Had a chat with an old line cook that made me rethink my mise en place setup

I was breaking down at the end of service last Wednesday and this guy who used to work at Per Se back in the day just started chatting with me. He looked at my station and said 'you got too much stuff out, you're just making extra work for yourself.' At first I was defensive, I mean my mise boxes are color coded and I have everything within reach. But then he pointed out I was restocking my most used items like 4 times during a rush because I kept them in small containers. He said to use one big container for each thing instead of 4 little ones. I tried it the next day and I swear I saved like 20 minutes of restocking time on a Friday night. Has anyone else ever had someone look at your station setup and totally change how you work?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_jordan1mo ago

Dude, my buddy tried that at his spot and said it cut his cleanup time in half.

patriciacarr1mo ago

More often than not, people claim a big time save and it's actually just them rushing the job and missing spots. Half the cleanup time just means you're leaving twice as much gunk for the next time. My neighbor swore by one of those tricks, and now he's fighting a layer of baked-on residue he can't even scrape off without a solvent. Shortcuts usually bite you in the end, especially with commercial gear.