History of me, Part 1

I started out: a week at Burger King in Belle Vernon, Two days at Pizza Hut in Charleroi, sporadic shifts as a bus boy at Rego's in Charleroi then hired as a bus boy at a place on the Monongahela river called Snooter's Galley and Pub. I was fired the first day because the owner didn't like the tattoo on my leg (the uniform required shorts). Well, I wasn't really fired, I was given the option to work in the kitchen. 1993, I started out as a prep cook at Snooter's (I got to skip that all important roll as a grunt in the dishpit, I've made up for that since then) after the summer season passed there was really not much business at all. Most of the higher paid employees where let go and I started being trained on the fry station. Dano Whyle and Mike DiMarco where the chefs at Snooter's, Mike taught me something new every day even when he didn't know that he was. Before long, he and I and a fellow cook we nick-named Tool, where doing 50 to 100 covers a night along with banquets off the line as the summer started to roll in. 1994. After graduating high school all I wanted to do was work and try to figure out what I was going to do for the rest of my life and what I was going to go to college for. I spent that summer working 60 hours a week and not thinking much of it, it just seemed natural, I worked hard and I played hard. I usually wouldn't get home til 4 in the morning and then go into work at 1 or 2 and do it all over again. I was having a blast! I thoroughly loved what my life was.
Before the summer season swung into full effect, Mike left to open his own place in Uniontown and I was moved up to Sous Chef. I was 17 and on salary and left alone by the Chef a lot to run a fairly large kitchen and a staff that was all older then me.
I was the king of the saute station, I loved getting my ass kicked (at least that's how I remember it now) and we had so much fun doing it, we sang along to Weezer's first album and Ill Communications from the Beastie Boys, we would stop in the middle of a rush to do a synchronized guitar solo at the same time. Tool and I where both out of high school and pretty much running some one's restaurant. That someone was a raging drunk.
There was a boat showroom and repair shop attached to the restaurant. One day the owner asked me to help direct him with a forklift to put a boat up, he almost killed me. Then one day he accused me of stealing 5lbs of shrimp, I quit. I've never stolen anything and I don't lie. I don't put up with anyone accusing me of anything like that.
I then enrolled in Johnson and Whales university in Charleston SC, I moved there a couple months early to get a job and just get out of PA. I worked in a fry shack for a couple weeks then got a job on Kiawah Island working for a guy named Jeff....something. There were J&W students working in the same kitchen I was and the Chef, Sous Chef and the GM, Mo Sussmen just tore them apart for how they worked. I was treated very well by all of them. I was young, not in college yet, and was preferred by the Chef over the student workers to work grill. He bought me a beer one night and sat me down and told me about his school, he told me about the CIA in Hyde Park and asked me not to waste my time at J&W. Soon after that I was moving back home for mostly personal reasons, but his talk and my experience with culinary students of J&W, pushed me in a new direction. I couldn't afford the CIA and I didn't want to be too far away from my girlfriend at the time. So, I went to IUP Academy of Culinary Arts and graduated with High Honers in the summer of 1997.
Then, I moved south for good.









2008, today, I've quit my job, I'm getting on a plane to go to Charleston in 5 hours. I have a job lined up that starts in just over a month. I'm going to show a possible investor the city that I love more then any other. I'm going to meet with other possible investors and look at possible restaurant locations.
This path of mine feels like it's been a long one, and really really hard at times. But, I've met some of the most incredible people just by cooking. I get to go to work and do something I love to do every day and meet people that are like me that have the same interests as me and care about what I care about. We're all so different and the same. They have been my rotating family. They have been closer to me then some of my own real family members. Most of these people I will never see again. It's an amazing field.
The family I am leaving now has stood up with me and pulled through some amazing services against some of the worst conditions I've ever worked in. They have made me a stronger person and a better leader. They softened my heart to understand what it's like to work with myself from 1993 and give guidance, support and knowledge. I'll remember them forever as people that cared about me and would work hard for me because they did. I will miss them.


This blog started to document the job I started over two years ago, it will be taking a new direction now.