More than 6% of adults in the US have an alcohol use disorder. Around 12.5% of people in the US smoke. There are 14 million workers in the restaurant industryu, representing 10% of the the entire US workforce. In the restaurant industry, 11.8% have substance use behaviors. The only occupations that have more substance abuse problems are in construction and mining.
What makes the service industry so special in this regard? Well, for one the people who spend time in the kitchen spend more time at their jobs than they do in their homes. They will cover shifts and work overtime to compensate for the minimum wage they make. A single bad experience can cost them their job and in the age of social media, future jobs. Their is no union representation, so employees have to put up with the abuse of the job. In 2015, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Service Administration reported that employees in the restaurant industry had the highest rates of substance abuse in the American workforce.
The high-stress environments and being constantly on your feet would make adrenaline junkies feel right at home. I have been employed in a restaurant for the past 7 years. First as a host then I moved up to a food runner. When I am a food runner, I have an expediter by my side traying up the food to go out to it's respective tables. When the expediter is not with me, I tray up the food myself then take it out. There are many factors to consider:
1) Timing. Did the server hold the dish? If not, I will be walking out the entree before the soup and salad get there. Potentially angering the guest.
2) Gathering the correct dishes for the table. If I don't do this, the cook will get angry.
3) Ticket overload. This usually happens when there are no complete tickets in the window. So I am unable to take a completed ticket to a table.
4) Location notification words: corner, behind, hot, sharp. Always making sure to use these when coming out of the kitchen and into the restaurant. All it takes is one time for someone to not use these notifications and a crash ends up happening.
So here's a question: given the high anxiety movies to come out lately (Whiplash, Uncut Gems) how has no one realized the potential for a movie about the stress of the restaurant industry? Well, my question was answere earlier this year in the form of a series for Hulu. It was called The Bear and my friend Aaron raved about it. Other friends in the service industry were astonished at how much it got right. So I jumped on it.
It wasn't just a series about the service industry though. It takes place in the same city where I live, Chicago. The south side to be more accurate. The way the show utilizes the city makes it feel alive. Whether it's a shot of the exterior of the Art Institute at night or Sydney waiting on the platform at a station for the Pink Line, The Bear integrates it beautifully.
The shit talking is something present in every kitchen. It can be used as a form of comeraderie or to just take the edge off. The shit talking can also be used negatively as we see in a scene where Carmen is at a Michelin starred restaurant in New York. The prep chef fucks up and order and causes Carmen to get behind. When a manager comes in, she is sent home. The manager then comes up to Carmen and proceeds to verbally assault him by whispering "You should be dead." into his ear. Unfortunately, this is something not uncommon in these types of environments. This type of abuse gets passed down from chef to chef. We see Carmen use it on people who he works with at The Beef. We see cooks use abuse tactics like weaponizing personal information. It all rears it's ugly head in Episode 7. A pressure cooker of an episode that is panic attack inducing.
People flipping out, strained relationships at home, the OCD levels of cleanliness that goes on in the kitchen permeates these episodes and gives it a level of authenticity I've rarely seen in depictions of the service industry. There's nothing glamorous about it. Not to mention, the impetus of Carmen taking on The Beef: the suicide of his brother who was the owner of the establishment. There are many long takes in this show. While the long take has been abused to the point of parody, this show wisely utilizes it effectively. They don't feel showy or forced. We are invested in the characters and the scene and not the filmmaking.
The restaurant industry is not for everyone. The anxiety is so high that it has driven several of it's employees to become alcoholics. But the people who love it, as evidenced by the characters in the show, have it envelop them.
Outside of Better Call Saul's stellar final season, The Bear is my favorite show of 2022 and I don't see anything topping it.
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