Becoming a Restaurateur by Patric Kuh

Author:Patric Kuh
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Published: 2019-05-06T16:00:00+00:00

4

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LEADER

It’s a Friday night at HLAY and the operation is humming. That means that the tables are crowded; the clamor of conversation rises above the steady bass line of the music. After topping off a table with a Sierra Foothills chenin blanc and punching two new tiki-inspired cocktails into the POS, Drew, the actor from San Francisco, moves toward a two-top that’s just been seated. In the kitchen, sous-chef Ken fires order after order of fried-octopus hush puppies, set gem-like into a circle of crème fraîche–boosted Kewpie mayonnaise. Bracing in its use of everyday ingredients—and at $12, affordable—the dish is selling so much it keeps the cook who has to construct each order a blur until the kitchen slows at 11 p.m.

By midnight the lights are up, the music is off, the bar team has wiped the counter and placed caps over the liquor bottles to prevent fruit flies. Lien is in the office calculating tips. Lien believes in pooled rather than individual tips, where servers pay out a determined percentage to other members of the front-of-house staff. At HLAY, the amount is determined by a points system, predetermined fractions of the total tip amount. Servers and bar team receive ten points, back servers three and a half or five, depending on whether they bus or serve or both. The hostess receives two and a half. Tonight these are sizeable amounts and will be added to everyone’s biweekly paycheck.

Saturday morning, though, is different. The atmosphere lacks the animated efficiency of a busy service. Brunch has not caught on. On this late-summer morning there are four tables (amounting to all of ten people) reserved. Lien is running as lean a shift as she can. Lena, a server, places cutlery on the tables. Hayden, a culinary student in a French bulldog T-shirt, works as back server and fills pitchers with iced water. Jorge, who also works at a newly launched downtown restaurant, will be mixing drinks. Jonathan is taking the morning off, and James, an old friend from the Animal days, will jump onto the line to assist the two cooks if it gets busy. It probably won’t. Jonathan and Lien have thought about why. Koreatown and HLAY are perceived as nighttime destinations. Though just so no one can say you can only get coconut waffles with koji whipped cream here, Jonathan had adapted the menu to offer sunny-side up or scrambled eggs, toasts, and date-sugar-crusted grapefruit brûlée—dishes that honor the comforts of brunch but allow the restaurant’s culinary identity to shine through. It’s tough-going. “I’ve reached out to journalists about brunch,” Lien says, “and no one has gotten back to me.”

Still, the time is hardly being wasted. Jorge has an affable nature and a sharp, decisive turn of a shaker that speaks of experience. He’s excited to have picked up one more dinner shift at HLAY and doesn’t mind having to drop one at the other restaurant where he works. Hayden is gaining dining room experience, a valuable addition to her résumé if she becomes a chef.

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