It might surprise you to know, but chefs and bartenders are not the only ones that keep the restaurant world afloat. Obviously it takes a whole host of humans to get some prettily plated potatoes to your table, and the majority of them you never see, they exist just out of the spotlight. So I thought: but why? Many of them are not spotlight-adverse, and perhaps this is a way to help people better understand just how this food universe of ours cranks along.
Let's begin with Molly Krinhop who sells meat and fish to restaurants for The Fish Guys/Market House Meats. She's a long-time industry veteran, who has worked in kitchens and bars all around the cities. Fresh out of culinary school, she was an opening cook at La Belle Vie in Stillwater. After bumping around the industry, she landed at The Fish Guys, where she is one of the only female sales people dealing with restaurants and chefs. I followed her around one day in December to see what it was like.
8:42 a.m. Inventory Meeting
At The Fish Guys offices in St. Louis Park.
I was late, but they'd been meeting about what fish and meat was in stock and what was scheduled to come in that week. This was the week before Christmas and lots was discussed about slowing of shipping and the potential weather factor with a storm on the coast. Owner and CEO Mike Higgins told me, "we have to be as on top of the world's weather as NOAA, and then we have to guess how that's going to impact both fisheries and shipping for local restaurants who want to have lobster for New Years." For fish, the company relies on packing their product on commercial flights, they're too small for their own fleet of airplanes. But that means that if there's a surge in consumer baggage, they might get bumped. Higgins remembered a particularly dicey time when the wheelchair olympics made cargo space a bit tough to find.
9:39 Head out to visit restaurants, check in with the needs of the kitchens.
Molly, on her phone.
While driving and explaining which restaurants she wanted to visit that day, Molly must have taken a kajillion calls. Orders have to be in by noon for the trucks that are leaving that day, so Molly gets texts starting around 4 a.m.. As a sales person who knows the industry from the inside, she understands the pain points that can flip a kitchen's night. "If they forgot to order something, and they need it that night, I can usually drive it out to them and just drop it off. But you have to be careful that it doesn't become the norm, I have to not be overzealous with promises."
10:00 Check in with Ryan Cook at Eastside
Meetings often happen just standing in the dining room.
Molly wanted to make sure the Ryan was all set with the lobster he would need for New Years, and reminded him to consider the coming weather in his ordering. Ryan, formerly of Sea Change, has only recently joined the Eastside team. "I'm still trying to figure this place out, in terms of when we're going to be busy," he told us. Because Molly also sells meat through Fish Guys sister brand Market House Meats, she mentioned that when the holidays are over, she wants to introduce him to some great beef from a farm in Iowa, maybe gather some chefs and go down for a farm tour. "Will there be a keg in the back of the bus?" I asked. They chatted more about snapper and shrimp sizes, and Ryan asked to be notified when some interesting shellfish showed us, "Like razor clams or anything weird, I want to keep rotating the shellfish platter with cool fish." All of this is noted by Molly on her phone, and she promised to send an email follow-up in the afternoon.
10:43 Quick stop with Geoff Hausmann at The Sample Room
"What do you think about monkfish or octopus for New Year's Eve," Geoff asks Molly. He likes the stuff with the bone-in, but Molly isn't sure whether what they've got coming in will fit his ideas or budget the way he wants. This is where her culinary background helps, "I can look at what we have and suggest some alternates that might work better for his menu." She wants to know how the frog legs went, he wants to know if she could get turtles. Not all reps have a chef's background, but in her company all five reps really share accounts. "Some people work better with certain kinds of people, and we try not to step on each others toes, but we really just want the chefs to be happy and keep their lives easy. Women chefs seem to like doing business with women reps, so we can make that work."
11:02 Visit Adam Milledge at Erte
Finding a way in to Erté.
All the doors were locked, so we popped around back where the pastry chef was having a break. She let us into the kitchen where Adam was furiously prepping for the night. Formerly a cook in the Fhima's empire, Adam had recently taken over Erte and the Peacock Lounge. He'd been operating with the old menu, but the neighborhood had gotten whiff of new ownership and were packing the place to give him a try. "It's crazy, I'm not even cooking my own food yet but we are just jamming." Molly sees that this isn't a good time to talk, so they spend a few quick minutes talking about what's already on order for him and what might be some needs after the holidays. As we scoot out the door, Molly notes, "He's a really nice guy and I hope this works out well for his family. I see so many husband and wife teams and you end up part of their world, knowing about their kids, and seeing all the ups and downs. I just really think this could be a great place for them and the neighborhood."
11:51 Hanging with Andrew Kraft at The Bungalow Club
Wifi is key.
Andrew wasn't in yet when we got to his Longfellow eatery, so Molly took the time to cop a seat in the dark and quiet dining room to log in and answer emails. Once Andrew showed up, she checked in on his needs for the week and then asked how everything else was going? The discussion I've heard a million times followed: staffing was short, good labor was hard to find, who has left, who might come over, who's been poaching. Molly mentions that she might know someone who's looking for hours, that some catering cooks might be a good source when the holidays are through, she'll help make the connection.
12:21pm Popping in for Kacey White at The Town Talk Diner
Lots of back doors in her days.
Doors were locked at Town Talk, so Molly called and texted but didn't get an answer. We waited, since she wasn't in a drastic hurry that day. "You know it's hard, a lot of these places are just mom-and-pops which means that they are the only ones there during the day to prep for service. That means if you have to go to the bank or pick up your kids, you have to lock down and there's no one there." After we got in touch (they thought we were coming to the front door where they would have seen us and let us in), and moved into the kitchen, Kacey and and Charles Stotts were indeed elbow-deep in prep. Their killer popovers were just sitting there, killing me with their just-baked smell. They talked about caviar for New Years, wanting some head-on shrimp, and mentioned seeing peeky-toe crab at Hyacinth's Feast of the Seven Fishes, wondering how that might play over here on Minnehaha Ave.
1:02 Seeing Ben Rients at Lyn65
Chef sporting the merch.
The kitchen crew was just starting their day. Ben and Molly talked about pars for the holidays, and which days Lyn65 would be closed. The kitchen crew was chatting excitedly about their upcoming outing at TopGolf. Ben mentioned to Molly that he'll be less in the kitchen and more in the bar in the new year, she said she'd keep that in mind when scheduling morning visits in the future.
1:28 Driving to Tyge Nelson and Stephen Hesse at Pajarito
Hold please.
Even though we still had some visits in Minneapolis to make, Molly drove to West Seventh in St. Paul because one of the chefs would be leaving early and she wanted to make sure and get some person-to-person time. "I really just took this account over from CJ (who was promoted to be in charge of all sales) so I want to make sure to touch base and look them in the eye." Tyge and Stephen think Molly might be the only female salesperson repping fish in the Twin Cities, they couldn't come up with another one. We all sat at the bar and yapped about industry chatter we'd heard, off the record sorry. Just kidding. Or not.
2:19 Hoof it back for Steven Brown at St. Genevieve
St.G burger = sustenance
Hello, we had not eaten a thing yet. By the time we sat down at the bar at St. G, I had to order that burger. Steven was in a meeting with his team, but he popped over to chat. He was all set for the holidays, and told Molly that he'd actually found some great beef from a little farm he'd become acquainted with. She thought that was great, no hard sell to sway him in her sales direction, "If they are supporting small farms, that helps the industry as a whole," she told me later. We might have tucked into a few glasses of bubbles to celebrate the end of my day with her. Molly was heading back to St. Paul for dinner at In Bloom. Her dining companions were some of the local venison farmers who supply the restaurant, but hadn't seen their product in the hands of the chefs yet.
Molly told me this was her favorite industry job she's had, "It's an around the clock job, it doesn't shut off, but it's just different than being in kitchens. I like being a part of people's livelihood in this way."
Food girl and fish girl.
