Little known to the public but vital to the smooth running of a restaurant, expeditors set
the pace for the whole dining experience while managing the workflow of the kitchen
like an air traffic controller. Expeditors are usually unknown outside their particular
restaurant, and you have probably only noticed them in the abstract, if you noticed them
at all.
The work of a good expeditor is in the pacing of your dinner. It’s in the steadiness of the
room and the sense that everyone in the restaurant is moving to a single, unbreakable
rhythm. They are vital to smooth service. They fire dishes, signaling cooks exactly when
to push ahead and finish a dish, and they keep time, continuously planning the next
move.
Great expeditors are precise, strategic and terrifically organized, with an uncanny, up-
to-the-minute knowledge of all of the restaurant’s moving parts and an ability to
communicate with ease, clarity and speed. They can make the difference between
catching mistakes early or an error-filled night that drains morale and creates a negative
environment throughout an entire restaurant.
“It was the first thing one of our sous-chefs told me,” said Rebecca Raben, 26, who
works as an expeditor at Blue Hill at Stone Barns in Pocantico Hills, N.Y. “Things are
going to get crazy, but no matter what, stay calm. Because if you lose it, then it translates
everywhere — to the cooks, to the front of the house, everywhere!
There are few structured ways to learn an expeditor’s skills, other than on the job. And
though some restaurants train all their cooks in the basics of expediting, chefs say it’s a
particularly hard role to teach because it requires such a deep understanding of every
facet of the restaurant.
The expeditor is the unsung hero of the professional kitchen. They can enable great
service or stop an entire restaurant in its tracks.
It turns out...the quarterback of the kitchen is not always the chef.
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