When the Ticket Machine Won’t Stop | How Chefs Stay Calm in Chaos

🎙️ EP156 – 700 covers. Tickets spilling to the floor. Grill in freefall. This episode is about the nights everything falls apart, and why that’s where real cooks are made.

🎧 Topics Covered in This Episode:

🔥 Friday-Night Meltdown — When the pass loses the plot and how to reset

🧾 Ticket Tsunami — Reading, batching, and staying ahead of the board

🥩 Grill Triage — “Fire everything” vs. perfect sear and rest

🧠 Prioritize & Execute — Jocko’s playbook for the line

🧘 Detach to Survive — Mind control under pressure

🧮 Mental Mapping — Keeping six tables in your head without dying

📣 Expo Done Right — FOH-led pass calls and flow

🐻 The Bear IRL — What the show nails

🍜 Din Tai Fung — Systems, speed, and consistency at scale

🔥 Wok Logic — A la minute skill from Chinese & Japanese kitchens

🇵🇪 Chifa Legends — Javier Wong, ceviche + wok, and doing two things perfectly

📋 Small Menus, Big Impact — Why fewer dishes hit harder

🏗️ Kitchen as System — Leadership, stress management, and getting your grip back

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🔥 Enjoy!