Restaurants try to preserve family-meal tradition to keep staff focused, united

• Family meal keeps the staff focused and helps a hectic, high-pressure workplace feel more like home
• Restaurants struggle to make time for family meals, which appear less common now across the industry
• Though vastly different, Kai and Rancho Pinot are hanging on to this tradition, each in its own way

As Thanksgiving approaches, our thoughts drift to the promise of traditional feasts and the chance to slow down to share a family meal with loved ones.

For those who work in the restaurant industry, however, “family meal” has a different connotation, even if it’s not entirely dissimilar.

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Family meal — or staff meal — is a longstanding restaurant tradition whereby the kitchen prepares a simple, satisfying meal for the staff to share before opening the doors to customers. The consensus among Valley restaurant workers is that it’s a ritual that appears to be in decline.

But for restaurants that make the effort, even when time and finances make it difficult, family meal can play an important role in keeping the staff focused, and helping a hectic, high-pressure workplace feel more like a home.

“You look at how a team performs after they have a family meal, and how a team performs if they don’t,” says Ryan Swanson, chef de cuisine at Kai, the flagship restaurant at the Sheraton Grand at Wild Horse Pass and one of the Valley’s most prestigious dining destinations. “(When they don’t), everyone’s a big angry — ‘hangry’ — but if you have a full meal and you have something to sustain you through the night, you feel more productive. It’s tradition.”

Though vastly different, both Kai and Rancho Pinot, a small classic Arizona restaurant in Scottsdale, are trying to hang on to this tradition, each in its own way.

Taco Tuesday at Kai

It’s 3:30 p.m. Tuesday at the East Valley resort and the staff at Kai is buzzing. Guests won’t appear for another two hours, but running a fine-dining restaurant like Kai is a labor-intensive affair, and more than 20 chefs, servers, dishwashers, runners, cooks and bartenders scurry around, ensuring that everything will be ready and in place by the time the first diners are seated.

In the center of the kitchen, around an expo table that will later be covered with an array of elaborate, refined dishes, sous chef Jack Hupp is tasting a pair of grill cook Domingo Spears’ hot sauces, made with fermented chiles from Spears’ native Costa Rica.

“Oh yeah, that’ll be great,” Hupp says, as he samples the stronger of the two, which packs a ton of flavor and an abusive amount of heat into a tiny spoonful.

Hupp isn’t approving a component for a menu special. He’s deciding which sauce to put on his tacos for Taco Tuesday — the theme for this family meal.

Spears reaches back across the line and starts setting out bowls and platters covered with ingredients — seared steak, braised cabbage, diced cheese, roasted buffalo, griddled tortillas, a grain and vegetable stew. Before long, a line has formed, as the staff fills their plates, grabs jugs of lemonade and settles into Kai’s private dining room to have a bite and relax for a moment.

“When we get the chance, we make stuff usually around 4, 4:30 (p.m.),” Hupp says in between bites. “We’ll stop, try to take our time, convene, get a meal in, and then by 5 we can clean up, set up and be ready to go for service.”

The staff trades jokes and notes as they eat, casual conversation interspersed with shop talk and discussion of the team’s strategy for the shift. Swanson, the kitchen’s captain, stresses the importance of starting the evening on the right foot whenever possible.

Pausing for family meal “makes the night easier,” he explains. “If you go into service on an empty stomach, it’s going to be a rough night.”

There’s no fear of that tonight. The crowd wolfs down tacos and Spears’ hot sauces are a hit. But while it’s a simple meal by restaurant standards, the crew confesses that family meal isn’t always such a composed affair.

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“In the kitchen, everything is in motion,” Hupp says. “Normally, it would be at a table in (the kitchen), each of us grab a plate, stand around and joke, discuss the night, something like that.”

And the dinner isn’t always so carefully composed.

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“Buffalo chain, that’s one of our favorites,” Hupp says, referring to the fatty and flavorful cut of meat that’s trimmed from the tenderloin. “Cleaning tenderloins, throw a couple of chains in the oven, roast them off. What have you got left? You’ve got some risotto?”

Saute cook Skylar Spence jumps in. “Whatever you can throw in between two pieces of bread and sort of go to town on it,” he says, laughing.

But even on the evenings when family meal means finding a few spare minutes to grab whatever is on hand for a shared bite while standing around a prep table, that break, however brief, helps the crew get in the right frame of mind for a shift that requires intense focus.

“I think everybody before service should have that moment,” Spears says. “You slow down your rhythm, start thinking and relaxing before service, and all of this goes down better.”

The consensus in the room is that it’s hard to find that time in a restaurant where there’s always something to be done, and that across the industry, family meal seems to be less common these days. Spence suggests that whether or not a restaurant serves one is more a matter of tradition and habit than anything.

“Where are the chef’s deep roots? Did they make a family meal? Did they hate making family meal? Did they like making family meal? It’s hard to all sit down at once,” Spence says. “Sometimes people just get sidetracked. Are we going to eat today or are we not? We try to make that a focus, taking care of everybody.”

Fried rice at Rancho Pinot

At Rancho Pinot, chef/owner Chrysa Robertson scoffs at the elaborate staff meals that are often the subject of media write-ups.

“(Ours isn’t) like one of those glamorous ones that you read about in cookbooks where everyone sits down and we have menus. That stuff? That’s a dream world.”

But the straight-talking veteran who has run her restaurant for 23 years still lights up when the conversation turns to the staff’s favorite family-meal dishes.

“We do pasta a lot, with pork bits or whatever meat,” she says.

Saute cook Jaime Plascencia chimes in. “Some rice, pasta, sometimes we make wings.”

“Oh, yes!” Robertson says, excitedly. “And when you make those stews with the chicken parts and chiles and the veggies? That’s my favorite. When it gets cold, we’re going to make that. Yes.”

On this Friday afternoon, Plascencia and grill cook Gregorio Soto are throwing together a pan of fried rice with shrimp, chicken and beef. It’s an improvised dish made with leftovers and bits of whatever is nearby. But at the hands of a pair of cooks who make their living every day in front of the stove, it’s as satisfying as it is simple.

Between the two of them, Plascencia and Soto spend perhaps 20 minutes total preparing family meal, but neither will have the chance to sit down to eat it. Time is scarce for Rancho Pinot’s tiny crew. Rather, family meal here is more of an event for the front-of-house staff, the servers who roll in a little early to share a bite and some gossip before their shift starts.

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The tradition catches the attention of Curtis Magee, a cook who will spend the evening on the line, trying out for a permanent position.

“I don’t really hear about it much anymore,” he says. “I don’t know if it’s just because food is getting so expensive and a lot of places don’t want to waste the food.”

Even at Rancho Pinot, which has been serving family meal for more than two decades, Robertson recently cut the practice from every night down to Fridays and Saturdays only. The front-of-house staff is tiny — five or six, depending on the night — so if some show up later or aren’t hungry at 4 p.m., much of the meal goes uneaten.

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But for those who can make it, the narrow window from 4 to 4:30 p.m. on the weekends is one they value. Servers Roger Brandt and Jillian Coghill have chemistry worthy of a comedy routine, his wry, almost dour demeanor offset by her giddy effervescence.

“I don’t have to be here at 4,” Brandt says. “I choose to come early. I would do it every day if we still could.”

“We all sit here and chat and just kind of get ready for the night and tell stories, laugh, eat sweets and then get ready,” Coghill adds. “Chrysa calls me the ‘sugar tramp.’ I always want something sweet.”

“This is the time when we can have conversations uninterrupted,” Brandt adds, “because while everybody’s working, we’re always dashing around doing something.”

Coghill enjoys family meal so much that she sometimes brings it herself.

“I love to cook for the staff. It’s fun,” she says. “I’ll make shepherd’s pie, enchiladas, whatever Sabrina wants to eat.”

“Chicken pot pie!” manager Sabrina Wemlinger yells from across the room.

“Chicken pot pie, yes!” Coghill responds.

As the crew finishes their meal and attention turns to preparations for the evening, Brandt puts his finger on the appeal of being able to start the evening sharing a meal with his peers.

“I’ve worked at many, many restaurants, and several of them have never done it,” he says. “Here, it’s just one small family, so we pretty much know what to expect. I enjoy it. You know, it’s family time.”

Reach Armato at dominic.armato@arizonarepublic.com or 602-444-8533. Interact with him on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

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Categories: Kitchens