Walk-In Talk Podcast
We are a Food Podcast. We are blessed to have been ranking on Apple Podcast Charts since November of 2022 in the Food Category and have been the #1 podcast spot in the United States for more than a year! Along with the podcast comes amazing food photography by John Hernandez from Ibis Images.
Powered by our partnership with brands like RAK Porcelain USA, Metro Shelving and many other amazing companies - Walk-In Talk Podcast, hosted by Carl Fiadini and team, combines culinary expertise and experiences to provide an insightful and engaging exploration of the food industry.
Our podcast is a must-listen for food industry enthusiasts, as we provide unique insights into everything from recipes to how Chefs are navigating high inflation while also discussing the importance of mental health in the industry.
Walk-In Talk Podcast offers a behind-the-scenes look at the food industry. Our show provides a fun and entertaining vibe to our podcast.
Don't miss out on upcoming episodes where we will continue to cook up thought-provoking discussions on important industry-related topics - so come uncover restaurant mayhem with us!
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Walk-In Talk Podcast
"Balancing Work, Family, and Mental Health in the Food Industry with Chef Thomas Parker and Jamie Wyckoff"
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Thank you for listening to the Walk-In Talk Podcast, hosted by Carl Fiadini and Company. Our show not only explores the exciting and chaotic world of the restaurant business and amazing eateries but also advocates for mental health awareness in the food industry.
Our podcast offers a behind-the-scenes look at the industry. Don't miss out on upcoming episodes where we'll continue to cook up thought-provoking discussions on important topics, including mental health awareness.
Be sure to visit our website for more food industry-related content, including our very own TV show called Restaurant Recipes where we feature Chefs cooking up their dishes and also The Dirty Dash Cocktail Hour; the focus is mixology and amazing drinks!
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hello food fam. This is the walk and talk podcast, where you will find the perfect blend of food fun and cooking knowledge. I'm your host, carl fiodini. Welcome to the number one food podcast in the country. We're recording on site at ibis Images Studios, where food photography comes alive, and I get to eat it in-house.
Speaker 1:We have a dear friend of the show, Chef Thomas Parker from Hotel Tampa Riverwalk man. He's cooked up two dishes today that are stunning. You know what else is stunning? The photography. I say it every week, John, I don't know Like I don't get tired. We said it today in studio. I don't get tired. We said it today in studio. I don't get tired of looking at beautiful photos, man. The food is awesome. The talent that we have coming into the studio right now super elevated, beautiful, and you do a great job, man. You deserve to hear that, my man. It's been a long time. Chef Thomas Parker, welcome to the show. Thanks, brother, Glad to be back. I know me too. We've been talking about this for a long time You've been gone. What about a year?
Speaker 2:Yeah, a little over a year. I came back to Tampa in August about six months ago, took on an awesome role that I was super fortunate to find in short timeframe because my wife and I found out we were expecting our second daughter, so it was a three-year plan in Georgia, but it turned into a one-year plan.
Speaker 1:Well, congratulations on the new package, thank you. You're a daddy, you're a chef, you've got a lot of really great things happening to you, but you went to Georgia to open a hotel open a beautiful hotel, beautiful luxury property, a Marriott property, and I had so much fun doing it.
Speaker 2:The company I was working for I honestly, I thought I was going to be with them for a lot longer, but family called Hotel.
Speaker 1:Tampa Riverwalk. They're doing renovations. There's a lot of stuff going on over there and you're overseeing the culinary aspect of it, correct? I'm?
Speaker 2:actually overseeing all food and beverage aspect of the property. My title is executive chef and bead director. If any of you are familiar with the hotel dynamic, there's normally the executive chef and the food and beverage director and they form a beautiful partnership and run the all food and beverage. It's all tied into one. With me that's a big role, Huge.
Speaker 1:Stressful. The two dishes that you made today on the menu On the menu? Yeah, both of them are on the menu. Thomas, you've got renovations that are going to be going into the next year or so. How are you keeping your staff motivated? And I really want to get into the recipes of what you did today.
Speaker 2:It's just an excitement. They've been talking about renovating this hotel. This hotel was built in 1966. To put it into real perspective, it's before we landed on the moon, so that's how old of a building it is. So it's in dire need of some upgrades and the talk over the last three, four, five years is like when is it going to happen? When's it going to happen? Well, it's finally going to happen. It's going to start this September. It'll take roughly a year and then the plan is for September 2026 relaunch. It's going to be a brand new hotel concept. We are a baseline Hilton right now. We're going to take a step up into the Curio collection, which is their boutique-y kind of luxury line. New name, new restaurant names, new bar names, everything that goes with it.
Speaker 1:Let's talk meatballs. I mean, you'd put together this massive, beautiful baby of a meatball. Tell me about it.
Speaker 2:I didn't want to do a normal meatball appetizer, a normal meatball dish. That you see. You know, normally you get a couple, two, three, four ounce meatballs, even per plate. I wanted to do one stupid giant meatball on the plate. I didn't realize it until I started doing it. It's actually genius. Think of it in the form of a burger. Right, you go to McDonald's. You get the thin, dried out patty. You go to a real burger joint, not knocking McDonald's at all, but you get a eight ounce burger patty and it's juicy through. You can control the cooking more on it. That's exactly what I do. So there's, it's just a very moist, flavorful meatball. The sauce is made from scratch, put a beautiful truffle pecorino over top of it and then it sits. It sits on a puree of ricotta and parsley Tell me about the sauce recipe.
Speaker 2:I was super fortunate years and years ago, early in my career, I I was kind of getting burnt out a little bit, so I took a step down and I became a sous chef at a little mom and pop Italian restaurant for six months, and I loved it. The family was amazing. My favorite part about it, though, was the mother of the chef that I was working for. She was 90 years old. She still worked in the prep kitchen every single day. It was an incredible sight to see. She taught me the sauce recipe, which is the sauce you had today, but just seeing her was so cool, because she would make the fresh bread every day. She would make the meatballs every day, like so many recipes Like you had to really touch her heart to have her let you in on those recipes.
Speaker 1:Well, I mean, you touched our heart. We've been eating your food for at least a couple of years now. I think it's a great story and, you know, what's interesting to me is that it's a they're sicilian and albanian and albanian, yeah, and I, you know, I'm second generation italian. I have had my share of home-cooked uh sauces and whatnot. This is really good. And when you told me about that that heritage combo I was kind of like, oh man, a little disappointed at first, but then I was like you know what? That's actually really cool and great for a story. Pasta shrimp, what about that?
Speaker 2:So I wanted to do a play. I mean, it's basically a shrimp Alfredo, a blackened shrimp Alfredo. The theme that we're kind of gearing towards in our restaurant at the hotel is kind of Mediterranean on the sea, a lot of Italian influence, a lot of Spanish influence. You know me, I don't like doing anything basic. I did a little bit of Asian fusion when it comes to the shrimp alfredo, so it gets finished with a chili butter that is made with Chinese fermented chili paste.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that chili butter. Let me tell you something, when I had the camera, I'm doing the video, the close-ups on that, as it's melting into the rest of the dish is dope. It's going to be beautiful, thomas. I mean listen, you're talking about, you know, burnout, taking a step down from exec to Sue. Clear your head, get your thoughts together. Well, as you know, we have restaurant veteran Jamie Wyckoff on hold. We're going to usher her on in a second. Today we're going to talk about how chefs deal with everyday problems, children, all of it, with an ambassador of the Burnt Chef Project, jamie, welcome to the show.
Speaker 3:Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1:We met a couple of weeks ago at NAFM and your story, your energy, everything was just super cool, not just you, but Imran and Colleen and and Chris, the whole gang. You guys are super cool. I said it on last week's podcast with uh, with Imran. We really appreciate you guys and what you do like sincerely. And I just want to say something I would normally never run like you guys are Burned Chef Project. We're doing two weeks in a row with you guys and I think it's because I feel like the industry needs to hear more from you, about you. Our audience needs to hear more from you and about you. Our audience needs to hear more from you and about you, and I'm compelled to do it. At the end of the day, I'm glad that we met and I'm glad you're on the show today.
Speaker 3:Me too. Thank you for that lovely intro. That's what happens when we share water with people.
Speaker 1:Thomas. What you don't know is you know we were at the show, we were just. What you don't know is you know we're, we're at the show, we were just. John was inundated with photography and there's videos and interviews and you know we had about a half a dozen people in our booth, you know part of the crew and everybody's pulling their hair out. It's crazy and I guess it was obvious. We were definitely not hydrated and a burn chef project folks. They were like they dropped off probably six cases of water for us. Let's talk about the impact of children and the work-life balance in the food industry. How often do children affect the balance between professional responsibilities and personal time? I mean we already have hardly any time at all. I mean you're working, you know, 10 hours, 12 hours on a shift in a restaurant, then you have a family duty at home.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's taxing and you can see it. Some people don't have children, some people do. I look at it more as anything that is kind of distracts you, that requires additional time from you, is a commitment, because some people have, some people have a second parent, they have to take care of animals, anything that demands your attention. As soon as you walk through that door, like you're coming off a shift, you're hot, you've got your adrenaline going and you're trying to come down a little bit bit, and then you walk through your house, which we all would love to say that it's namaste, candles burning and it's relaxing, but then you walk into this world and it is just moving. It is going in a direction that you may not know. Shift of priorities can be very taxing, especially when you're trying to find if you have to find daycare or if you have to find somebody else to kind of help you out that day.
Speaker 1:How do you deal with it?
Speaker 3:There's others out there that have walked your path or walked your walk. Sometimes it's hard to reach out for help or ask. Sometimes I would just wait five more minutes before I walked to the door just to gather my thoughts and understand what I was walking through, or I'd sit out in the car for five to 10 minutes before I had to go in. The night will end eventually, and I guess that's kind of some of the stuff that I use to look forward.
Speaker 1:I still am in a sales capacity. When you're doing outside sales and you're knocking on doors and you're going to see clients, it's pretty stressful because you have, let's say, 30, 40 clients. You're getting phone calls, emails, texts. There's always going to be challenges in the food industry, in food distribution and whatnot. It doesn't end and it doesn't end when you get home and your phone's always ringing, Even today. I typically never go straight home. I have two little children, the wife and whatnot, and I will go out of my way, spend an extra 15 minutes in travel time to make sure when I walk in the door, I can greet everyone without being aggressive, even though I'm not in the restaurant anymore, and I used to be.
Speaker 1:I did 10 years of that, uh, and I recall I didn't have children then. But I can tell you that at this stage I definitely need to decompress before I get home. I don't want to go to the bar, I don't want to do any of those things.
Speaker 2:Thomas, you know I have two young children so I never know what I'm walking in the bar. I don't want to do any of those things. Thomas, you know I have two young children so I never know what I'm walking in the door it could be. You know Jamie was saying you know we're in that high adrenaline, high energy situation. Sometimes you walk in the door still with that adrenaline going. My wife will look at me and be like, calm down. Other times you walk in the door and it is just mass chaos in your house and no matter what level of adrenaline you are on, they're above you.
Speaker 1:Well, that's what's interesting, jamie. I know that you could shed insight on this, but when I come home, she's already had the children you know for at least a couple of hours. I know my children. They don't stop Like they're at hours. I know my children. They don't stop, like they're at an age where the energy levels they don't ever give it a break. There's now WWE going on in the house, like there's wrestling and people getting punched in the mouth, and it's like you know, it's rough. These kids are incredible.
Speaker 1:So I know, when I'm coming, I know what I'm walking into. I'm walking into an elevated room and that I have to remain as calm as possible. It's not easy when everybody else it's the danger zone, like they're all revved up and and red lining, I guess you can call it. You have to, though. You have to go in there with a clean head as possible, immediately, grab a child and, you know, give the hugs and hey, what happened today? And you do these things in the hopes of diverting their attention is the best I can say. Jamie, what do you think?
Speaker 3:So funny being on the opposite end of that. Like I remember as a kid my dad coming through the door for work and in that phase, like in that moment of don't talk to me, we were so excited to see him like jumping up and down and then like he would just be like no, I can't write this moment and I never understood that until later in life and I don't know like I don't think he knew how to express that either.
Speaker 1:People who grew up in the 70s and 80s, even into the 90s, our parents were different. Our parents were able to open door, throw you out of the house for the entire weekend and not see you.
Speaker 2:Maybe for a couple of hours in the evening time.
Speaker 1:So it was a different life, it was a different breed, and I'm not saying it's better or worse, but you know, at this stage I wish I could do that. My parents had it easy in that regard. All they had to do was say get out of the house and don't come back until it gets dark. So they had all this time. They had quality time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they had quality time.
Speaker 1:And now we're all helicopter parents. I never thought I would be this. I mean I had my children later in life.
Speaker 2:I never thought.
Speaker 1:I would be a, you know, a worrying parent. But as it turns out, I'm a worrying parent. I'm like, okay, well, you can't put the kids in the front of the house, cause it's all you know. Who knows what's going on out there? And you know there's danger. It seems that a stranger danger. At every turn, every, at every intersection. It's bad.
Speaker 3:The world is is changing and it's going to ever evolve too, and we're not here to stop it. It's got to go, but finding ways that we can go all right. I know this person at home has just been sitting there all day. Their hair's frazzled as well and they need a break. How can we make this happen? Where do we find our grounding?
Speaker 1:Jamie, you were front of the house, right, you did some stuff in the front and also in the back right In the industry, correct yep. When stuff in the front and also in the in the back right In the industry, correct, yep. When you were a server or bartender, you would touch, I don't know, probably 200, you know, I'm guessing whatever. But let's just say your average touch was like 200 people on a shift that you had to communicate with a customer. Part of that is always going to be during a rush, like you're going to go through the. You know whether it's a lunch rush or dinner rush and you just get completely obliv. Your mind gets completely torn. You're ripped. You go home thinking, oh man, I forgot to bring lemons to table three, and you know all the things, that all these things kind of come up as you're on your way home. There's no time to put things into a defrag scenario where you get your mind ready to walk in the door.
Speaker 3:No matter what something is distracting your focus at home, whether it's a child, a wife, a dog, whatever it is. That's not allowing you to create like a priority balance in a way, because I shift a little bit from work-life balance just because it kind of segments into three things. When sometimes your priorities do shift, like you get home, it might not be your kid at that particular moment it might be like oh shoot, I got to pay the bill or the electricity is going to go off, right, like that sometimes is what it distracts you from taking care of yourself.
Speaker 1:I remember vividly before my parents I was I don't know. Let me see here. I was four when my parents were divorced, were split, and I remember living with them together at that age.
Speaker 1:And then I remember what it was like when, you know, my father was outside of the house but no longer there, and it was, it was. It was horrible. Now everybody had, you know, the family, the support staff, everyone explains things to a four or five year old that they can understand it, and that's what happened with me. But as I got older and I started to recognize like, hey, all this stuff is I don't want to say a lie, but you realize, you see, the fabrication that adults tell their children in order to kind of appease the moment. And now, as an adult, I do my damnedest to tell the truth about the situation. Obviously, I don't use harsh language to do it, but what they did in the seventies and eighties the parents it was just different. Not only did they throw you out of the house, but, you know, everything was kind of a secret. They used to leave the room in order to have an argument, Like you didn't even know what was going on.
Speaker 1:Where today it just seems like everybody's business is everywhere on social media. It's out there and it lends itself to very difficult scenarios.
Speaker 3:And that is a super challenging situation.
Speaker 1:Today you can have a couple that works in the restaurant business because of the fact you're sharing the same schedule, or it could be opposing schedules day shift versus night shift, front of the house versus back of the house and it makes life incredibly difficult. I think the odds of a relationship surviving something like that are incredibly difficult. What do you think, thomas?
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. I'm super fortunate. My wife also worked in the restaurant industry and she was front of house. She was a GM of a restaurant. She has that little bit of understanding of what I go through, but it's so funny how quickly she's forgotten, because she's a stay at home mom now. There's just a misunderstanding of what we really go through nowadays because she's so far removed and this is an industry that's forever evolving.
Speaker 3:I know my moment when I found the burnt chef and it was because of this pressure that was coming on me in my personal life which I've never had before.
Speaker 3:I've never had that completely out of whack. And then you've got your professional life, which is at the time I'm throwing events, so I'm doing a lot of the event planning. So it's event planning, cooking, making sure all of that is going cohesive, being on during the day like greeting people, talking to people, engaging, and it was so impactful that I thought I was okay and I was managing it and I failed to realize that ripple effect that it was having on the team. It just rippled through them and, as a leader, they're not going to come and tell you, they're going to talk amongst themselves and they're going to try to figure out what's going on. And then I leaned into the Burnt Chef Project because I needed, I wanted to try to find folks that have been in that position before, that could relate, that had that hospitality background, that had those hours, that had that drive the demand on them. That's what I did and I found the project.
Speaker 1:And how did that help you?
Speaker 3:Oh my gosh, it changed my perspective. It helped so much. Eventually I went for cognitive behavior therapy because I wanted to understand what my icks were, because it wasn't someone else's issue that was going on, it was mine and I need to understand how my stuff was happening. And then the project helped me because then they made me realize it was okay. It's okay. This isn't going to be forever. You should be proud of yourself because you built a team that allowed them to say hey, I think you're in trouble. We still believe in you. We know you can do more, but we need you to get help. They didn't say it in those words, but it showed in support when they pulled me aside because it was challenging for them to say something to me.
Speaker 1:Well, it's part of the adage. They say this too shall pass, and it's the truth. The way that that happens faster is when we recognize we hold the key. It is us.
Speaker 1:It is the individual. We've all worked with people who are difficult, and whether that's we're the difficult party or it's someone else, we've all worked with somebody who's difficult, and whether that's we're the difficult party or it's someone else, we've all worked with somebody who's difficult. In many cases we don't realize we own our feelings, we own our own health and we own the direction that we want to go in and we get dragged down by other people. But it doesn't have to be that way.
Speaker 1:What I try to tell my children today is and I don't hear about it anymore is the whole sticks and stones Like what are you worried about? Who cares what people think about you? Who cares what they say? It means nothing.
Speaker 1:If you're focused and you're dialed in on on a goal or a path, matters not at all what other people have to say about it. You just kind of pick yourself up and go. But the thing is, if you have a team around you that can kind of give you insight or guidance and say you know, like if it's, if it were me and and you know, John came up and said you're the problem right now, then I would have to stop assess, see if it's. You know John came up and said you're the problem right now, then I would have to stop assess, see if it's. You know well, is it really me? And if I'm honest with myself, I would have to make a change. I don't know that a lot of people are doing that. You know, jamie, if you have a, if you're able, if you had that support and you got that support and and burnt chef project was there to help you, kind of give you a path and walk you through.
Speaker 3:That's amazing, it or not, like tools that the burnt chef has and understanding that, like you might not always get the problem, but you can teach or create an environment for your staff, for anybody who's involved, to kind of look out for certain little things. You know, a psychologically safe environment is huge. That means I can come up to somebody out of respect and say, hey, listen, I've noticed you're not doing so hot over the last couple of weeks. What's going on? And it could be something just as simple as hey, I haven't found daycare for my kids. I'm always running late. You know it could be something more and they might not even realize they're doing it. So it's just being able to create this environment that we need.
Speaker 1:Do you feel like the industry is getting better?
Speaker 3:I know everyone complains about the younger generation and like their workload and stuff like that, but they're actually the ones that are going hey, this doesn't feel right. How do we work around this? How do we make this happen? How do I look out for the person next to me?
Speaker 2:I completely agree with that. The ones that are on the come up now are the ones that are really making it aware. The struggle in the industry is that it's being brought up and made aware, but the younger generation isn't the ones at the tops of these corporations making the decisions, so I don't think it's being heard as much as it needs to be.
Speaker 1:I feel like there's a middle ground. It's being heard as much as it needs to be. I feel like there's a middle ground. Over the last few years, there's been a lot of talk, social media conversation about this generation versus that generation and boomer this and Gen Z that and all this. What I think is really silly Every generation has to deal with things that are the same and are just as part of humanity and a society, but each one is unique because all the different technologies and knowledges that come to fruition over time and perspectives are what change.
Speaker 1:The sun comes up, the sun goes down. In the end, our perspective of things change. So we're in this space, in this period of time where you know Generation X, we're getting older, you know we're in our 50s and 60s and stuff. You know we're coming to a point where we're running things in a way, but our parents are still in charge of stuff, corporations, wise and things. It's just a weird dynamic.
Speaker 1:And in the end, you have some of the younger ones who I would have a couple of years ago, said, yeah, they're kind of weak to me, but maybe not now, I don't know. I feel like my viewpoint is changing a little bit because some of the ones who I think were loud a few years ago. The two, three, four or five years of life experience has shown them you shouldn't necessarily expect things and you do have to put a little bit of elbow grease in it to get it to be yours. But I think they are looking at it in a way where it's the right way, like, hey, treat me better. There's nothing wrong with being treated better. Why wouldn't we want to get treated better at work or you know, just in general. So I feel like I'm coming to a different place in my opinion of some of the younger crowd.
Speaker 3:It's cool when you see it all mixed together, because I know the generation before me was probably crabbing and complaining about stuff that we were doing, so I think there's always something. But when you put that all together, the perspective that you can pull from that is incredible.
Speaker 1:Well, we thought it was normal, but it's not In retrospect. When you have commercials on TV and I remember these you know, hey, it's 10 o'clock at night. Do you know where your children are? I remember the commercial. It's like why do we have to remind our parents, why do they need a reminder to find out or think about where their children are at 10 pm?
Speaker 3:Because you kicked them out of the house earlier in the day.
Speaker 1:My point? Yeah, exactly. So you know everything is different and everything has changed. That particular thing about, like, hey, it's 10 o'clock, you know your children are that was so normal to me growing up. And now I'm thinking about, wow, I have these kids, I want to know where they are every minute, like you know, I don't go as far, you know I won't do the tracker thing, but it's out there, people do it and maybe I will do the tracker. I don't know.
Speaker 3:Oh, that's too much. Too much Sometimes they do. I mean they need to explore their own spaces as well.
Speaker 1:As long as they're not hurting each other, they're fine. That's just my view, though it's too late for that. Thomas, you're in charge of a good amount of people at the hotel. Yeah, various ages. You got your older folks and then you got your youngins. How are you seeing the two collide? How are they mixing together and working together?
Speaker 2:they, uh, they, uh, they don't mix well. You laugh, but it's the truth. Um, it is the truth, it really doesn't, and there's just two completely different mindsets. You know we're talking on the topic of the younger generation is voicing their opinions more and trying to make themselves heard and trying to have a nicer, safer, more friendly work environment. But the older generation comes from a style of restaurant, a style of kitchen that those words didn't exist. You know, even myself, like I'm 37, but my mentor, like I, had empty five gallon buckets kicked at me. I had empty, I had saute pans thrown at me like I was screamed at over and over and over again until I got it right.
Speaker 2:You can't even think of doing that this day and age. And that's where that older generation that are that are still working in restaurants comes from. So they, like you alluded to earlier, they look at it as, oh, this soft new generation of workers is like they're going to ruin this for us. They're not going to work hard, they're going to be worthless to us.
Speaker 1:When you're running things and you're looking down at the playing field and and who your players are. You have to connect the dots. You need to separate the people because look, here's the thing the older folks that have some of that viewpoint or issue with it. They serve a purpose and the reality is they probably won't be the ones calling out of a shift you have to have them Facts.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you have to have them there when some of the younger you know well, for, whatever the reason is, they're going to actually pull the trigger and call out.
Speaker 2:Look, I've done hotels for the last decade and let me tell you nobody wants to see their alarm go off at 445 in the morning because they're the opening cook and they have to be there at 530 or six. To find somebody that consistently shows up all year long at 536 o'clock in the morning is very, very hard to come by. And when you do find the person that is reliable that does it yeah, 90% of the time it is somebody from the older generation.
Speaker 1:And the younger ones coming up. They look at the older folks and they do it with like mockery. There's some I can. I can look at the humor in that because I do recall myself. I remember me. I was cause I was 15 when I started in the. You know I was a bus boy and you know you would see, like the lifers, the, what I would call a lifer like these. You know 40, 50, 60 year old. You know adults who are still on the line, who were still like doing dishes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I would. Just I would look at him and go, what the hell are you doing? And I wouldn't say that to them, but in my mind I'm like, what the hell are you doing? Yeah. Why are you here at this age? What is your? But now I understand and you have responsibilities and life and you need to whatever you can, wherever you can make your money to pay your electric bill, that's where you gotta go yeah, you, you know what's funny, something that I just started noticing.
Speaker 2:So I I have a good mix of a younger and older staff in my current restaurant and something you know, as we were coming into 2025, you know you always budget for any pto time that's paid time off that's going to carry, carry over when you're budgeting for the following year. The older generation when it comes to paid time off, you know your, your benefit that your job gives you allowing you to take vacation time or whatever it may be. They have a hundred 120 hours that they get to carry over into the following year because they just don't use it, because they are those lifers, they don't. They don't look at it as I need to take time off. But the younger generation they don't carry any of it over. They use every minute of time off that they get. They go on vacation all the time, take weekends off, extended weekends, and it's really funny to me.
Speaker 1:I look at myself. I haven't taken a vacation. Let me put it this way I've taken one vacation in probably 10 years and I only did that to appease my wife. I owe her a ton. I really do. I owe her a ton. And you know, when I'm wrong, I'm wrong. I just don't want to. I don't. I just enjoy working, I enjoy doing the things that I do.
Speaker 3:I don't want to go on a vacation.
Speaker 1:I think honestly, me, I think vacations are silly in a way. Not taking time off, there's a difference. If you want to travel, travel. If you want to go somewhere, go somewhere. But to to to think like, oh, if I don't take, you know, my vacation this year, that I'm well year, that well, I'm trying to build something. When I want to build something, all my energy goes into it. I see nothing else. It's a good and a bad equal. It's equal parts good, equal parts bad, because at some point something here is going to click and things are going to really be great and then vacation will be different. It won't be vacation, it be. This is the kind of life we're just living. We're living a life is good.
Speaker 2:Until then.
Speaker 1:I don't want to take a vacation. I understand that people want them. God bless, I'm a new father.
Speaker 2:I have been off work for the last three weeks supporting my wife and the new baby at home. I couldn't tell you the last time I took a week off of work.
Speaker 2:And let me tell you, you are dedicated, like when you truly love what you do, you throw yourself into it and you're dedicated to it. And I was terrified not to have a baby to be out of my kitchen for three weeks. And you know, I stopped there today to grab some ingredients, grab my chef knives, to to come here and cook for you guys today. And just that feeling of of walking through the lobby and like that sheer terror that went through me as I opened the door to the kitchen and like what am I, I going to see? Because, like I've, I've treated every kitchen like it's my own, like it's my own personal restaurant, like that's how much I care about what I do. And like you're just my eyes were peeled everywhere. Ceiling floor, tiles did have. Did they deck scrub the floor lately? Like, let me look at the grout have did they deck scrub the floor lately? Like let me look at the grout Like it's? You're looking at everything and you know I they definitely are not holding my standards. I'll tell you that.
Speaker 1:They never, nobody ever does. And you know what. You can't blame them. You can only. The only time I would, I would attach a blame to a staff is if it's your, your number two. If it's your number two, it's if it's like the person who, who you're mentoring, let's say you're giving them the extra information, the extra time because they want it. If that person doesn't hold it to the right standard, there's a problem. I look at everyone else like like a red shirt or on Star Trek. You know it's a problem. I look at everyone else like a red-shirted on Star Trek. They're expendable, meaning they're probably going to get killed on an episode. It's just what it is.
Speaker 2:But that's the industry. A cook leaves a job for $0.25 more an hour, and that's all it takes is $0.25 more an hour. Oh, the restaurant's. All it takes is 25 cents more an hour. Oh, the restaurant across the street is going to pay me 25 cents more. I'm gone. Here's my two weeks, if you even get a two weeks.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I remember I used to work in hotels and I loved it. I loved it and I think they deserve a little bit more credit, honestly, but like there's just so many different facets, you can but the benefits that came along with it, like the health insurance, time off, all of that which a smaller restaurant won't do a lot more expensive for them to do, they don't do it because it is more a small restaurant, it is a much bigger cost.
Speaker 2:But from a hotel perspective that they do they they have the best benefits. You know for a chef, it's the best benefits. Know for a chef, it's the best benefits. It's the highest pay, it's the most yeah, it's the the most personal benefit, that that you can get working in a hotel. However, what I've found is the the reward of that I get from being a chef. It's the least rewarding.
Speaker 1:Growing up, I would never want to work for a large corporate because they want too much from you. There isn't any bond. The smaller, or I should say the independent places you would typically have some sort of a relationship that you're fostering. You know the ownership or the people in charge. You know they know that well, I got to keep staff and I can't compete with benefits and all this other stuff. So they allow you some more flexibility, maybe on schedule. They allow you the opportunity to maybe work more, earn a little bit more money, whatever.
Speaker 1:And so, growing up, when I was in that restaurant phase of my life restaurant phase of my life I wanted only the smaller places. I did. Well, as I'm older now you know I mean, granted, I, you know I do work for a. I have my own company with Walk Talk Media. That coincides with the position Director of Sales and Marketing at Peninsula Food Service and they both work very well together. Well, they're an independent place but they've been around for 30 years so it's very stable. But as I'm older, I want the stability. The money is going to be there. If you put the effort, you're going to earn. So, with that said, I don't know, I think I want the security.
Speaker 2:I should say it different though I want the security.
Speaker 1:You know, I don't know, I think I, I, I want the security. Yeah, I should say it different, though I want the security, you know, I think that's a thing.
Speaker 2:You hit the nail on the head because that's exactly it. That's why I've as I say it's the least rewarding in my entire career working in a hotel. I've done it for the stability, for the benefits for my family and and had to put that personal goals, personal success, aside. For that reason.
Speaker 1:I know that you want a star. I know that's in your bag. You want that. I'm hungry for it.
Speaker 3:Jose Andres is right here in the Waldorf Historia. He has Bazaar. He also has it in Las Vegas, If you look at, and he's a rated chef. Some of them are starting to do little pop-ups, but you have a platform to perform and I think you can get it if you want it and you can curate your team to do it.
Speaker 2:No, you can, and I take pride in mentoring my team. I actually disagree with you on that. I it's it's much harder in a hotel environment. Um Jose.
Speaker 3:Andres.
Speaker 2:Jose Andres. He carries a name that that name means something. So when when he puts a restaurant and partners with a hotel, it's a little different than just a normal hotel restaurant. And you know hotel restaurants have gotten a bad rap for a long time. You know, I ask people all the time when's the last time you thought of going to a hotel for dinner? You don't, most people, just they don't think. It doesn't even cross their mind in that hotel there's, you know, a hundred employees.
Speaker 1:The hundred employees need to be in line and on in lockstep with trying to get a star like I don't know that it's even possible. Is that even possible? I don't think it's possible.
Speaker 2:A normal hotel it's I it's said all the time it's about heads in beds, it's not about the food that you're putting out. The restaurants and bars are looked at as just an amenity that that comes along with with the bed that you're sleeping in that night, unless it's a small, unless it's a small boutique style hotel that that accentuates their food and beverage program, that they really want to portray that to the community. Then then yeah, there's portray that to the community. Then then yeah, there's, there's a chance but those types of hotels are few and far to come by.
Speaker 3:What say you, Jamie?
Speaker 1:You build it, they come. That is the absolute truest statement ever and it's and it is. It's. So if you put it out there and I can, I can look at walk and talk media. There was once there was no walk and talk media and now there is, and with it we end up getting. We end up getting some Michelin chefs, some beard chefs, we get a bunch of food network winners that come through the, that come through the show and and we, it opens doors. You know, it's funny. You build it, they will come. If you produce it, they'll watch it. If you produce it, they'll listen to it If it's good be enough If you show up every day.
Speaker 3:take the, take the you know your competitor out of the way and focus on just doing it right and building it right.
Speaker 1:And a lot of times it's just a person, it's yourself you got to remove. You got to, you got to get yourself out of your own face. Take, you're going to get hit, you're going to get punched in the face. Like it's going to happen. Life is going to punch you in the face and if you have a career or a desire or you have a path you want to go down, chances are you will get kicked in the belly on your path. And if you understand that and you take the hits and you keep going forward, you can win. You can win it, whatever the hell it is that you want to win at.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and this is where the burnt chef project comes in. That's what the game changer, changing the mentality of like how we do it. And yes, I know there's challenges and there's red tape and all these things, but I I don't know. I feel that if you want something, bad enough, it might not. It might be a bumpy road. You could take turns and you know things, down paths that you never thought that you could, but you could get there.
Speaker 1:What's your favorite thing about Burn Chef Project?
Speaker 3:That camaraderie of the that you can do it. You can get there. The support that you have of just going yes, it can, and we all know that it's gritty, it can be gnarly, you're going to face challenges, but if you have support that says, okay, you can't do that right now, but you can do this. And I think it's just having that recognition and being completely honest and allowing your team to be honest with you.
Speaker 1:Jimmy, I think you're a hundred percent correct on that. How do we find Burn Chef Project?
Speaker 3:Well, you're on social at the Burn Chef Project on Instagram. We have our own webpage. You can just put that in and find us. We also have a YouTube channel as well.
Speaker 1:I think it's compelling. Everyone should check it out. They're great. Support them, Thomas. How are we finding you At Chef Thomas Parker on Instagram? I'm going to have some really great video of today. I'll probably have that in a day or so. I might have it tonight, man.
Speaker 2:I took some uh, some cool candid behind the scenes photos of you guys doing your work too, Did you really? I'm going to throw up there too.
Speaker 1:Oh, hell yeah, hell, yeah, make it happen. All right, listen, guys. I appreciate you. Jamie, thank you for being on the show. Thomas, thanks for coming in. John man, I got a man crush on you in the most straightest way possible.
Speaker 2:I'm just saying.
Speaker 1:Alright, we are Out. We'll see you next time.
