Photos courtesy of Chris Uhrich
Mucci’s chef Chris Uhrich and his daughter Audrey, who has grown up in his kitchen while he worked.
Scenes from a restaurant life: Mucci’s chef Chris Uhrich and his daughter Audrey, who has grown up in his kitchen while he worked.
I’ll never forget first seeing this picture of Chris Uhrich in 2013 with his daughter Audrey strapped to his chest (above) as he worked his job as executive chef of Mucci’s in St. Paul. It was the first time I’d seen a man with his baby in the kitchen. It wouldn’t be the last. If you stalk Uhrich’s Instagram feed, you see Audrey grow up among speed racks and coolers, sneaking a first taste of doughscuit here and there.
On one hand, you see a restaurant kid growing up—not a new phenomenon, especially in larger families who are fueled by a business in the industry. And that’s not bad! As we’ve come to recognize the industry as an essential part of not only our economy but also our social fabric, maybe it’s time to give some long-deserved props to the kids doing homework in booths who have then gone on to enrich our landscape by carrying on the tradition. I remember Trisha Seng and Minh Dinh, the siblings who launched the Treats Cereal Bar locations, crediting their early life spent in their parents’ Vietnamese restaurant on University as the source of their drive and work ethic.
But on the other hand, in this photo you also see what the vast majority of the restaurant industry deals with: little, if any, time for typical family life. When kids are smaller and a family is growing, it means parents are dealing with creative day care solutions that could involve almost never seeing each other as they swap day shifts and night shifts to make sure there’s coverage. When the littles get bigger, it means missing varsity soccer games and school plays because of scheduled shifts at the restaurant, not to mention birthday parties and the holidays when everyone else eats out at the restaurants where they work. People in the industry don’t get the same Valentine’s Day, and they celebrate New Year’s at 3 am, maybe. It’s the biggest downside of the alt-lifestyle that restaurants allow.
But when the pandemic hit, it put a screeching halt to everything, and restaurant workers got to spend more time with their families. And it changed a lot of them.
“Even if things start to open back up, past the curfew, I’m not sure we will. This close–by–11 pm thing is pretty nice,” a cook told me confidentially during the days when the lockdown was still in effect. He knew the owners of his kitchen were hopeful that the late-night business would come back, but the cook felt differently. “We were always scrapping for that late seating, wanting to be there for the drunk dudes who might come in and spend some cash. It’s really never been worth the lack of sleep for those of us who have to be back here in the morning.” As of press time, that kitchen is still closing at 11 pm.
Is this a culture shift inside the industry? Last month, I told you about a server who isn’t coming back to the work because of this very issue. Pursuing the opportunity to find work-life balance should be applauded, shouldn’t it? Entire industries exist to help white-collar workers achieve this nirvana where you are allowed to enjoy both. But it’s harder in service.
Kim Tong, who just opened her first owned restaurant, All Saints, on East Hennepin with chef friend Dennis Leaf-Smith, told me that they have no desire to try to court that late-night crowd and that they’ll likely be closed a few days a week, even if they could be open. “Dennis is a dad. We have to let him be a dad and see his kid. And honestly, after being off that seven-days-a-week grind for 18 months, how do you go back?” But that hospitality fear whispers: What if you piss off too many people and no one comes?
As Tong tries to start a business and keep it profitable while seeking that balance, fellow restaurateur Kale Thome has realized he can’t. This fall, he closed his Minnesota BBQ Co. spot in Northeast Minneapolis because he couldn’t make it work. With two small kids at home, he found it too difficult to run a barbecue business that required so much of his time and attention. Thome told me that he is taking a break from the business but will work to find a way to bring it back in a different form, whether it be catering or pop-ups. That’s a significant shift: choosing to walk away from notoriety and a solid income from BBQ fans instead of making his family struggle through in the name of work.
What does this kind of shift in mindset and culture mean for our eating landscape? We might not be able to get the foods that we want when we want them. Mondays and Tuesdays might continue to be tough days to find a meal out. We might have to plan ahead and make a reservation instead of just assuming we can show up and get a table for 10. If we leave a concert, there might not be as many places open until 1 am for food. Our Sunday Funday brunch crawl might be shorter than before. But what’s the trade-off?
We may see the workforce grow again, with an influx of people willing and wanting to serve and cook. Having healthier and happier humans in our restaurants means we get to keep eating nice things while those working the floor and behind the scenes thrive as well. If we can hear the bell I’ve been ringing all year and truly get behind the belief that hospitality can and should go both ways, we can all get a little more of what we want and what we need.
A life in service (and not just in restaurants but also in hospitals, grocery stores, cab driving, retail, and more) shouldn’t have to come at the expense of your family or your health just so that others can get what they want, exactly when they want it. If we need to count good things that have come from a rough couple of years, I hope this realization is in bold at the top of the list.
