Brandon Fazio – unfiltered

“We’re fucked chef Brandon, absolutely fucked!!!”

“Whoa buddy, what’s going on chef?”

“Everyone called out. EVERYONE”

“Alright, let me call the big boss and see how many hands we can round up. We’re gonna be alright.” I said with a smile.

This experience occurred at a major resort and casino in Las Vegas. It was my first rodeo in this type of setting.

After talking to my boss, he rounded up every available chef and cook he could to run this 12 man line of a 24 hour restaurant with a monstrous sized menu. Most of them were trying to enjoy their day off. When they heard what happened though, they felt obligated to come help.

Majority of our cooks that called off were on a work release program from prison. They were truly a rough crew, showing up intoxicated often and getting in verbal fights in the kitchen. While I fully support helping people integrate back into society – the way this corporation did it was not humanitarian. The cooks were treated like cattle. The wages they were paid were despicable, it’s no wonder most of them resorted to their old ways to make extra money just to find themselves back in the slammer. The kitchen was a revolving door of new faces. The cooks that took the job outside of the program, didn’t hang around more than a month or two.

Most of these chefs hadn’t cooked on the line in many years. At this point I hadn’t cooked on a line in nearly 4 years, after switching up what I was doing with myself after relocating to Vegas.

Though all of us had the know how, and proved it to earn our fancy jackets – we were not firing on all cylinders like we used too. My duty was the hash browns. I was cooking 40 pounds of it at a time on a flat top totally dedicated to them. As soon as I finished one batch, I’d start another. The other chefs dealing with live tickets, were in the weeds pretty quickly. Our ticket times were horrendous. I guess that’s what happens though when your responsibilities shift from cook to chef, and majority of your time spent in the kitchen is expediting, helping with some prep, meetings, ordering product and staring at a computer screen until your eyes glaze over.

This event was a very humbling moment for all of us. After that day many of the chefs were much kinder and respectful to all the cooks as well.

My time spent there was not very long. Though it helped me knock some rust off of myself, after many years away from a kitchen – it was not where I belonged. I also learned that being a chef in these major resorts, is more like an extreme sport.

Thanks for your time reading this 🙂

With love,

-Brandon Fazio