Page 7 - Confessions Week 1

keep your eyes on the unseen prize you might not make it out. The

restaurant industry is a beast within itself. I know some of you are

saying “I used to work at such‐and‐such restaurant and it wasn’t so

bad.” I’m not talking about picking up a few shifts serving or bartending

to make some extra money. I’m speaking of living, breathing, eating,

shitting, and embodying the restaurant business.

There are so many similarities that some days I can’t tell if I’m

walking through a kitchen or the streets in North Philly. It sometimes

would be such a glaring comparison because at times even the sounds

and smells mirrored the blocks in North Philly. If you’ve ever worked in

or even just walked through a busy kitchen in any restaurant, especially

during a peak time you can imagine just what I imagine. You push

through that swinging door into the kitchen and you enter a whole

other world. Same way it feels when you enter North Philly. Isolated.

Separated from the rest of civilization.

So close to it all yet so far. If you walk through at the wrong

moment, you might just get ran over by somebody in more of a hurry

to get where they’re going than you. Each station in the kitchen is just

like the corner boys’ territories and as much as we want our people to

work together, it’s more like hostile co‐existing. I can hear the sizzle and

pop of the fry station as clearly as I remember the gun shots in the

steaming hot, hungry summer. You pass each station in the kitchen and

you hear each individual calling out for help and the response is