That Sunday brunch rush where I dropped 40 pounds of brisket on the floor

It was Mother's Day morning at the diner I work at in Tulsa. I was pulling the last hotel pan of brisket out of the warmer and my grip slipped on the towel. That whole pan hit the tile and split open, sending meat and juice everywhere across the pass. I just stood there for maybe ten seconds while the line cooks stared at me. Then I grabbed a clean towel, scraped up what I could for the compost, and pulled the backup brisket we had in the lowboy. We got through the rush but it added about 15 minutes to every ticket. Has anyone else had a moment like that where you just have to freeze and reset?

2 comments

2 Comments

holly_green821mo ago

That's a tough break dropping the brisket, but honestly you should have had a backup plan that didn't rely on just one extra pan in the lowboy. A successful Sunday brunch kitchen runs on redundancy, not luck. If that backup brisket was the only thing between you and a 15 minute ticket delay, the real problem is poor prep and organization, not dropping the pan. You lost 40 pounds of product because you didn't have a proper grip or a second person to help with a heavy load during a rush.

theawest1mo ago

Oh man, that's brutal. Had a similar thing happen when I was working at a BBQ joint in Austin and a whole cambro of pulled pork went flying because someone bumped me from behind. We were out of backup protein and ended up having to run to the store mid-service, which was a total nightmare.