Staff meals in the hospitality industry: there’s a lot of suffering

Eating the leftovers from a buffet, or spending twelve hours on your feet with one croquette as fuel: staff meals in the hospitality industry can occasionally make you want to cry. Many hospitality heroes vent their frustrations on Facebook: ‘For weeks I got dry meatballs, (…) fries and spoiled tuna.’

Everyone who works in a restaurant knows the problem: little time to eat, unexpected rushes in the restaurant and always a shortage of staff in the kitchen. And then the staff meal once again turns into something from the deep fryer or a mountain of toasted sandwiches left to go limp in the pass. Ed Scheppink had had enough. He wrote a book about tasty staff meals. And many readers responded to it on Facebook – because staff meals in restaurants are in a pretty bad state.

Most important meal

Tim emphasizes the importance of the staff meal: ‘The most important meal(s) that are cooked are the staff meal(s)… If your staff haven’t eaten well, you can’t expect them to keep performing either.’

Wasting food is a shame

Karen had to make do with the leftovers: ‘I experienced a chef serving us leftovers from a buffet from the previous day as the staff meal! Disgraceful, that was all you got.’

Don’t complain to Milo

Hello, front-of-house staff, be nice to Milo, because he doesn’t like people complaining about the food. ‘It’s never good enough for that typhus-ridden front-of-house staff. One doesn’t like this, another won’t eat that because it gives them pimples, someone else is on a diet, another person already ate it yesterday: one big load of whining.’

Book published too late

Ed’s book should have appeared a few years earlier, if you ask Cissy and Stacey. Stacey: ‘Where was he when we needed him?’ Stacey responds: ‘For weeks, dry meatballs almost every day. Fried-meat logs from the deep fryer. Tenderloin tips from the deep fryer. Fries, fries, fries and spoiled tuna. Brings back memories…’

A snack for you, a snack for me

Not everyone shares the aversion to deep-fried food every day. Yoica and Mirthe are actually happy about it! ‘A croquette for me, a bamischijf for you: we’ll manage.’

And having to pay for it too

That’s a letdown: having to pay for the staff meal and then finding it subpar too… That happened to Remco. ‘I once worked at a restaurant where I had to pay €7 a day for the staff meal. I already thought that was strange. I assumed we could order something from the menu… But no…. Every day you got boiled potatoes, vegetables from a jar and a frozen hamburger.’ The result: Remco said goodbye. ‘They were the three best weeks of my hospitality career.’

Just one bite

No time, no time, no time. Froukje: ‘How often I used to get a croquette on my workbench at 4 p.m., only to throw it away again around 11 p.m. while cleaning – with exactly one bite taken out of it.’ Fortunately, she now works somewhere where things are better organized. ‘We take the time to eat. It’s fuel, after all, to be able to work hard.’

Well deserved

Gonny also remembers the meager hospitality-industry meals. ‘Working ten hours and then getting two cocktail sausages or a croquette,’ she says. ‘Well deserved!’

No time

If there is food, you don’t get time to eat it. Jolanda: ‘It’s no longer considered normal to have half an hour or even fifteen minutes per working day to shovel your food down, on a working day lasting 12 to 14 hours. Many professions complaining now about how tough they have it: spend a busy day working in hospitality.’

Toucan on the roof, hunger in your belly

Roel and Stef remember the staff meals at Van der Valk… ‘Well-done roast beef,’ says Stef. ‘And lasagna that had been kept warm for three hours already. Fries hanging limp.’ Roel also remembers ‘German steak burgers’ and a miraculous dish he calls ‘magisterial Aromat mashed potatoes’. Doesn’t sound great…

Compliments

Fortunately, there are also people who compliment their chef in the comments. Thomas gets pike-perch and wild duck as staff meals (people are already asking where they can apply), Brechtje is happy with her humble meal and Pim thanks chefs Roy and Richard, who always conjure something tasty onto the table for the staff. Mark: ‘Fortunately, during my short hospitality career I had a chef who made it a sport to serve us a good meal. From macaroni and nasi to mashed-potato dishes. Free, although you were expected to arrive half an hour before your shift. I didn’t mind.’

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