Pilferage in the kitchen or 10 steaks take a walk

Nation's Restaurant News, Feb 11, 1991 by Andrew Katz

Pilferage in the kitchen or 10 steaks take a walk

I want to relate an experience I endured when I temporarily leased a restaurant to operate it and see what would happen, to determine what really causes the high mortality rate in the restaurant industry.

Protecting "my interests" was not my "employees' interests," as I was going to find out the hard way!

With 40 pounds of New York strip missing every week, what else could be disappearing, and how does it disappear? Hopefully, it didn't include that green stuff that is supposed to stay in my cash register!

My starting point was in the kitchen with the New York strip. The kitchen manager would have the answer because he is the kitchen manager! Well, he didn't but promised to find out for me and check into other items, freeing me to do other things, like playing owner.

A week later, while I was checking sales against purchases and matching them with what was left in storage, the 40 pounds of missing New York strip had dropped to only about 30 pounds missing. The chicken, ground round and flounder weren't balancing either! Maybe we had a hungry ghost.

I immediately called a meeting of the entire staff to let them know what I had discovered, hoping that they would offer some answers or suggestions. Well, they didn't, but they all promised they would help me find out what had happened to the missing items.

I knew they wouldn't, so unknown to everyone, I was going to set up my private inventory controls on a daily basis. At home, after closing, I was going to study about shrinkage, spoilage, wastes and more.

At this point I was just living at the restaurant. I must have scared off the ghost, because the kitchen inventory was now balancing perfectly. That is, until one Saturday morning, when I came in early, as usual, to check the inventory, before anyone else was there, and discovered another major shortage (about 10 pounds of New York strip). I knew what I had Friday after all of the orders were in, because I had double-checked all of the deliveries myself.

Of course, when my kitchen manager arrived, he didn't have the answer either. As far as I could figure, we had to have a ghost.

All I could think of at this moment was to have everyone enter and leave through the same door. "I will play guard if I have to; nobody is going to steal my food!"

I was starting to wonder when the glamorous part of this business was going to come around.

Four o'clock came with a shift change, and there I stood at the designated side door, next to my office, watching my "trusted" employees come and go. So far, so good. Everyone was in and out with the exception of my kitchen manager, but he wasn't in the kitchen either.

Someone said he went out the back door, because the new rule in effect didn't pertain to management. I was out of the back door like a gunshot and got to his car as he was getting in.

I knew I could create a lot of problems for myself for what I was about to do, but I had to take that chance. He was the only employee who didn't exit via the side door.

I asked to search his car and, when I did, found -- to my amazement -- absolutely nothing. He was in a fit of rage, threatening to sue me, but I wasn't finished!

I never thought I would ever point a gun at anyone and ask him to drop his pants! To my surprise, my restaurant ghost had 10 perfectly cut New York strips taped to his legs!

He certainly had a funny way of protecting my interests!

Andrew Katz is president of Workmasters Food & Beverage Consultants, Indian Rocks Beach, Fla.