How To Streamline Kitchen Operations With Simon Zatyrka (Ep 237)
Many restaurants are so focused on offering good food that they fall short of providing a great experience to their own employees. Simon Zatyrka, the Culinary Mechanic, joins Jaime Oikle to discuss how chefs and restaurant owners should streamline their kitchen operations and bring them to the next level. Together, they discuss how to master the nuts and bolts of running a restaurant, the most important soft skills every owner must possess, and how to get around the worsening labor costs. Simon also explains how time management, clear communication, and work delegation can massively transform any kitchen and lead it straight to success.
Find out more at https://culinarymechanic.com/
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How To Streamline Kitchen Operations with Simon Zatyrka
Simon, you've been in the restaurant business for 30-plus years. You've seen a lot. You do some coaching and advising to other restaurants on leadership and a bunch of other stuff. How'd you get started?
Like a lot of teenage kids, I looked at my mom and said, “Mom, I want.” She said, “You want a job.” I come from Mexican and Ukrainian roots, so there are big families and big family gatherings. I’ll start to become a cliche here, but I was in the kitchen. There was always food to be made. Mom said, “There's a restaurant down the road. Go. Get on your bike and scurry,” and so I went and talked to him.
My first experience with jobs was, “You don't have any experience. Go away.” Three months pass and the guy calls me back and says, “I really can't find anybody. I called all your references, which happened to be teachers because you seem to be a good student.” I was like, “That's the truth.” He goes, “I'm going to give you a shot. Normally, I bring people in that have no experience as dishwashers but I'm going to put you in the kitchen.”
I learned how little common sense and street sense I had because there I was, doing new Mexican food and my first job was lettuce, tomato, cheese, and olive on everything. It was new Mexican food. It's enchiladas, burritos, and everything. I was a garnish guy. I dug it so much that as I got out of high school, I took another job as a bar and grill guy, learning to do salads and sandwiches, and then learning to do the grill and saute. I loved it all so much that I quit school and cooked. Fast forward to the new Millennia here, I've been cooking since George Bush. The first one was in the office. 1989 is when I first started cooking.
How old were you at that first job? If you're taking your bike down to someplace, you have to be twelve, thirteen, or fourteen.
I was sixteen. I was a little bit of a rebel, but not much, in life in that I didn't want to drive a car. I didn't want to deal so I rode my bike until I was nineteen. I didn't even get my license until I was nineteen, so I rode my bike everywhere. On the North side of Albuquerque, that is not an easy thing.
Running a Podcast and Providing Consultancy Services
Let's talk about your podcast. You're interviewing guests. You're doing consulting. You're doing leadership stuff and kitchen stuff. Do you focus on backend stuff, frontend stuff, or everything? What are the main points?
I really focus on the back of the house. As I quit operations in 2022, I started to look around and take a feel of things. Everybody says, “Find a problem and solve it,” so I started looking around. Thinking back to my career, I realized that every time I saw something around a management meeting or sometimes when they brought a consultant into a hotel that I was at, it was always a really slick guy or gal in a suit and they were talking directly to the folks sitting in the front. They were not talking to the animals in the funny pants in the back. They spoke a different language that wasn't us. We all were like, “We got to get through it.”
I decided that I wanted to be talking as much as possible to those people or to my people. I still believe that's a great way for me to start in a different mode of business. I focus on helping chefs really nail a lot of soft skills that we're not accustomed to even knowing about sometimes. I focus on leadership and giving it from a staff perspective.
If somebody's been in the kitchen for five, ten, or fifteen years, they likely aren't as adept at some of the things that are out there for leadership, time management, and all that stuff. I try to break it down in the way I would a simple sauce or a plate of food. I get down to the nitty-gritty and give it to them from somebody who's been there, and so far so good.
Let me go right back to the name Culinary Mechanic because that itself sounds like, “This guy knows what we're talking about.” Is that the branding? Does that fit right in with that mentality?
For me, what it really comes down to is everybody is so focused on, “I want to be a chef.” Personally, I want to be a cook. Cooking is the thing that is the most exciting to me and has always been the most exciting to me. The people stuff came along afterward. For me, a lot of it is understanding that even though cooking is life, there are so many more things that go into running a restaurant and running a kitchen. They aren't sexy. I think of it as the nuts and bolts. I decided that I was going to help chefs get that part down.
Culinary Mechanic is really the idea that you have to be able to look at an operation and you have to be able to look at your people and understand how things are working and why things are working. It’s like the greasy guy at the mechanic shop. He's lifting your lid and going, “This system is not working. Let's fix it. This little thing over here is not working. Let's replace it.” That's a lot of what it is. I try to think of it as a very pragmatic approach to running businesses.
I'm also the guy who says I'm tired of seeing Michelin star restaurants, James Beard Award winners, or James Beard semifinalists open up, have great reviews, and shut down eighteen months later. That pisses me off. I can't handle it anymore. I aim to help those people who have some great ideas, great food, and great service. I want to help people run their restaurant like a business so that they can stick around and get to play with the food.
Soft Skills Every Restaurant Owner Must Have
Too many folks that are open for too short of a window there. I want to go back to that word you used, soft skills. I'm sure that in your teaching, you have a list of them or a checklist of things. If I were to ask what are a few of those skills that you want people to improve, what comes to mind?
Right off the top, time management. My favorite is the owner who's got the restaurant or maybe they're a chef-owner and they're like, “Things are going great. People love my food but I can't see my family. I can't get away.” It all comes back to time management. I’ve got a four-step framework for figuring out how to help them prioritize and figure out where they want to be spending their time and then what needs to be taken off their plate. Delegation is, by some lists, a soft skill, and by some, it isn't. For me, it's not a soft skill. It's a hard skill. If you aren't good at delegating or figuring out where things need to go, you're going to struggle and fail at some point. That’s time management and delegation.
If you are not good at delegating work and figuring out where things need to go, you will struggle and fail at some point.
I am really big on communication, not only written communication and verbal communication but remembering that not everybody's in your head. Even though you may tell people what's happening once in a while, they don't know what's going on in your world or in your team. I'm a huge fan of over-communication. Those three things, that's where I start. You can go down a list forever. The EQ stuff is big. I tend to say, “Pay attention.” If somebody's snapping at you that doesn't normally snap at you, there's a reason. Pay attention and be aware.
The Importance of Work Delegation
When you tell folks to take stuff off their plate, do you sometimes get that resistance where they’re like, “I can't possibly. No one else could do it like me.” How do you break through some of that thinking?
This is one of those things that doesn't stop generationally. I worked for chefs who couldn't take stuff off their plates. This is not a new thing. I started going back and going, “This is teaching. Delegation isn't new. Clearing things off your plate isn't new. What it really is is a teaching issue.” Instead of saying, “You need to take this off your plate,” I say, “You need to teach more. If there's a problem with something, you need to teach it. If something's not getting done, you need to explain why. You need to set that expectation. You need to follow up.”
I get that pushback but I ask them, “What's more important? Is it more important that you are butchering that New York before you go home, or is it more important that you see your kid's soccer game or that you get home when your wife says, “I need you home at 5:00.” If the wife says, “Be home at 5:00, be home at 5:00.” It goes back to prioritization.
I believe that people want to take things off their plate but they don't always know how, so I try to equip them with as many little tools. A lot of it, honestly, goes back to time management. It's like, “I can't get that project done. I can't do that thing,” or, “My boss wants a report on this,” or, “He wants to see my plan on how to fix my food costs but I don't have time to do that plan because I'm so busy.”
I'm like, “Schedule it out. Create a meeting. Do you know how to create a meeting on Outlook or Google?” Sometimes, I get guys who are my age who are a little bit younger and they're like, “No.” I'm like, “Pull out your phone,” and we go back that way. What is really basic for a lot of people isn't always basic for us. We've been focused on food, vendors, and all the things that run a restaurant that we don't remember that there are tools and technology that can take us from running to quantum leap running.
Why Building Trust is Key to Success
100%. As you were talking, something else popped into my mind. It's the case for small businesses across the spectrum, particularly in restaurants, which is this idea of trust. It is trusting someone with all those perishable goods, to not disappear out the back door, or to not give stuff away to friends. There's that aspect in the business of getting through the trust. Have you dealt with that? I'm sure you have in your travels, but any thoughts about that?
I was talking to somebody about theft and it became a little bit of a heated conversation. They were like, “People nowadays,” and I was like, “That’s crap. I don't buy people nowadays.” For me, building trust is that. It takes time, but if you trust somebody with your recipe and you trust somebody to be in your space, and you treat them with that trust, and you treat them like they are part of something, and they get communication around what we're working on and why we're working on it, all those things build up fast. You have to be consistent with them.
For me, the more that I treat people with respect, the more that I communicate to them why we're there and why we do things. That why thing comes back a lot. It's not how or what. It doesn't need to be so transactional the way a lot of folks make it like, “You work for me.” It’s like, “I need you to support me. If you're going to support me, here's the information you need to do it well.” What I call that is managing in. That's bringing people towards a hug or towards a huddle rather than keeping them at arm's length in an adversarial space.
The more you treat people with respect and communicate the reason why you do things, the more it comes back to you.
For me, it's keeping people tight but I don't go so far as to say, “We're family,” because we're not family. This is business. This is work. At the same time, it is keeping people close to you who are going to work with you so that they understand. I am constantly looking at people and going, “There are five words for you, and it's so you are aware. This is what's happening to me. The food cost is a little high. Here are the things we're going to do. Here's what I need from you. Here's what I need your help with.”
For nine years, I worked in a company where I oversaw chefs. I had 4 restaurants most of the time, 7, sometimes. I'd go in and the chef would be like, “They're not listening to me.” I'd pull everybody together and go, “I need your help. Your chef is struggling a little bit. The food cost is a little high. Labor is a little high. Here are the things I'd like you to work on. Does anybody have a problem with that?” They'd say, “No.” I'd come back the next day and he'd look at me and go, “Everybody did what you asked them to do.” I'm like, “There you go.” It's simply a matter of communication.
Communicating the Big Picture to the Team
I wanted to come back to that big bucket of communication but I like the phrase that you said. There are ways to say things that work with people. It’s like, “I need your help here.” I don't know if you got a whiteboard open that day but you start asking people for ideas. All of a sudden, you'll hear all these ideas. If the ideas come from them or the commitment comes from them, it becomes a lot easier for the team to work together than for you to say, “Do you see the things I wrote down over there? You're going to do those ten things today. If you don't have them done.” That's not going to work, but if they wrote down those ten things and it came from them, it makes a big difference.
This is one of those where I found that if I ask what they think is the problem, whether it is the problem or not or whether their solutions are the ones we go with or not, it is the fact that I asked and got their input. Sometimes, it requires a little bit more like, “I love that you want to do this, but here's the reality of doing that extra whatever to control food costs. Here's why we're going to do this.” When I explain why all the way down to the nitty-gritty, they're like, “Okay.” I ask for input. Asking for input, for me, is fundamental to getting people's buy-in. If you want them to really buy into the solution that you're going to provide, they need to know that they can be a part of that too.
If you want your team to buy into the solution you will provide, they need to know that they can be a part of that too.
You said it but maybe you can layer onto it, which is the idea of communicating the big picture. A lot of times, communicating with restaurants and businesses in believing you are the CEO, the owner, or the leader, everyone has the same thing in their head or the same belief system. It is talking about that mission, vision, and reason why you exist, creating that feeling, for lack of a better word, and not doing it once. It’s not the annual, “It's January 1st. Let's have a meeting. We’re great this year. Let's go.” How often do you think you need to communicate the picture? Especially in the restaurant industry, people are in and out. If you don't have a repeating process, people are going to miss that message. Any thoughts about that?
I've worked for a number of corporations over the years. One of the things I always notice is there's always a mission statement. Oftentimes, there are some values and 5 or 6 key phrases. In my last job, we took it one step further and it really made a lot of sense to me. They had a purpose and ten values. Those values were on every bloody wall. You go into the employee restroom and they're there on the wall.
This was mostly pre-COVID because that's when we were on a push on it. What we began to do was try to find ways to incorporate those values into coaching conversations. One of them was, “We are clean.” If you're looking at a floor in the morning or in the afternoon and going, “It's nasty in here. Is this clean?” and then point over your shoulder at the poster that says, “We are clean,” and they go, “No,” without shaming them, it's helping them understand that this really matters. What I tell people is, “Understand what you believe in. If it’s, “We want to be the best food in the city,” then when you're coaching things, and you have to do it respectfully, ask them, “Is that the best plate in the city?” Whatever you believe in, you have to incorporate that into your coaching.
A hot plate’s hot is the fundamental on the top. I worked for a company. That was the first thing they would talk about. A hot plate’s hot and a cold plate’s cold. Is that the standard? What we're talking about here is managing to standards. That's a lot of what we did, and that's a lot of what I've done. It is understanding what's important. If it's important, then you ought to be talking about it every day.
I've been a part of those meetings that you described, like, “This is our annual meeting. We're going to blah,” and after that, you don't hear anything about what we were talking about. Those organizations, a lot of them are big, but that's where there is theft. There's some talking head at the top and something's going on, and nobody's really talking to the people down below.
Chefs have to believe and they have to make sure that the sous chefs believe. If the sous chefs believe, oftentimes, you're going to be way more successful and you're going to have great food. Things are going to be clean and organized because people are bought in and they know what their job is and what their role is in all of those things.
The Woes of Unchanging Minimum Wages
Let’s switch gears a little bit. We will see where it goes. In talking with folks and doing your interviews, what's another gigantic pain point that you're seeing restaurants experience? It could be people, labor, food, internet, or tech. What are you seeing the most?
On January 1st here in Seattle, the minimum wage is $20.76. There's no more tip credit. It used to be that if you were a server, you might make $3 or $8 and then get all your tips. Servers are making $20. 67. The big challenge is, how do you stay profitable when you're paying your servers that much?
What I'm seeing is business models shifting. I'm seeing a lot more counter service. I'm seeing a whole lot more kiosks and QSR restaurants. You go to McDonald's and you don't talk to anybody anymore. On the very far end, you got all these kiosks. Maybe during peak hours, you have somebody out there telling them how to do it. I am working with a Chinese bistro place and they've done the same thing. They're QSR. They serve amazing Chinese food and it's very regional to their hometown, but you go up and it's kiosks. You've got three different ones. The menus are all live screens above. I'm seeing technology overtake a little bit. Labor is a big challenge.
The big overriding theme for me is whatever got you here isn't going to keep you going. The businesses that are thriving, especially in the restaurant space, are the ones that are trying to think differently. Years ago, the attitude was, “If I don't like that cook, I get rid of them and I go find a new one.” I don't think you can do that anymore as easily. Replacing an employee can be as much as $6,000 to $10,000 for replacement costs when it comes down to training, onboarding, and all that stuff. I'd rather save that money and help to make that person more efficient.
The big one is retention. That starts to trickle down. How do you retain people? It is understanding where workload kicks their butt. It is understanding that having too much to do is almost as bad as not having enough for your business. It’s being able to balance that. The other side is creating a safe environment where people can come, learn, flourish, grow, and be in a culture where the boss or the leader is communicating and teaching. All those things that I want to see happen are going to create retention. That's my biggest message for people. It's never been harder to run a restaurant.
Expecting A Major Shift in Labor Models
You mentioned the word trends. Are there any other trends you're seeing coming down if you were to picture the restaurant space in 2 or 3 years? You already hit a few, but anything else?
I continue to believe that we're going to see labor models shift. I have a couple of friends and colleagues who are about to open up a restaurant. They said, “If we can do one thing that would keep us in line with what you think, what would it be?” I said, “Cross-train everybody.” I don't mean cross-train from salads to pizza. I mean every server should know how to work in the kitchen. Maybe you create a model that doesn't have lines or that is fluid.
Scratch Bar & Kitchen comes to mind for me. It's a group out of Southern California. Everybody in that place does everything. They're small and boutique, but with some good planning, organization, and some real passion behind it, you can create new models. For me, that's the trend. It is finding ways to think differently about what has gotten us here. I wish I could be more specific, but that's it. That's where you got to be. You have to be thinking differently because product cost is higher than it's ever been. Who knows what's coming with all the stuff out there in the world?
Working With Vigor, Speed, And Accuracy
To go back to your point, it's far more engaging for a staff member to have more than one job too, to be trained, to keep learning, and to learn that there's something else that's coming down the road six months from now. Maybe they’re a part of an ongoing training process. I would argue, and this is me talking, that the younger generation doesn't want to be pigeonholed into one small corner. That is a big opportunity that you bring up, to cross-train, tell them about the business, show opportunity and growth, and so forth. Excellent stuff there. Let's go to some of those other questions I have which are life philosophies and whatnot. What's a great piece of advice you've had in your past?
I had the opportunity to sit with a CEO and have a beer a number of years ago. He was the CEO of the company I was working for so I didn't really see him much, but it so happens that we were sitting at the same bar. It was my little corner of the world dive bar. He sat down and I was like, “This will be interesting,” but we got talking.
At some point, I said, “Let me have your best piece of advice.” He said, “My best piece of advice for you is to work with vigor, speed, and accuracy so that when things fuck up, you have the time to stop, turn around 180, and deal with whatever is going on. You can fix it, turn around, and you're still half a step ahead of everybody.” That has served me really well. I've learned over the years to be as accurate and focused as possible and nail what I'm doing so that I can help those around me as well as be aware of what's happening around me. That's it.
Work with vigor, speed, and accuracy. This way, you still have time to stop, turn around, and deal with the problems along the way.
If you take the corollary to that, if you're on time, a little behind, or a little late, and then crisis strikes and you try to react to that, you feel overwhelmed, behind, and stressed, so get ahead of it. What is a favorite quote or a saying that you love? What do you think?
I don't know if I'm going to nail this quote but I heard it not long ago. “The magic you seek is in the work that you're avoiding.” It’s that thing that you don't want to be doing or whatever. Nail the thing that's hard and watch what happens.
I'm thinking about what you said. I do this. There's a to-do list. I'm guilty of putting too many things on my to-do list, but what do I do? I do the easy one so I can get that check or I can get that scratch off. What you're getting at is that those most important things are different. That's where stuff's really going to move. Do that one that's hard. I know the advice is to do that one first but it's hard for all of us. Do that hard thing first while you have the energy and the mental capacity. You wait and think you're going to do it at 7:00 PM. You're not. It's not going to happen.
People talk about dopamine hits. That happens when you're on your phone. I find that when I crush something like the first project of the day or it has been kicking my butt for a week and I'm going to nail it and get it done, there's such a relief. All of a sudden, something loosens up in my brain and I'm like, “I can tackle a couple of more things.” I get moments out of that. I tell people all the time to prioritize. You can have a long list, but maybe it's worth taking that list, going back, and saying, “What's a one?” or, “What's an A?” You then hit the top three ones. The more that I have learned to triage things out to like, “That is urgent and important,” that saves a bunch of time for me.
Simon’s Book Recommendations
100%. What is a book you recommend or a book you're reading? Does anything pop to mind?
I'm reading Atomic Habits by James Clear. A book I've read that has got my attention is Unreasonable Hospitality. I can't listen to or read that one enough. I've done it twice.
That's been mentioned several times. I'm guilty of not having it yet, but. If folks haven't picked up Atomic Habits by James Clear, it's awesome. It's terrific. In addition to the book, I get his newsletter. It comes out every Thursday. If you don't get that, subscribe to it. Do you get it?
Yeah, I do. 3-2-1 Thursday.
Why You Should Not Underestimate Yourself
3 quotes or 3 sayings and 2 pieces of advice or something else you should do. It's super fast. It always makes me think. It always realigns. It's every Thursday. The book itself is terrific. Those are excellent recommendations, Atomic Habits and Unreasonable Hospitality. What about a mistake you made or a mistake in life? Are there life lessons spinning around on the positive? Does anything pop?
The biggest lesson or mistake I made in my career that took me a while to learn, and I made this one over and over, was I didn't always think I was great at things. I always thought I was average. I came to find out I'm a really fast learner. I made the mistake of thinking, “This is easy. Why can't you get that?” It is realizing that because you think something is basic, simple, easy, or whatever that is doesn't mean that it is for anybody else. That has informed my leadership and my management style over the years and has affected how I think about the word teach.
I sometimes will look at people and go, “I'm about to explain something to you in the most simple manner I know how. If it feels like I'm talking down to you or if I've gone too far back in the process, say so.” I really try to boil things down to the elements and I try not to assume. My lesson has been to not assume that anybody else gets it. If they get it, great. It’s like, “Let’s fast forward to the next chapter. Here we go.” If they don't, I go all the way back to the nuts, bolts, and tiny fundamentals of things.
Good stuff. What's something that not too many folks know about you?
When I was in college, I was a math major. I started off as a civil engineering major and by the end of that first year, I had become a math major. When I looked at what it was going to cost me to continue to pull loans and all that stuff, I dropped out of college to cook. Not too many people realized that I have a very strong basis in math, numbers, and all that kind of stuff. I am a passionate cook, I love being in the kitchen, and I love the people but I really like the numbers side.
Simon’s Podcast and Closing Words
That would've suited you well operational-wise. To understand the numbers or to want to dig into the numbers is a big deal. Tell folks about the podcast, where to find it, where to go, what you're covering, and what you got.
The podcast is Culinary Mechanic. You can find it at CulinaryMechanic.com. I, very much like you, am trying to help operators run a little bit better. Some days, I say, “Run your restaurant like a well-oiled machine.” I want to help chefs and owners lead with the passion that they have for the cooking that they do or the operations that they do in their restaurants.
We're so focused on the product, the food, and the experience that we got to go back to the experience of the people and the experience of the employees. I've been trying to bring in guests. I had a Master Chef on. The guy is in his early 70s and he was amazing. It gave me an old-world perspective. He worked for Campbell's Soup for a while. I also brought on a leadership coach. She was amazing. I thought we were going to take some big Fortune 500 leadership concepts and she was like, “It's all the same. People are people.”
That's a lot of what I'm doing. I’m trying to find different ways to help people run their restaurants with a focus on leadership and great kitchen culture. It is remembering that there is more to being a chef than cooking and there's more to running a restaurant than having great food and service. You've got to have a great space to be. I’m putting all those together.
There is more to running a restaurant than just having great food and service. You must also have a great space to be.
In addition to the show, which is available on the site, you do some coaching and consulting. Is that regional? Is that virtual? How do you help folks?
I tend to keep a couple of clients locally because there's demand. Those seem to come from the previous folks. The referral stream is my local thing. I'm working towards getting more going on virtually. I found out in COVID that I could run my weekly meetings with my chefs. I met with all seven of my chefs every week. I could do it via Zoom. There's no reason that I can't do that this time. I've found some success with that.
People look at me and they go, “You're a restaurant advisor. Do you do this?” I'm like, “No,” and then go through about 5 or 6 things. I am looking to be a specialist rather than a generalist. If someone wants help with their kitchen culture or wants to get their chef some help in leadership so that they can run things a little bit smoother, I'm the guy. I've been developing people for 25 years.
I love helping chefs and sous chefs find their space in the world because when they do, it's this blast of fireworks. They become more profitable. People are excited. They're doing less training. They have more time to do what they want to do. They might even get home to see their kids a little bit more often. That's important to me. They have the chance to have lives too. That's my big thing. It’s that people can do more.
If you're a restaurant owner, operator, chef, and so forth, and you're reading this and going, “I wish I had someone like that to talk to,” a lot of times, folks don't have that sounding board. They’re like, “I'm reluctant to get a coach. I'm reluctant to get an advisor. I can do everything myself.” I don't know what your policy is, but I'm sure they can email you or pick up the phone. Maybe you have a quick call with folks to find out if there's a fit. Talk to someone else and get outside of your business. Based on your experience, it looks like you'd be very helpful to folks.
It was great meeting you. Simon Zatyrka is the Culinary Mechanic. It is CulinaryMechanic.com. For more great restaurant marketing and operations, service people, tech tips, and more, stay tuned to us here at RunningRestaurants.com. In addition, if you're reading this, please do us a favor. If you could rate it, review it, and share it, all that stuff is very helpful wherever you're tuning in. We would appreciate it. We'll see you next time. Thanks.
Thanks.
Important Links
- Culinary Mechanic
- Culinary Mechanic Podcast
- Simon Zatyrka on LinkedIn
- Atomic Habits
- Unreasonable Hospitality
- 3-2-1 Thursday