What Role Will Each Of Us Play In Where Restaurants Go From Here?
Read Time: 5 Minutes
By Jensen Cummings
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. I am compelled to share these understandings. So much so that I am writing these words at 3 am because I couldn’t sleep without getting them out. Maybe this won’t help anyone; maybe it’s just a self-righteous rant, could be, however, despite the self-doubt I do feel, I desperately need to write them down and put this into the world.
It’s important for me to preface that I’m not the Chef-Owner of a restaurant anymore. I’m not “on the field” so perhaps I don’t have the right to speak on what’s what with restaurants. I’ve put all of myself into that pursuit, and it gave me so much, and took so so much. I’m on the sidelines. I know that. I struggle with that. Am I no longer a Chef because I’m not in the kitchen seventy hours a week? Will I always be “Chef” like someone may always be “Coach” if they have occupied that role at a high level and met that standard for so many. You tell me.
I ponder what “being a Chef” means when I look at my young children. Will they 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 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. Some 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”. Then for me to try to pass along expertise, new models, a different path forward and have them ignore suggestions, and subsequently have to shutter their businesses, it’s devastating. I’ve seen this movie before. I lived it. It doesn’t end well. It took me losing all that to gain the perspective I have today. We repeat the same patterns again and again. 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”.
Like, I said, 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. Now, I may have some great ideas, some innovative approaches and know how to start and run businesses, it’s not because I’m any smarter or better than anybody else, 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’ve let go of the term “expert”, despite my immense expertise and experience. Because an expert can only be an ‘expert’ on what has happened in the past. 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 models that are Equitable, Profitable, Sustainable. I ask that we go beyond “business as a usual” because I believe in the impact that just a handful of innovators and disrupters can make to bring about real change.
I’m in search of those change makers wherever I find them, often where most people aren’t looking: in a comment to one of my posts, a few choice words in a reply, a question in a DM, a thoughtful post on social, from someone, maybe you. It’s in these 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.
This is my call to action. Your story matters. Speak your truth, get it out there. I’m on the lookout for it, for you. What role will you play in where restaurants go from here?
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.
