what I mean.
So where do I go from here? Where do we go from here? I have a whole bunch of smart answers. Clever ideas. Dynamic strategies. Well formulated plans. Many will work. Many will fail. I can’t tell anybody what to do. I merely offer my advice. Insights I’ve gleaned from observing successes, most though, from experiencing failures. I don’t expect anybody to listen to me or follow my guidance. It pains me when I see people not be able to see beyond their past triumphs, or worse, “the way things have always been.” That won’t stop me from continuing to be a guide, to ask all the questions most won’t even consider, to study every little aspect of our industry, to learn from others, to implement systems and strategies, and to push back against broken “industry standards.”
My job is to be on the sidelines as a coach/therapist/cheerleader, not as the Chef behind the line. I’m tasked to find those future leaders who need an encouraging word or to be challenged to think differently. If it’s consulting on financials, operations, concept development, content, marketing, or workplace structure and investing in people, I want to uplift those leaders in any way I can. I may have some great ideas, some innovative approaches, and know how to start and run businesses. And it’s because I’m willing to admit faults, look at things with objective clarity, to be collaborative, to learn from how wrong I have been in the past, and challenge myself to be better. I’m so focused on that aforementioned future, that my approach no longer comes from a place of perceived ‘superiority,’ rather from a place of empathy and creativity.
I know this is a lot to take in. I know that I ask too much of those starting their restaurants right now, who are just trying to cook some delicious food, to be the vanguard of building new restaurant models that are Equitable, Profitable, and Sustainable. I ask that we go beyond “business as usual” because I believe in the impact that just a handful of innovators and disrupters can make to bring about real change. It’s often in seemingly inconsequential exchanges that I believe I will find those individuals who we need to inspire us, to teach us, to challenge us, to bring us together, to feed us. So that if and when I do get to pass on my belief in the power of food to my children, that I do so knowing they are in good hands, and that I made a difference.
Jensen Cummings is a fifth-generation Chef & Certified Cicerone based in Denver, CO. His brands’ Best Served Creative and Best Served Podcast exist solely to unlock and amplify the worth and work of those who feed their community. From chefs to restaurant pros to farmers and every one in between, this work manifests with storytelling media, coaching, and strategy meant to acknowledge and empower people to do what they were meant to do. He is committed to hustle and communicate everyday to serve this mission. When he’s not out building a new model for restaurants that’s equitable, profitable, and sustainable, he’s spending precious time as a husband, a father, movie buff, beer nerd, and fan of the LA Dodgers.
