Ed's Essay: The Art of Making Toast

How a simple task exemplifies the delicate balance of a restaurant kitchen

Illustration by Breanna Hiekema

Editor’s Note: As a benefit to paid subscribers, we publish guest columns on the food and beverage industry. Today features an essay by Ed Barnes.

As I walked in the employee door in the back Saturday morning, I couldn’t help but wonder, can I do this?

I did not have much time to prepare. The phone had chirped with the text Friday morning, asking me to work the line at Lucy’s, a brunch restaurant in Grand Rapids, Mich.

“Of course I will,” I replied immediately without thinking.

As I pushed send my palms started to sweat.

“What have I gotten myself into?” I ask myself.

“Where do I enter for work? Is there a place to hang my coat? Will I be able to clock in?”

In my mind, if you don’t know where to go and where your things go, the people who you are there to help are thinking: “Great, here we go. Who is this guy?”

After I hang my coat, I find the chef.

Chef Jeremy and I have been friends for a long time. I trust him. I see him on the line, already running like a top spinning tightly. Jeremy introduced me to the other three cooks I’d be working with that morning: Bre on the eggs station, Kyle on the middle flat-top, and Owen running the middle.

I could tell, despite their young appearances, that these are three well-seasoned line cooks. Service had already started two hours before I got there. Now, I’m going to run the toast station.

Jeremy turns to the rack next to the flat-top — loaded with bacon, unturned pancakes, warming biscuits, and a tall order of French toast — and starts pointing at different levels saying, “Rye, multigrain, cinnamon raisin, sourdough, Brioche, and gluten-free.”

The toaster is a belt-driven restaurant-style toaster straight across from the bread rack. Jeremy explains that all the toast is run through twice except the Brioche, which only goes through once. This training occurs in less than five minutes while Jeremy continues to man the flat top.

“No problem,” I said out loud. “It’s just toast,” I think to myself.

Owen yelled out the first few orders: “Lucy’s special, biscuit and gravy, mushroom (omelet), spicy skillet, french toast short, two sides of sourdough.”

I put two orders of sourdough in the toaster. It was right about then that Jeremy said to me, “You are going to need to have some toast already toasted.”

Photo by Alexandra Mendívil on Unsplash

Next, he turned around, adding two more things to the flat top from an order that was yelled out while he gave me the best advice of the day. I didn’t even hear that order.

It took me at least an hour to hear what was being yelled. The noise of the hoods, frying bacon, scrapping of plates in the dish pit, dishes clanging while pulling them off the stack under the warming lights, metal spatulas on the flat-tops, cooler doors and drawers slamming shut and the communication between employees is almost overwhelming. It then took the second hour to get the pace of cooking toast.

There was a point where I felt bad for asking, “What was that last one?”