David & Goliath

“David & Goliath”

By Scott Bright

January 20, 2023

The body lay on the floor, but we kept cooking as if nothing happened. After all, it was only Carlo. A big fat six-foot-four good-for-nothing slow prep-cook. This incident was long overdue. If you have ever seen the seventy-five-foot cooking line on a Friday or Saturday night at the Cheesecake Factory in Chicago, it would remind you of thirty prison rioters dressed in white, frantically slinging plates and pans.  

Most of us wouldn’t consider the Cheesecake Factory the mecca of gastronomy. We might think of this restaurant as a pretentious flamboyant mall attraction boasting a phonebook-sized menu. In addition to the ginormous selection from Thai to Tex-Mex, you are bombarded with page after page of advertisements egregiously invading your eyes all through the menu. If that weren’t enough, once inside, the decor was something from Alice in Wonderland collides with Willie Wonka. This attack on your senses could only take place after you waited in line for four hours at the bottom of the Hancock Building in Chicago. Hopefully, there was enough room in the cramped lobby during the winter months. They don’t call Chicago, the Windy City for nothing.  

Then there is the hero of the story or maybe the anti-hero of the story, a small young man like David, Manuel (Manny). No, Manny didn’t help Carlo off the floor. He didn’t revive him mouth to mouth or dial 911. There wasn’t an AED involved. Manny was special that night and earned the status many dream of earning. At ninety-five pounds and under five feet tall, Manny was the fastest saucier I’d ever seen. While plating, he’d have to jump to reach the plates on the top deck. A Friday or Saturday night averaged around $100,000.00 to $150,000.00 just for dinner. One-fifth of that was from the sauté station. This restaurant at the time earned revenues in food sales alone of $28,000,000.00 per year. Manny rarely needed to be bailed out leading his four-man team on the sauté station.

This night was particularly unusual. Manny needed help. However, what was not unusual was the Carlo versus Manny saga, David & Goliath. Carlo, the loudmouth philistine, continually bullied Manny to the point everyone wanted to kick Carlo’s head in. Once noticing Manny’s situation, I handed over the expeditor position to the front house manager and dove into expediting on the sauté line. Yes expediting. Each of the ten stations had its own designated printer, with the main expeditor station having a master printer showing all stations. It was kind of like juggling monkeys who were juggling chainsaws. 

Amidst all this chaos, Carlo, who usually is barely capable of portioning proteins into baggies or shredding cheese also was required to remove trash from the service line about every half hour or so. Carlo never missed an opportunity to harass Manny. Why should one of the busiest nights be any different? Carlo was in for a surprise. Carlo and Johnny, a dishwasher, were weaving down the service line sweeping and dragging trash bags. If I’d have my way, Carlo would be a plongeur, scrubbing pots and pans in Lake Michigan. Carlo was obviously well-loved.

Well, Carlo was predictable. He grabs Manny like a rag doll and pretends to place him into the trash can calling him his little B!#($. He laughs, and I yell at him to move. As I start to call out another order, while plating, Manny jumps as high as he can, swinging a sauté pan from his hips arching the pan over his head with all the force he could muster, and blasts Carlo in the back of the head. As Carlo’s head lurches forward his knees start to buckle, the trash bags fall loose from his limp hands, and he falls face first kneeling over the bags like he was praying. The sound of the pan hitting Carlo’s head stops all the chaos for a split second. Maybe it was my imagination, but it seemed as if silence happened for just a moment. I looked at Carlo’s limp body praying to the tile floor. I glanced over at Manny still holding the pan. He must have turned to the stove immediately after hitting Carlo because it looked as if he was frozen in mid-sauté action. He was just staring at the 12-burner stove, clutching the pan and shaking. He probably thought he signed his death warrant or would be fired. I glanced over at the manager expediting, turned the corners of my mouth down, shrugged one shoulder, and rolled my eyes like I knew nothing.

I looked at the ticket in my hand and started to call out another dish, then realized I should be somewhat sympathetic to Carlo, or maybe just get his sorry carcass out of the way, so I yelled at Johnny to get Carlo to the back. We resumed cooking as if nothing happened. It took Johnny a moment to get Carlo’s, on a good day, foggy attention. Johnny finally got Carlo to his feet and helped him to the back. No one bothered to see if Carlo was okay. Manny still shaking but performing out of muscle memory and still faster than anyone I’d seen. The other three cooks on the line said nothing and acted as if nothing happened. Occasionally, we would look at one another a break into laughter or in our mightiest Viking battle lord voice give a loud YES!

No one ever said a word about what happened. Word spread that Carlo was probably drinking the salted cooking wine in the back, the heat, and being a fat pig caused him to collapse. The lack of sympathy should have been a shock. Carlo made himself unlikable and picked on the smallest person in the kitchen. Manny however received head nods, high fives, and gestures of leaping slam dunks, and for weeks we would step aside with our arms back and hands up like we were surrendering. Manning had just scored the homerun that won the World Series.

Carlo never asked what happened. Maybe his embarrassment kept his big mouth shut. Maybe he thought he passed out from the heat, cooking wine, and overworking. Hah, not a chance! He never attempted to pick on or tease Manny again. He would even ask Manny if there was anything he needed. This was like witnessing David and Goliath, except Manny didn’t cut off Carlo’s head. But he did try to knock it off his shoulders.