The Bear, an acclaimed television comedy-drama about life in the restaurant industry, dropped its second season over the summer, generating conversation about food and beverage workplace culture across the country — including here in Charleston. Local chefs recently talked to the Charleston City Paper about the TV show, the things they love about their jobs and what they think needs to change in the industry.
The first step of becoming a chef is choosing to pursue it. Like main character Carmy Berzatto in The Bear, Anthony Marini, owner and chef of The Pass on St. Philip Street, was born into a family centered around food. Home was the first place he experienced cooking.
Alternatively, Charleston-based freelance chef Ashley Jenkins’ desire for the culinary arts was driven by the familial experiences she didn’t have. Jenkins “comes from a family where everyone is really spread out,” she said. Her cooking, she realized, was a bit of an icebreaker. “I just noticed that my food is good for people. It makes them talk,” she said.
And Bintü Atelier chef Bintou N’Daw Young, who first began cooking in her home country of Senegal, said she was touched by The Bear’s Sydney Adamu, a Black woman trying to find her place in such a competitive industry. Adamu, she added, represents those with “a lot of experience … but nobody sees them because of their color and the stereotype of their culture.”
The restless mind
Stepping into the industry is one thing. It’s another thing entirely to stay. To have a successful career, you’ve got to be obsessed with your work, said Sean Rieflin, 167 Raw chef/operator. Or as Isabella Macbeth, lead shucker at Rappahannock Oyster Bar, put it, when “you’re cooking for 1,000 people, you have to be as passionate about the first plate as the last.”
Obsession, however, is a double-edged sword, as there’s a “restlessness” that comes with it, Rieflin said, which The Bear skillfully depicts.
Jenkins’ obsession with food and cooking earlier in her career was constant. “I remember the chef show [I watched] — I used to just have it running in a loop. Even when I would fall asleep,” she said.
For N’Daw Young, the restless mind takes the form of an addiction to the industry’s chaotic environment. There’s a level of stress, she told the City Paper, that she and her coworkers find necessary to function.
Unfortunately, she said, this means restaurant workers are prone to more risky types of addictions, especially given their hours.
Food service specialist and galley chef William Baker added, “What’s open when you get off work? Bars.”
Jenkins said, “I’ve actually lost … three chefs that I’ve worked with in the past [to addiction]. … They were some of the dopest people that I’ve ever worked with.”
Yes, chef?
The Bear is well-known for its characters’ oft-repeated phrase, “Yes, chef!” — which depicts the culture one might encounter in the restaurant industry after deciding to stay. “Yes, chef!” represents the mandatory obedience, authoritarian chain of command and verbal degradation that are sometimes commonplace in food and beverage work.
Hamfish BBQ owner Blair Machado said, “The ‘yes, chef!’ mentality was 100% the culture from the earliest stage of what I can remember. [It was a] very militant mindset. You didn’t argue. You didn’t express your opinion.”
N’Daw Young also spoke of a military mindset “where [your bosses] abused you to a point where you break.” After that, she told the City Paper, you are essentially a soldier, except your “country” is the restaurant.
This analogy may be more literal than it seems: Baker said he’s seen four kitchen stabbings. But even still, time off wasn’t an option: He remembered coworkers who were “bonded out of jail [by their boss] because they had to be in the restaurant to make bread the next morning.”
Changing culture
Burwell’s Stone Fire Grill chef Jesse Sutton said the military chain of command is actually effective in the kitchen, but only when it’s done correctly. There’s also got to be a military chain of accountability, he said, where the people in charge take ownership of their mistakes: “You can’t have one without the other.”
It does seem that the industry might be heading in a more accountability-centered direction. Even though Machado grew up in “yes, chef!” culture, he admitted that today’s restaurant environments are different. The employees are taught a greater level “of communicating and expressing themselves” that his generation “didn’t have room for,” he said.
Macbeth concurred. In her experience, since the pandemic, the industry has “really taken massive leaps and bounds … to drop that kind of culture” of mistreatment and blind obedience.
Customers also play a role in the overall environment.
“[Cooking] is not easy,” Macbeth said. “People come in and definitely take some places for granted. … I think we deserve a little bit of respect,” she added.
Mental health
On mental health issues, the industry had a head start. Baker said he noticed a transition in the early to mid-2000s away from the dominant narrative of post-shift partying and toward prioritizing self-care outside of work hours.
“I’m a big advocate for Ben’s Friends,” Baker said, which is a national food and beverage alcohol and drug addiction support group started in Charleston by former Charleston Grill general manager Mickey Bakst and Indigo Road managing partner Steve Palmer.
Jenkins added the industry followed the maxim “if you need something, say something,” even when today’s resources weren’t available, as in, if someone needed help, everyone would pitch in to assist them. “That part has never changed,” she said.
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