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 work in a kitchen, and came back in after shift to order one dish to go. but was refused and told i cant do that, and i must ask permission from the chef before i do that.

i think its messed up, i work my ass off in that kitchen and cant buy the food?!

i dont want to work at that place anymore...

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?

edit:you guys are truly amazing. thank you so much for the kind words and I'm glad I'm not alone

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?

Hey chefs, I would love ur opinion ig. After 13 years of working in michelin starred spots trying to hone my craft even tho im a fuckin idiot, I finally left the michelin grind and took a position as a group chef for an elevated Mexican restaurant that has 2 locations that's looking to elevate and improve costs and plating. They are absolutely loved by the locals i mean loved.

I am very very excited about this because its near my family and I can see my son so much more, however is it wrong of me to feel like I left my team down? Like, I worked with some of them for close to a decade and theyre like family to me. They're all rooting for me and said its a good decision but like am I like wrong for doing this and taking a promotion to a group chef position or am I just crazy? Lol like idk I spent so long with am and maybe im afraid of change but also this is a very very good thing for me I can recognize that. Creative control all of it and my family loves them. So its like a dream but im bittersweet because idk ig part of me doesnt wanna leave my old team. Six figures and everything lots of perks but ya man idk.

Would love some opinions on how they'd approach this. I am gonna start doing private dinners again and inviting my team to bang those out with me just to let em know im not leaving em. But after 15 hour days 6 days a week for a decade its hard to just leave without feeling like im just dipping or maybe im overthinking.

What do yall think

Hey everyone, 25M here. Ever since I was a kid I’ve dreamed of making amazing pastries and learning Italian and French cooking. Coming from a Middle Eastern family, my parents wanted me to go into finance, medicine, or engineering, so I chose accounting and just graduated. I’ve been thinking about taking one of those 20-week culinary programs to learn pastry and cooking. Do you think it’s worth it if I want to become a private chef or maybe open my own pastry shop/café one day, or is restaurant experience a must first? What advice would you give me if I were your younger brother?

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!

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!

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)

The left side of my Vulcan oven pilot light keeps going out. I can’t figure out why sometimes it works for a week or two no problem and then it just constantly goes out at one point when we were cleaning it we left the one of the under panels out and it seemed to work better, but that doesn’t seem like the proper way to fix it. Any help is appreciated.

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?

​

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.

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?

Hey Chefs, am just a confused 23 yr old Pastry chef working in Dubai as a commis 3.I really want advices from experienced Chefs on what to do in order to learn more explore more and how can i utilise my years to build up my own self.

I want to work in different countries but wanna know if its a good move or should i just stay in dubai.Should i work in hotels or restaurants which will give me more growth.Should i be tensed about money right now Should i start saving up or will the money follow along the years because i always hear Chefs no matter what they stay broke unless they are a celebrity chefs.

I love love love making pastries but right now because am starting am just working in a buffet and my sous chefs are not really good mentors as they are not teaching me anything or like giving me proper advises nor i can look upto them as a role model because my sous chefs are still following the style of being a bitch to everyone.

I am pretty sure all of the executives reading this right now would’ve crossed the same thoughts i have right now so please if possible do help a aspiring chef right now.All my friends who did culinary are switching jobs to finance where there is more money but right now i believe i will make money same as them maybe 10years later of what they are earning right now.

I wanna work in france Italy and Australia what will be the best way to reach these places as i dont have enough money to sponsor myself to go these places and work but i wanna learn so much from everyone.Please do reply if you have the time and help if possible.THANK YOU IN ADVANCE♥️

RANT: I run the kitchen at a golf course and have menu items in the $8-16 range. We've been open for 3 years, and are consistently ranked best golf course food in our city and I'm aiming for the state. Our guests love our food so much, they make a point to come back after their rounds and tell me it's the best.

Our quality is second to none, we hand grind our burgers, cut our own steaks, and make our own hot dogs. 99% of our food is made in house and I manage those prices with a 25% food cost. I checked all the pricing in our area and we hit the median if not the low end on everything. We make money hand over fist. I call my pricing model, affordable quality. It fucking works.

He says I need to find a way to lower menu prices. I told him overall quality is the only way I can reasonably do that and I don't want to sacrifice that after 3 years of building up our brand and reputation. I feel like banging my head against a brick wall over this. RANT OVER Thanks for listening.

I live in rural Ontario and the only experience I have is two years of McDonald’s in the kitchen, which I got fired from because some idiot put a zyn in a burger and the whole floor got fired. (Only the zyn guy knew it happened.)

Anyway my question is, how do I get a job in this field? And will my history of being fired bar me from a culinary job?

“Meaty” as it sounds. I got a meat comma just by looking at it! And (i think) this is gonna be the finalized plating! All the staff are learning as they go with this menu. And when we presented it to the Exchef, it came back clean, but he got a poker face the whole time, so we’re a bit anxious about it 😂 mostly my Jr. Sous, but all is good, all is great!

So we have 4 starters:
1. Petit tender carpaccio with truffle sauce
2. Tri-tip beef tartare
3. Beef cheek Croquetas
4. Picanha Salad

And 4 mains:
5. Picanha with vierge sauce
6. Petit tender with green pepper sc, spinach, and parsnip puree
7. Braised beef cheek with polenta, feta cheese, and parsnip crisp
8. Sharing style Tri-tip 400gr, with roasted potatoes, grilled asparagus, picada sauce, almonds.

Anyway i love my kitchen!

What do you look for in a resume? I get that experience is probably a big one, but what else would get someone across the line for an interview/trial?

Hey chefs hope everyone is doing well. About a year ago I was diagnosed with stage one grade two clear cell renal cell carcinoma. Not that bad, had a partial nephrectomy of my kidney and thought all was good. I was outta work for a couple of months but generally felt better and returned as soon as I could. Fast forward toward the beginning of July I get a pet scan because I haven’t been feeling well and it showed the cancer has metastasized to my lymph node system. Not great news but something I can handle but over the last couple of weeks work has been beating me down and with the cancer thing happening the stress and physical toll it’s had on me put in the hospital. My doctors and wife think it’s time for me to take a step back until I get better or until my immune system has a chance to bounce back. I’ve gone from some that worked alone to someone who can barely make it through a 8 hour shift. I know I need to step out but I’m not sure what else I can do. Food service is all I’ve known

I’m still in high school and I’ve been baking and cooking at work and at home for about 7 months now and I was just wondering if I could get a some feedback on how I’m doing for where I’m at! (Please be nice! almost everything I’ve made is my first or second attempt at it) (slide 7 is salt bread NOT croissants!)

So, it's been hot AF for weeks, with no end yet in sight this summer, and my friend who runs a food truck is regularly enduring 130ºF heat for hours. He actually got the shakes and went into shock yesterday and had to pause service. Would any of the active cooling vests or outer wear help? Does anybody have experience with stuff that actually works?