It's been nearly a year since I've left the restaurant business and it didn't feel real until recently. After fifteen years in the food & beverage business, I started to believe that my work life would only be defined by what I did everyday in those kitchens. It controls almost every aspect of who you are and it starts to become difficult to have a life outside of it. For some, this lifestyle works and they live and breathe restaurants, I just can't anymore.
While I absolutely love everything about the food & beverage business, enough to write this blog, I really needed a life instead. I know that some of my chef friends that read this will criticize my decision but to each his own. October 5th, 2010 is when I started to work for Whole Foods. I was definitely anxious, nervous, and basically unsure when I started with this company on whether or not it was for me. It was so ingrained in my head that if I call myself a chef, I would have to work in the nicest restaurants and build my reputation up so that I could one day open my own restaurant. While I believe that I could definitely have a successful restaurant, I would never be happy with the lack of time that I could spend with my wife and future kids.
Having the job I have now, and having the free time in my life that I have, it has inspired something inside of me to speak of my Life on the Line. This will be a series of blog entries that will talk about the typical day that we would have and some of the fires that come up (not literally) that we have to be creative enough to put out. It's a stressful, chaotic, intense, and addictive career choice if you find that it's in your blood. To those that are contemplating this lifestyle, choose wisely. While it can be a very rewarding side of the Food & Beverage business, it can also make you miss some important milestones in one's life. Here we go.
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