Discussion of Marsha's Industry Standard: Wearing the whites

The word we are looking for is poseur...?

Ding, ding, ding.

"Look at me...look at me"

I see ya baby!! You (and a few others) know that I generally work in a T-shirt (rather unprofessional to be sure, and I know Escoffier would probably crap in his checks if he knew) and I usually reserve and don the "show" for touching tables on the floor...On a side note, I would have MUCH more respect for any chef I see in "whites" out in public if he/she had their coat flung open, covered in tomato stains, grease, flour, sweat marks, and a few nasty oven burns, heading into some corner store for smokes and a Colt 45 after a rough shift. Hey, wait a minute....that's me!! (thankfully, I have that really cool title and my name on my coat so I can remember........)

Truthfully, I honestly have no qualms about seeing folks in whites in public. There's simply too many circumstances that one may be caught in for this to be a social norm. After work? Coming back from a tasting? Picking up subs for the crew? A box of cola? Investor meeting?

At the same time, I feel the poseur remark. 'Come Fire-Walk With Me...' is the rule. I don't care about anything else but the feeling I get from folks that are into it- that get it. I don't care if you're into your first semester, to me you are 'chef,' and should be given the respect of the work that I feel you are going to do...

What I really enjoyed about this article was the sense that the professional chef gives more to the community than everyone sees. It's true!

It's like being the friend that owns a truck- everybody always calls you when it's time to move.

To have a clean Chef coat- I just busted my ass in a busy kitchen for twelve hours and managed not to get anything on my coat, I am awesome!

To have a sanitary Chef coat- My coat is washed, dried, pressed, and free of harmful bacteria.

I find it dangerous I have to define the difference between CLEAN and SANITARY.

And I am taking your wager with me, I’ll take a Coke, you are wrong about coat cleaning services, as I said earlier. (hint, hint)

Mark -
Sorry, If I was misleading in my earlier post as I wasn't looking for the defined differences between clean and sanitary. Webster is more than helpful in those regards, pay special attention to the third definition of sanitary as an adjective.

I'll have something from Against the Grain at the conclusion of said wager.
My hints were dropped to the people that read this forum that perhaps are involved in the cleaning/rental of linens.
From a few minutes of research though there are over 1800 restaurants in Louisville (yahoo list the metro at 2300+). We can narrow down that field by focusing on those that actually employ "chefs". So we can throw out fast food and a lot of other things too (pizza, bbq, sandwich shops, etc).
We can certainly include the fine dining genre, upscale casual, and gastro-pubs, etc.
From the list of those categories of restaurants listed on Urban Spoon, Boo Rah, Yahoo, etc; I estimate that probably around 300 restaurants in Louisville actually employ those who wear the white coats. (sorry, but I'm not counting groceries or schools where white coats are part of the uniform)

So, my best guess is that at least half of those restaurants that have white coats are chains that issue standard uniforms cleaned by a service. So of the remaining 150 or so independent restaurants remaining that may employ white coats, how many do their own laundry?
"More than a handful" is easily covered by the chains alone and we haven't even started counting the number of independents that use linen services to clean their coats.
I believe you owe me a beer.

[Robin Garr]

So we can throw out fast food and a lot of other things too (pizza, bbq, sandwich shops, etc).

Chef Hungerford at Coals? Chef Ross at Meridian Cafe? Chef Paley at Garage Bar? Etc. I don't entirely disagree with your numbers, Shawn, but generalizations are always iffy ...

60% of the time it works everytime...

60% of the time it works everytime...

It's illegal in nine countries.

done here, my bad

Ha! Its hard enough getting enough side towels to get thru dinner service. I can't imagine relying on an owner/linen service collaboration that involves a clean coat for the entire staff at the beginning of each night. And someone here could probly name a couple, but which chains have their employees wear coats? Country clubs usually have big washer/dryers, but I wouldn't count that as linen service.

Robin, I was addressing the more casual pizza/bbq restaurants, sorry if my generalizations are misleading

Apparently all bets are off due to Mark F's facts, guess I'll be missing out on that beer.
Mark, please let me reassure you that I never claimed to have all of the facts relating to the white coats, only my belief that more than handful of restaurants employ a service to clean them.
Now that you have offered facts, I would like to know the "about fifty" restaurants that do not use a service for their white coats.
In a statement of fact, one presumes to have all the available information about a particular topic. I do not have all of that information, thus never presented my claims as fact.
However, I am wrong and you are out.
I am not intentionally provoking you on this topic, but you have presented far less evidence to validate your claim, than I have presented. You say you are basing your post on fact, but those facts are only from your experiences in the Louisville restaurant world.
There are hundreds of restaurants in Louisville than neither you or I are familiar with, much less do we know how they operate behind the scenes. There are a huge number of chains that equip their kitchen staff with white coats and there are several linen services that operate in Louisville that rent/lease/launder restaurant linens.

I would never claim that ALL white coats are handled by a linen service, but certainly more than a handful of independents/chains use a service.

We wash all of our restaurant laundry in house at the CPC, but of course we don't have white coats

my bad, I get carried away

M'K...

Majid's, Volare, Limestone and Corbett's.

This is a silly argument. We're friends here! The truth be told, chef's have an integral part in the community, whites or no.

Once again,

'We are the friends that own trucks.'

The crux of this piece is that the professional chef has a responsibility to the community outside of their own four walls.

And that we love this responsibility.

bnhjb

Mark you are my hero.

Well, I've refrained from posting on this thread for a couple of days because I just don't know what to say. I don't want to ruffle any feathers, but I've only worked at one restaurant which had the line cooks' jackets cleaned by a service, and it went out of business within 4 months. I don't personally know of ANY restaurant currently operating in the metro which has chef's jackets cleaned by a service, although I'm sure there are one or two exceptions. Probably there are a handful more which pay for the exec to have his or her jackets dry-cleaned, but chances are good he or she has to take them to the cleaner him or herself.

As for wearing coats outside of the kitchen, yes, I do wear my jacket on the way to work, and if I have to run an errand. It's my uniform. I do not change clothes every time I step foot outside the kitchen door. We are cooks, not nuclear scientists or microbiologists or surgeons. Caveat: a good chef NEVER wears his APRON to the bathroom - that would be unsanitary.

As for the scenario of four chefs having lunch in their whites, some of us are having a good laugh over that one. As if the whole line has time in the middle of the day to abandon the kitchen and eat lunch at another restaurant. If you see chefs in whites eating where they don't work, chances are excellent it's either A: after work or B: a business meeting.

Conscientious chefs strive for cleanliness on a daily basis as part of our routine. We wash hands dozens of times a day, until they chap. We wear gloves. We change aprons and side towels often. We keep our hair restrained. We are not wearing body stockings that get changed and cleaned by a service every time the kitchen door opens. I've spent many a half an hour after I should have been in bed ironing my whites for the next day's service. It's a misconception that "many," "most," or even "a lot" of chefs have a service to clean their whites. (A misconception I had no idea was floating around out there.)