The Day The Hood Died

Over the course of 2 and a bit years, we've had a lot of services. Some have been a lot harder than others.

This is the story of one of the toughest services the team had to endure.

Going back to our very first week we had this post up on our social media

Here's the story as to what happened.

Kitchen's at the best of times are hot. Easily sitting at the 40-degree mark is standard. The exhaust system is responsible for sucking out the hot air and smoke from the equipment,  let's just say on this day we found out just how important they are.

In our opening week dealing with the monstrous queues, our team were pumping away in the kitchen.

All of a sudden the background noise just cut out and it went quiet. Really quiet.

At first, we didn't notice the noise level drop but then as we did we sure as hell noticed the temperature increase, very quickly.

As soon as we noticed the quietness and temperature increase the realisation that the hood had died hit us.

Before we could check the fuse for the hood the temperature in the kitchen had skyrocketed to an unbearable heat level. Like a fucking sauna. Pushing 65+ degrees.

It's not like we were half naked and relaxing, we were fully clothed and working fast and hard. That day I sweat from places I didn't even know you could sweat.

We tried to push on in the heat and serve the customers but as soon as we realised we would probably collapse we had to call no more orders. The restaurant was starting to fill with smoke and the temperature kept climbing.

We called no more orders but still had a full docket rail of easily 50 burgers to get through so we had to continue on in the heat to at least get these orders taken care of.

Richard, who was on the pass gave some of the team an option out, something along the lines of "whoever can't handle the heat can leave" but the team were committed and stuck together till the end. He rallied the troops and we pushed on for the next 30 minutes in the sauna/kitchen. 

Nearing the end of the dockets there was a loud banging and commotion from the back of the kitchen. My honest to god first thought was one of the boys just collapsed. I turned and luckily it was only a stainless steel bowl.

Now you think I'm exaggerating about the heat. That day in the Riff it was over 40 degrees in the shade, now imagine being in a room with the sun bearing onto the windows, no airflow and filled with equipment pumping out heat. You know how I know it was that hot, one of the chef's phone was sitting on a shelf and had the "phone overheated warning". That happens when the phone gets over 45 internally which needs a way hotter external temperature. The thermometer we had on hand confirmed a reading of 73.

We appreciate our exhaust system a lot more now.