Don't Sweat the Heat in the Kitchen, It's a Fact of Restaurant Life
In a recent email, a McDonald's customer wanted to know about air conditioning and health standards at her local McDonald's restaurant.
She was concerned that there was no air conditioning in the kitchen. Even though fans were blowing throughout the kitchen it was still 89 degrees in the lobby and 92 in the kitchen. On top of this the employees were dripping with sweat, papers were blowing around the kitchen area and she was concerned the McDonald's was possibly in violation of health violations.
Sweat in restaurant kitchens is a very sticky subject. It is hardly appealing to see a chef dripping with seat especially when preparing food. Worse, it is less appetizing when a server sweats tableside.
Years ago, Kranston and I where dining in Ernesto's Italian Restaurant in a small community north of Minneapolis. It was a humid, Minnesota evening. The afternoon temperature had hovered around 99 degrees and the air cooled little once the sun went down.
Ernesto's was housed in a log cabin styled roadhouse building and although the air conditioning sign was still on the front door, the unit had little effect on the temperature inside.
When I ordered Fettuccini Alfredo – to be prepared tableside - from the Tuxedo wearing waiter, I didn't realize he was perspiring heavily. Once my entr?e was wheeled to the table, complete with a one burner gas cook top, the heat around our table soared.
Dripping with enough sweat to have raised the Elk River above its banks, the waiter proceeded to pour a variety of ingredients into the heavy cream sauce. Along with the eggs, and cheese, there was a sufficient amount of forehead sweat to increase the dish's sodium far above a safe level.
I said nothing and opted to quietly play with my food as Kranston enjoyed her Veal Scaloppini.
I am sure her veal was salted in much the same manner as my Fettuccini; however, because it was prepared behind closed kitchen doors, the effect on her psyche was less apparent.
Unfortunately, there is little that can be done about the heat in most restaurant kitchens. It is just a fact of life in the industry that a 5000 Btu stove heats up a kitchen faster than any air conditioner can cool it down.
For that simple reason, there are no health codes that deal with kitchen temperatures. There are health codes that indirectly deal with sweat, hair and other bodily fluids and particles with the hope of preventing their appearance in food.
In most kitchens, chefs and kitchen staff need to wear either hats, caps, or hair nets. The bands on these fashionable accessories usually catch most of the sweat a chef produces.
Most good chefs with carry a terry towel to wipe their brow – out of the site line of customers- to alleviate any tear sized drips and prohibit them from becoming an ingredient. Now try as they might, health departments are continually monitoring health standards and procedures in restaurant kitchens- when they are on the premises. But with the obvious budget cuts counties, cities, states and other municipalities are facing, health inspectors are not as plentiful as they once were.
This places the responsibility of health standards on the owners and managers of restaurants. And, in their constant quest to train and educate their employees, many owners have their hands full.
In many instances successful chain restaurants have high standards demanding continual training and educational meetings, seminars and classes and are more proficient in their monitoring of those standards than some other less successful restaurants.
Although the vision of a seating chef in hot kitchen is not pretty, it is a fact of the business.
Remember that cooking in a restaurant is just like cooking at home, except a few hundred or possibly a few thousand people are going to show up for lunch or dinner.
