#5 - In The Mouse House (57:40)

Restaurant Reality Show

jason_jell_

Sam Knoll: [00:00:00] Man, how are you doing?

Jason Jell: [00:00:02] Uh, it busy, very busy. We've we're we've got a couple of big meetings coming up and been prepping for them and, uh, I'll be happy when we're on Christmas break. Let's put it that way. How about

Sam Knoll: [00:00:14] yourself? Yeah, I'm, I'm kind of the same. I've just got so many balls in the air.

It's kind of nuts right now. So, which is good. So

Jason Jell: [00:00:22] yeah, nobody likes to be bored.

Sam Knoll: [00:00:25] That's right. Not at all. So, well, this, I knew this would sound weird having me get you on here. I'm going to keep moving around because things bothering me. But anyways, um, because I know you have nothing to do with food service industry at all right

Jason Jell: [00:00:45] now, but I knew you

Sam Knoll: [00:00:48] had some history.

And, uh, and so I thought, I don't know. I figured it could be a little fun just to get you in and just find out. I mean, it's interesting kind of even how you got into it, why you did it. Um, I think do, did you meet Jennifer, your wife, where you were working or did you know her before that?

Jason Jell: [00:01:10] No. No, I, I, I, uh, I met her there.

I, uh, started, I started in restaurants when I was 16. It was my first real job. Um, you know, before that paper, boy. Worked on a farm, uh, cut cabbage broccoli, picked corn through hay and, um, restaurants were like, it was my first stable job. Let's call it that. And, um, uh, and I remember when I first started, he was, uh, I remember it because they wore these pasta steak and sea house.

So is the restaurant and, um, it's a, it's a chain, but it's primarily in Pennsylvania. There's some in New York. Uh they're they're still around. Um, And, uh, I was doing my rotation thing in the beginning where they're doing the walk run and everything. She was bagging trash cans. Uh, she was a waitress at the time.

And, uh, they had these, when we first started, they wore these, like, I swear, I was like a little house on the Prairie kind of dress looking thing. Um, there were white with like, like poofy shoulders and like, uh, yeah, it, so I remember, um, I remember when I first saw her. and we didn't date for a whole bunch of years after that, because a couple of years, she's a couple of years older than me.

And you know, when you're 16, you know, dating somebody who's a couple of years older than you it's like a big deal now. So we didn't date until I was in college, actually. So it was probably about a half a dozen years or so, but we knew each other, obviously the whole time. That's

Sam Knoll: [00:02:46] pretty wild. I didn't realize all of that.

That's kind of cool.

Jason Jell: [00:02:50] Oh yeah. I got a lot of, I do have a lot of restaurant years under my belt, I guess I should say that. Probably about 10 years I spent working there. I was a dish man, uh, for several years. Uh, that was my, that was where I cut my teeth in restaurant. And, um, you know, then I, I graduated to, uh, two, well line.

Like I worked, uh, just the end line where I did all like the. Final finish crap, where they put the new guys. And then I moved over gradually to like try or which is where they put the new guys that are half decent. And then, you know, eventually ended up being a grill, man, doing the steak and seafood still have the, still have the scars to prove it, uh, all over my arms.

Sam Knoll: [00:03:35] You too, dude. It was really funny the other day. I don't know why. I found myself like looking at my right arm. I was like, man, I've got like nine or 10 scars down my arm here that I never even pondered. You know,

Jason Jell: [00:03:49] and my fingers

Sam Knoll: [00:03:50] look like, you know, I've like been fighting somebody in a back alley or something,

Jason Jell: [00:03:56] and it's all like little cuts and whatever

Sam Knoll: [00:03:58] else from working in restaurants.

Jason Jell: [00:04:02] I remember, um, I remember when it was relatively early. Um, when I started, I started frying and, uh, you learn this stuff as you go, but, uh, you know, a big bag of French fries and, you know, took it Chuck, the whole thing in the fryer dumped the basket in it. Of course there was a whole bunch of ice in it.

That damn thing boils way over. Then I had this, it splashed up and I had a blister on my arm. Literally. It was about that long and it blistered up. It's probably about that far off of my arm. It was the grossest looking thing. Um, and I remember going to, this was when I was still in high school, so I had to go to high school with it.

It was probably like on paper, it was probably a third degree burns and I'm just like, yeah, pop it. You know, eventually the skin will peel off. I had so many of those. I used to get 'em and we had 'em those clam shell grills would top came down and then there was the drawer pull out during the bottom and then towards the end of the night, um, you know, they're really hot, so grease would build up on them.

And then, um, when you go to pull the, clamshell it back out on the, or pull the drawer out in the bottom, um, Inevitably at some point in time in the night, um, you know, grease would build up on the top grill and as you reach under it, it would drop a boiling grease down on your hands. And it was like, it was the only instant, massive blister that you could get.

When we worked on the grill, everything else was just like, you know, bumped, this, scrape that whatever. But like off the cross cross the top of my hands, I used to have a constant blister somewhere from it. Always yes, never ended.

Sam Knoll: [00:05:41] I also remember, um, place that I did my externship up in, uh, in new Paltz New York.

Um, one of the little trials for the, for the, uh, the guys doing the extra ship was they would stick you on the grill. But they would give you this set of like tongs. They were like this long, you know, I mean, it was like the shortest tongs they could give you, which really meant that your hand was almost touching the grill the whole time.

Jason Jell: [00:06:08] It was so hot. It was unbelievable. And

Sam Knoll: [00:06:10] that was truly trial by fire.

Jason Jell: [00:06:14] Well hazing, that's part of it, right? You have to haze the new guy. I remember vividly, um, one guy starting and, uh, the traditional hazing method was always cleaning the grill at the end of the night. Um, so, you know, we had the, I don't know if you've, I'm sure you've used them.

You were in restaurants a lot longer than I was those grill scrapers with the metal razorblades on the end of them, you know, you take it in and then you have to scratch. So we. We had this one, um, just really old crap grill scraper, and nobody ever used it for anything. It was like the one that you would use to get like the big chunks off the grill.

And it was super, super dull. So we always gave him that. And, you know, instead of, instead of turning the grill off, um, and then letting them work and we turned it up as high as you could turn it off, the damn thing was so hot. And then we put on like, All of the PPE gear that we could find in the entire restaurant.

So he's got like an apron, he's got these big ass gloves that have probably been sitting in a corner for six months. He's got these big goggles on that. Of course, like in the traditional, um, in the traditional cartoon fashion, we covered with grease on the edges, put them on. There was like the grief line and.

And then, uh, I kind of remember what else we did. We did some up something else. I don't remember what else we did. And he was on that damn thing for like 45 minutes trying to get it cleaned. And then, uh, I felt so bad too, because I think he quit.

No, he quit. He quit. Once they found, once he found out that they were screwing with him,

Sam Knoll: [00:07:53] I think it was even.

Jason Jell: [00:07:55] It was one of those monumental, like, like I hate you guys. You're the worst and throwing this stuff up and walking out kind of quit, which only made everybody else like lean into it even more. It was pretty bad.

Yeah. That was pretty bad. Not one of my highest moments in my, uh, my restaurant career.

Sam Knoll: [00:08:16] I'm just trying to think. We, uh, one of our, our other hazings that was fun was, um, We would send a new employee down, like from our kitchen to a restaurant down at the South end of the beach to pick up the quote, the old Bay grinder.

Jason Jell: [00:08:38] Which

Sam Knoll: [00:08:39] didn't exist, but, you know, and so they would go down to this, the South end and they'd, they'd, you know, they wait around and they'd come in. They say, you know, they finally get to talk to the chef, whatever they say. Uh, yeah. Uh, Sam from up at wherever sent me down to pick up the old Bay grinder. And they'd say,

Jason Jell: [00:08:57] Oh,

Sam Knoll: [00:08:58] Oh, well, we leant that too.

And they'd send them further up the beach to another restaurant

Jason Jell: [00:09:04] where

Sam Knoll: [00:09:04] they around and they just kind of get sent around to various places around the beach. And I actually worked one place where a guy in the kitchen created this. Box that he likes stencilled this old dude, like got the old Bay grinder on the side of it and got a little of their logo and he put on it and he had a similar block.

And the thing

Jason Jell: [00:09:30] there's a good running joke there.

Sam Knoll: [00:09:33] It just, it just kept going, you know, from restaurant to restaurant, everyone knew what was going on except the new guy. You know, and so at least that one, they, that they they'd have to carry around with this cinderblock and bring it with them, you know, to get back there.

Jason Jell: [00:09:47] So now our ours were always more, um, generally speaking, more passive, there was always, uh, always a guy that was doing something stupid. Um, you know, some of them got escalated somewhat. I remember one point in time we actually hauled, uh, hauled, uh, you know, one of those. 30 gallon, trash cans up onto the roof, um, and then filled it with water and then fill that with ice.

And then we waited to one of the dish guys came out and dumped it on him, which was a different level of hazing. Yes, there was some of that going on. And then there was always, uh, I, the other one that was, um, the other one that was good was when we decided it was kind of slow on a Sunday. Um, and did you have those little, um, those little, I don't know what you call them.

They were like these little. Containers with those white screw caps. They're probably about eight ounce containers, something like that. We used to reheat rice, you portion out rice and I'm like rice pilaf, and you Chuck them in the microwave for a minute, whatever. Um, and we did this competition to see who could make 'em, who could make them best bomb from it, baking soda and vinegar bombs.

So we, we went through multiple iterations. It was very scientific by the way. Where we, we tested, uh, different layers of tape, sealing methods, uh, mounts of vinegar, types of vinegar. We put a lot of effort into this, but we got towards the end when one of them was, um, probably a bit too successful and less than pleased, it was loud.

It was like, it was really loud. Yeah, there was a lot of that going. Um, but it's, it's funny. Cause now, now it's gone full circle because I remember, you know, both of us, neither one of us work in restaurants anymore. It's been a long time. I was

Sam Knoll: [00:11:37] long. Wow.

Jason Jell: [00:11:38] Long while, probably 20 years at this point. Um, but I, I, 10 years, my, my formidable years as a youth, uh, we're spent primarily in restaurants and my wife as well, um she did longer than me.

She was probably 14, 13 or 14 years going the stretch from, you know, uh, hostess to waitress, to, to dining room manager, to store manager. She did that whole run. So she was in it a lot longer than I was. Um, but then I remember coming out and I remember thinking like, never again, won't do that. Won't have my kids do that.

But now I have a kid who works in a restaurant. Ah,

Sam Knoll: [00:12:20] which,

Jason Jell: [00:12:21] which one of them ask them? My older boy works in, well, he's a dishwasher. Believe it or not at a, at a pizza shop.

Sam Knoll: [00:12:31] I, I have this, this feeling that, that every child needs to work in a restaurant, whether they're watching dishes or waiting tables or, you know, I mean, cause all these things it's for one, the people you interact with in restaurants are totally different than I think anywhere else in the world.

It's this bizarre group of people. You know, that seemed to Harbor and work in restaurants. And I think that's a little eye opening. It could be good or bad, I guess, but, um, but then the waiting tables thing or being a bar back, or, you know, something like that, or even the busing, I mean, you get this totally different look into how people interact with each other.

You know, so suddenly you can end up with you're waiting on a group of

Jason Jell: [00:13:18] 10 people and,

Sam Knoll: [00:13:20] you know, and they say, Oh, this service was impeccable. We loved it. Everything was fantastic. And you get like a $5 tip, you know,

Jason Jell: [00:13:29] or

Sam Knoll: [00:13:29] whatever. I mean, it's just, um, I don't know. And then you could, you could wait on

Jason Jell: [00:13:34] another couple and

Sam Knoll: [00:13:36] they have a somewhat simple meal and you could end up with a $50 tip from them.

I mean, it's just, it's the way people think about other people and what they do for them. And I think that's a little eyeopening. Yeah.

Jason Jell: [00:13:49] Yeah. Uh, I, I never worked, I never worked the front of the house ever. Maybe like a couple, there was always like a couple of times where I was like, we need a bus, we need a bus or, you know, go out.

And it was like the greatest thing in the world. You get to go out and I didn't have to work with customers. Thankfully, you get enough view into people when, when you're cooking right. When they start to send your food back and you're like, Perfect. Are you sending that back and then you send it back out again and it comes back again.

We had a guy, um, you know, like there's your regulars. Every restaurant has regulars and there was always a couple of really weird ones. Like, I'll tell you about a couple of them. There was one guy who would order. And I still remember my wife and I were just joking about this. We still remember the menu.

Um, it was number based and if like the rattle out a number, I could tell you what meal it was. Um, but I worked at one restaurant for like a really, really long time. So it was, we did that for a long time. So it was a guy who ordered, um, uh, a number four, which is like a strip steak. Uh, but it's a smaller strip steak.

Right. And he would order it cooked. I still to this day, so cooked in lemon juice. Which I've never heard it looked gross. It sounded gross. Um, so he would come in same exact time. You could probably even put it on before he even showed up

Sam Knoll: [00:15:06] when it was cooked a

Jason Jell: [00:15:07] lot. Yeah. I, I don't know how anybody could eat it.

It was awful. Um, there was another guy who had come in and, uh, he would order a, T-bone not a porterhouse, a T-bone. And then he would instruct us to select the T-bone with the largest filet, even though it's a T-bone and then he, he wanted it. Uh, he always asked for it to be medium. Well, but he never wanted it medium.

Well, he always wanted it to be more well. So you'd always send it back no matter what you did. So either like you picked the wrong one or you cooked it to the wrong done this, but it would always come back. Um, so it was T-bone guy. There was a lemon juice guy, and then there was a porterhouse guy, a porterhouse guy was the craziest one of the bunch.

Yeah. And at the time we had 32 ounce porterhouse big thick ass steak, there was a big steak and he would order it 30 seconds per side, which was appalling. Right, right out of the freezer right out of the, Oh yeah. It's just right out of the cooler 30 seconds per side. Never wants to send it back ever

Sam Knoll: [00:16:15] wild.

Jason Jell: [00:16:16] And they were all, they were all part of my, you had your other guys that would always show up at like order the same exact meal. I was never for a regular kind of guy, maybe more as I get older, like I tend to go back to the same things, but people, it was like same restaurant, same time, same meal, same server, same everything, nothing ever changed.

And I, I would go five, six years and have, you know, a slew of people that fit that category.

Sam Knoll: [00:16:45] It is incredible. I mean, and, and I, I remember, and I guess you're right. Yeah. Every, every restaurant has some of that, you know, I remember there was one

Jason Jell: [00:16:54] couple who came

Sam Knoll: [00:16:55] into the first place I ever cooked,

Jason Jell: [00:16:57] who

Sam Knoll: [00:16:59] always came in.

They each got a martini to start with. And they were there for three, four hours. You know, it was like their one night out of the week, I think really. And, uh, you know, and so that was it, it was probably date night, you know, so they they'd go in, they'd eat to get a martini. Then they'd get a bottle of, of a, of a white wine and they'd each have a glass of that, then they'd get their at their apps.

I mean, they just turned it, it was a restaurant where the food was really good, but it wasn't this like fine dining place and they kind of treated it like it really was and the way they worked it. And, but they also, they tipped really well. They're super nice. You know, I mean, it works, it worked well for everyone, I guess.

Jason Jell: [00:17:45] I think that's the double edged sword, because I never worked in a restaurant that served booze. It, obviously it didn't mean that we didn't have that. Like with the, the cooks thing, like your world gets built around the people that you work with. And when you're in restaurants, there's obviously the there's going out your party, and these are all your people, then all of a sudden, you didn't know any of these people.

And then a couple of months in this was like, everybody that you hang out with. So, you know, Of course, I'm sure everybody that you talk to, there's like a drinking, partying culture. You know, obviously there's a drug culture that comes along with the people that work in these...