My Recurring Kitchen Nightmare

Husby’s, the scene of the dream.

The author owned a Sister Bay bar and restaurant for eight years before leaving the industry. The industry refuses to leave him.

I woke up in a panicked sweat at 5:41 am. It had been a while since it last haunted me, but my kitchen nightmare had returned.

It was every worst-case kitchen scenario happening at once.

I’m prepping in the kitchen by myself. The other cooks haven’t shown up. I’m nowhere close to ready, we don’t open for 20 minutes, but the waitress inexplicably seats and takes orders from several tables.

I turn around and the kitchen is suddenly filled with cooks, and it’s a disaster on the line. French fry bags, food scraps, and screwed up dishes are strewn everywhere. In the corner there’s a kid washing dishes, sending through one dish at a time on the rack, bus tubs piling up behind him.

I pull a steak off the grill – it’s perfect. I plate it, turn around to the pass, and just as I’m setting it down the steak slips off the plate, behind the cooler, and to the floor. I chuck the plate to the floor. People look at me like I’m crazy, like “What’s the big deal?”

I’m the only one who realizes we’re hopelessly in the weeds, everyone else is moving in slow motion, joking, laughing.

I turn again, and all those cooks that were just there are suddenly gone. The printer keeps printing out orders, the paper piling up on the floor, that horrible screech of the printer taunting me for hours. I hustle to grab a pan and shuffle past the kitchen’s back door. Out the door, I see my fellow cooks on a smoke break, cracking jokes like it’s the dead time between lunch and dinner. For a moment, I picture myself dropping the fryers and dousing them in the spent oil.

I turn, and somehow it’s now 2 am. We clear the restaurant out, but I’ve still got hours of work left in the kitchen. Cleaning up this mess, prepping for tomorrow, and a pile of dishes left by a dishwasher who has inexplicably just left them there.

But more customers walk into the bar through the back door. We kick them out, but my bartender lets others in through the front door. I lose it, scream at people that they have to leave. They look at me dumbfounded, like I’m a crazy person. A couple of them decide that I just need a hand, so they try to help clean the kitchen.

One grabs a pot full of freshly dropped fryer oil, walks out the back door, and dumps it in the parking lot.

I lose it again. I throw some wooden bar stools to the floor, smashing them to pieces. Nobody seems to notice, the growing crowd just continues to order drinks and my bartenders continue to serve them. I push people out one door, others come in the side door. It’s 4 am. A band starts playing.

Where the heck did this band come from?!?

But I wake up. Mercifully.

Sweating.

Relieved.

Author’s note: When I posted a version of this story to my blog at mylesdannhausen.com, I found quickly that I am not the only one who suffers from a case of restaurant PTSD. A number of fellow restaurant industry workers and alumna shared their dreams in the comments. Some of the best:

“I was remodeling a house while I owned the Village Cafe. In my dream, I would lead diners to their table, but before they could sit down I had to lay the flooring under their table. And over, and over…” ~ Jacinda Duffin

“I’m waitressing (alone) at the Bowl – place is jammed. I’m in the kitchen with trays full of food, but I can’t get to the dining room because someone nailed the doors shut.” ~ Terry Olson

“I’m waitressing (alone, and in heels – which I never wear) at a restaurant I’ve never been in before. The place is packed, and there are two stories to the place – with tables on both levels. I’m in the weeds, big time, and to make matters worse, I have to run food up to tables upstairs by using an impossibly long, winding staircase.” ~ Melissa Ripp Lozoff

“Cooking at the Bowl and there are two cooks and ten waitresses and I went to the freezer in a golf cart and when I came back to the line the tickets were taped all over the kitchen because they couldn’t hang any more up.” ~ Rhonda Goudreau

“I’m behind a 35-top horseshoe bar that’s eight people deep, and the printer doesn’t stop. Ever.” ~ Britt Chapman

“It still makes me break out in a cold sweat. I was waitressing at Al’s, the only one on. Full dining room. I took all the orders but it was The Shoreline’s menu! The cooks wouldn’t make any of my food!” ~ Jodi Gonzales

“I still have my recurring Al Johnson’s dream. I am the only one working. We get a late afternoon rush and the restaurant fills up. I can’t remember who I have served, who I haven’t, and then I go in to the kitchen and no one is cooking. So naturally I have to cook the food too. I still wake up in a panic and drenched with sweat!” ~ Kristin Wilson

“I’ve had ‘wait dreams’ so bad I’ve woken up and vomited.” ~ Sean Kenneavy