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Genuine question, not a job ad.

We run a small luxury resort in the South Pacific (max 24 guests) and we're kicking around a chef residency concept: 3–6 month stints where the kitchen is effectively yours to run as your own business. Proper commercial kitchen, accommodation on the property, full creative control — your menu, your food, your name on it. Think pop-up restaurant, but the venue, guests, and infrastructure already exist instead of you hustling for a space and burning savings on rent.

How the money works: you'd receive a fixed per-guest daily meal rate, provision from it, and keep the margin. Your income scales with occupancy and your buying skill — cook smart and source well, you do well. Staff meals are a simple weekly batch cook with its own separate budget, so they're not coming out of your pocket.

The scale: max 24 guests at any one time. Boutique, not banquet — more like running your own intimate restaurant than working a hotel line.

The honest trade-offs: it's an island, so it's not city sourcing — town and proper stores are about 45 minutes away, and there's great local produce, but you won't get every specialty ingredient on demand. You're cooking for resort guests, not a walk-in crowd. Income moves with occupancy, so quiet weeks are quiet. And it's a season, not a career ladder — you come, run your thing, build your name, and hand it back.

So, chefs of Reddit:

What would make you seriously consider something like this?

What would make you run a mile?

What would you want to know about occupancy or guarantees before you'd trust the numbers?

And for anyone who's done a residency, stagiaire abroad, or seasonal island/lodge work — what did the listing not tell you that you wish it had?

Not recruiting. Just trying to design this so it's genuinely good for the chef and not just for us. Roast the idea if it deserves it.

Genuine question, not a job ad.

We run a small luxury resort in the South Pacific (max 24 guests) and we're kicking around a chef residency concept: 3–6 month stints where the kitchen is effectively yours to run as your own business. Proper commercial kitchen, accommodation on the property, full creative control — your menu, your food, your name on it. Think pop-up restaurant, but the venue, guests, and infrastructure already exist instead of you hustling for a space and burning savings on rent.

How the money works: you'd receive a fixed per-guest daily meal rate, provision from it, and keep the margin. Your income scales with occupancy and your buying skill — cook smart and source well, you do well. Staff meals are a simple weekly batch cook with its own separate budget, so they're not coming out of your pocket.

The scale: max 24 guests at any one time. Boutique, not banquet — more like running your own intimate restaurant than working a hotel line.

The honest trade-offs: it's an island, so it's not city sourcing — town and proper stores are about 45 minutes away, and there's great local produce, but you won't get every specialty ingredient on demand. You're cooking for resort guests, not a walk-in crowd. Income moves with occupancy, so quiet weeks are quiet. And it's a season, not a career ladder — you come, run your thing, build your name, and hand it back.

So, chefs of Reddit:

What would make you seriously consider something like this?

What would make you run a mile?

What would you want to know about occupancy or guarantees before you'd trust the numbers?

And for anyone who's done a residency, stagiaire abroad, or seasonal island/lodge work — what did the listing not tell you that you wish it had?

Not recruiting. Just trying to design this so it's genuinely good for the chef and not just for us. Roast the idea if it deserves it.

Hey everyone. I work in tech behind the scenes on those B2B ordering sites, and I'm trying to get a reality check. I know I sit at a desk all day and have no idea what it actually takes to run a kitchen, so I’m hoping to get some honest feedback so my industry can stop building useless features.

When you're dealing with your suppliers (Sysco, US Foods, whoever) and just trying to get your order done so you can go home:

• Do you ever actually use the search bar to look for new stuff, or do you basically only live inside your saved order guides?
• When they are out of stock on something you need, does the site actually help you find a good substitute, or is it total garbage and you just end up texting your rep?

Honestly, any venting about how these sites make your day harder is super helpful. Please don't roast me too hard, just trying to learn how things actually work in the wild!

So I put my 2 weeks in at the job im at now (im the kitchen manager) my job tryed to tell me that 2 weeks isnt enough. They wanted 3 weeks or more. But isnt 2 weeks standard even in this business? Definitely made the right choice leaving there after talking to the owner and he basically told me to kick rocks. But when u put ur notice in how long do ur old job?

I made this short film about Umberto Corteo, an Italian immigrant who arrived in New York at nineteen, began as a dishwasher, learned pizza making, and eventually co-founded the original Umberto’s of New Hyde Park.

What interested me most was not simply the restaurant’s success. It was how Umberto talks about kitchen work.

He describes employees eating together after closing, a chef named Joey becoming one of his closest friends, and the apron becoming so connected to his identity that he says he feels naked without it.

When asked why he never retired, he answers:

https://youtu.be/H34xPFiFy68

For people who have spent years in kitchens: which coworkers became more like family than colleagues?

I...like many chefs...have my own mental struggles. Mentally I always wonder when people will "find out" what a fraud I am. The sales are there, the complements are in front of my face. People love the desserts I make....and still I mentally struggle to absorb complements.

The other day I was delivering my goods to a retailer of ours and I had my son with me. The girl working said to my son "are you working hard to be as gifted as Daddy is?" It's almost like it's in my ear and impossible to believe.

Do any of you struggle with a chef imposter syndrome of sorts?

I’ve been a chef for a really long time and wanted to “cook for a cause”. I joined a large food bank to use my powers for good. What I found was a huge eye opener. The amount of product (that wasn’t donated) that ended up in the landfill was astonishing! We’re talking pallets on pallets on pallets of meat and produce. Every week. During the last audit there were 120 plus pallets of food thrown out. This was logged. I personally threw out at least a hundred more, unlogged. And unweighed.

This was paid for by different programs. Think private donations and federal, city, and state funds to “feed the unhoused” and kids programs.

It was staggering. The leadership team was of course apathetic and a few even laughed. I was told to not care. There were zero systems in place regarding proper storage, FIFO, labeling, etc.

It got to the point where I had to leave. I couldn’t watch it anymore.

Surely this can’t be a normal scenario at food banks.

Any insights Reddit?

I just took over an EC role at a fast casual joint. Most of my places before this have been more high end and they had much higher budgets than I'm dealing with now. And I just can't get my numbers in check, as much as I try, without working my crew to desth and simultaneously not making this job viable for them to pay their bills.

The company budgeted me a 15.5% labor (BoH only) and a 26.8% food cost. I'm hovering like .5% above each, but my cooks are lucky to be getting 25 hours a week right now.

Is this normal for this type of establishment?

Any recommendations on how to get old grease smell out of clothes? I spend most of my time at work near grease and can still smell it on my clothes after washing with laundry sanitizer and scent boosters. Even a nice body spray would be helpful!

For reference this is my first line cook job at a serious restaurant and I had saw that my hours got cut this past week. I asked my manager about it and he told me that he could have more value with someone else in my spot

He said that my main issue is how much I’ve started to slow down these past few weeks, but he knows I’m hungry for it and sees “major potential” in me (his words).

I worked up from dish to get into this spot and I absolutely love where I work and my fellow line cooks, so how should I go about earning my spot back/improving?
(Sorry if this isn’t the right sub for this)