STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — The kitchen is an understated, sacred space in a restaurant where the customer is the interloper. It’s so holy that as proprietor of the former American Grill, I can count on one hand the number of guests welcomed heartily by workers of the operation’s underbelly. In a recent conversation with Zane Tankel, the CEO and chairman of Apple-Metro, he reminded me of the protectiveness of such an inner sanctum. Applebee’s strictly prohibits any photos or discussions of the chef’s working playground.
But today, in this first column of the year and roughly the anniversary of my final days as a restaurant owner, I’ll bring you into the downstairs kitchen of American Grill in its Sunnyside location.
On a monumental Sunday, florescent lights lit the basement stage for a great spectacle to end the hands-on part of my food service career. After 15 years, I think enough time has passed to appreciate some of the lessons learned — and maybe see some humor in them.
Neel at the former American Grill kitchen with guest students for a cooking demo. (Staten Island Advance File Photo)
THE LAST DAY AT AMERICAN GRILL
That final day of service was going to be a busy one. My husband, David, would be cheffing an off-premise catering job. With a big event at neighboring Clove Lakes Park, lots of people had a similar mindset — book a brunch at American Grill just across the street.
We had over a hundred reservations by Saturday night, truly a record. And the new owners who would be working alongside me seemed pleased. What became apparent leading into the big day? Most of our kitchen crew were not.
That early Sunday morning in the quiet of the kitchen, it was just me, gussied up more than usual, our “abuelo” colleague named Martín and Mahinda Neel Hadunkutti, the pastry chef.
I was so excited thinking of the new mercies to come with no ownership — Friday nights dining at other people’s places, Saturday evenings at home in jim-jams listening to A Prairie Home Companion or a Sunday brunch at Cargo Cafe reading the Staten Island Advance. Freedom seemed palpable and, in my sheer mirth and simultaneous hope to savor the moment, the seconds in this day seemed to move slowly indeed.
As the Mexican radio station played Tengo La Camisa Negra — a favorite song of our crew where we normally all sang along at the top of our lungs — I suddenly realized the time...and that six men were missing from the ranks. And in this very gesture of not showing up to work, they demonstrated their displeasure with the future we so desired.
Like a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs, the tangibility of impending doom played out in that cellar. The pearl-clutching ridiculousness of it all made me giddy — no bacon was prepped, no eggs were cracked and pooled, no Hollandaise sauce had been started. Neel and Martín plugged along peeling potatoes and prepping fruit platters, instinctively knowing to move faster as we accepted reality.
Curiously, when the new guy in charge arrived, he didn’t seem rattled by the news. On the contrary, he confidently announced something to the effect of “I got this.” And if there’s one thing I learned over the years from working with men in the kitchen, it’s this: let them take charge for as long as womanly possible.
Upstairs, the sun shone through the windows and the people started coming in the door. Two parties of my most favorite Sunday regulars arrived first — one headed by the pastor of a local Lutheran church with his wife alongside and the other with our landlady’s family. As soon as their orders were punched in, I ran down the stairs to make sure, at the very least, they got their food.
By the time I arrived at the expediting station, the kitchen tickets started rolling in — chit chit chit chit chit — and did not stop. This man behind the stove looked at me like a deer in the headlights but he produced two tables-worth of Eggs Benedict orders almost to completion — and I accepted that — but with no Hollandaise sauce. Neel had assumed the salad station and had just filled a squeeze bottle of beige-yellow champagne vinaigrette. That’s how I finished the eggs and out the door the dishes went.
After that, servers came downstairs in tears. One gal refused to leave the kitchen fearing the gaggles of hungry and anxious customers. It wasn’t pretty. I went to all the tables and apologized offering no explanations but gift certificates for a later visit.
The pastor’s table-mates watched the scene go down around them and they waited until most of the guests had left the dining room. The pastor’s wife called me over and said something like, “Well, at least we got our food. But, Pam, was that salad dressing on my eggs?”
Yours truly in the American Grill underbelly, circa 2006. (Staten Island Advance File Photo)
Back down under the florescent lights, I asked Martín where the guys were. He told me they were at a place called Garibaldi on Water Street in Stapleton. I’d never been there prior to that, a grocery store heavily stocked with packaged dried peppers and Mexican sundries. At the back past the register and refrigerated display case was a restaurant and my guys were sitting around one of the tables with about a dozen empty Corona longnecks in front of them.
I said, “Que paso, amigos?” I explained that this was Patron and Patrona’s last night of ownership at the American Grill and by not coming that evening they were doing us a personal disfavor. Anyway, they showed up for their dinner shift and together we muddled through that last supper.
We still keep in touch. A couple have gone back to Mexico. The others still work in restaurants around the Island. Neel has been for some time now in the kitchen at the Richmond County Country Club and is very happy. He tells me that this inner sanctum on Todt Hill even has a window up by the ceiling.
Pamela Silvestri is Advance Food Editor. She can be reached at silvestri@siadvance.com.
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