Chương 35: The Kitchen's Traffic Cop

The crisis at table seven was lifted, like plugging the most dangerous breach in a dam about to burst. The kitchen's atmosphere, stretched to near-snapping, finally had a little room to breathe. But Chris knew it was only temporary. There were countless unseen cracks still in the dam, and if they weren't repaired in time, the next flood would only collapse it faster.

"Chris… what do we do now?" Sarah's voice was thin. She'd just witnessed a near-miraculous piece of cooking, but coming back to herself, looking at the mountain of tickets by the printer, the panic crept up her heart again. Chris didn't answer right away. He went to the ticket printer and rapidly scanned the long string of orders. His brain ran like a high-speed computer, quickly breaking the seemingly chaotic text into discrete, executable task modules.

"Two burgers, one Buffalo wings, three salmon, one medium strip…" He found a problem. No — he confirmed a problem he'd long anticipated. The kitchen's flow lines had completely broken down. Just now, refilling the grill's black pepper, Owen had carried a pot of scalding sauce straight across the kitchen, left to right. And at almost the same instant, a runner delivering freshly fried wings had rushed in from the pass on the right and nearly collided with him.

In normal times that might be a small accident, but during a dinner rush where seconds mattered, it was a disaster. It cut efficiency, and could cause serious safety incidents — burns, falls.

"We can't go on like this," Chris said gravely, lifting his eyes from the tickets to the whole kitchen layout. The kitchen's design itself was fine — a standard rectangle. Hot station, cold station, prep, dish pit, all reasonably distributed. The problem was the flow of people.

"Owen!" Chris's voice wasn't loud but full of penetration.

"From now on you're not fixed at the cold station. You're our team's floater. Your job is to keep every station supplied with raw materials and components. Understand? Jack's steaks, Jessica's salmon, Sarah's burger buns — anything, the moment they call for it, you get it to their hands in thirty seconds." Owen blinked, then nodded hard. The task sounded like gofer work, but he understood that in this situation, logistics mattered even more than the front line.

"Your route," Chris drew a line in the air with his finger, "starts from the cooler and dry storage at the back, runs along the outermost lane, and delivers to each station. Once you've resupplied, return to the back at once and stand by. Absolutely no cutting across the hot line. Got it?"

"Got it!" Owen answered loudly. He threw away the now-useless basket of fries, and for the first time there was a clear goal in his eyes.

"Sarah, your fryer, and Jessica, your sear station — shift them both a meter to the left," Chris went on.

"What?" Jessica was puzzled.

"We're in service — move equipment now?"

"Yes, right now." Chris's tone brooked no argument.

"Look — the runners' pickup route right now is in through the pass, grab your food, then squeeze back out. It's a two-way single lane; it'll jam sooner or later. Once you move left, we open a dedicated 'service highway' on the right side of the kitchen." He pointed at the floor.

"From now on, every runner enters through the right door, walks along the wall to the pass to pick up, and exits through the left. A one-way loop — no going against it, no stopping! I don't care what you're delivering — even if it's for God himself, you follow this route!" Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there. He said it not just to the team in the kitchen, but through the radio at his chest, directly to all the floor runners.

The radio was silent a few seconds, then the manager's hesitant voice came.

"Chris… are you sure? This changes a habit they've had all along."

"Change the habit, or drown in bad reviews. Pick one." Chris's answer was blunt. The manager fell silent again. A few seconds later, a firm voice rang out.

"All runners, did you hear Blue Team Chris's order? Do as he says! Anyone who won't follow, get out now!" The corner of Chris's mouth lifted, imperceptibly, for the first time. He knew he'd won initial command of the floor.

"Jack," he finally turned to the man at the grill, "your task is the heaviest, and the simplest. I call the tickets, you grill the steaks. Medium, medium-well, well-done, in the order I say. Don't worry about what the next ticket is, don't think about anything else. In your world there's only the iron in front of you and the steak in your hand." Jack raised his head and gave Chris a long look.

This young man, who'd been ordering him around moments ago, hadn't taken his grill after solving the Pittsburgh crisis — instead he'd given him the task that best played to his strength. Jack wasn't a good leader, but he was an excellent craftsman. Chris had seen through to that.

"Good." Jack spat out the single word. He gripped the tongs, and his eyes turned focused and sharp again. In a few short minutes, like a seasoned traffic cop, Chris had re-planned the kitchen's entire flow of people, materials, and information. The Blue Team kitchen, like a machine taken apart and rebuilt, began to run in a new and more efficient way. Owen moved like a wind, shuttling between back and front, keeping the ammunition stocked.

Between Sarah's and Jessica's stations, a wide "highway" appeared, runners coming and going swift as wind, the earlier jams and collisions gone. Jack was a silent executioner, precisely carrying out every grilling order Chris gave. And Chris himself stood at the pass, the hub of the whole floor. He had to handle the final mixing and saucing, and like a CPU, take in every ticket's information and issue orders to each "component."

"Eighth ticket, four-top, two burgers, one no pickle, one patty well-done! Sarah, did you hear? The well-done one, sear it a minute longer!"

"Ninth ticket, two-top, one salmon, one medium-well strip! Jessica, salmon skin crisp! Jack, medium-well, mind the rest time!"

"Mia! Tenth ticket has dessert! Lava cake, into the oven now! I want to see it in twelve minutes!" His voice rang through the kitchen — clear, calm, exact. The Blue Team's ticket speed climbed visibly. The mountain of backed-up orders was being digested at an astonishing rate. In the control room, the director and crew were stunned.

"My god… is this the Blue Team we know?" a young producer murmured. The director watched the monitor, where the green bar for the Blue Team's output was charging back, closing in, bit by bit, on the far-ahead Red Team.

"Quick! Cut to Chris! Close-up! I want every expression on his face, every order out of his mouth!" the director shouted in excitement.

"We found it! We found the ratings code for this season!" And in the Red Team kitchen, captain Ethan noticed the Blue Team's change too, through the wall-mounted monitor.

"They… steadied?" David said, finding it hard to believe. Just ten-some minutes ago the Blue Team had looked about to collapse. Ethan's brow knit. He saw the Blue Team's flow lines turn extraordinarily smooth, their coordination orderly. And the core of all that change pointed to the young man at the pass.

"Not steadied," Ethan said gravely.

"They… evolved." He picked up the radio, an imperceptible urgency in his voice.

"Red Team, listen up! Pick up the pace! The Blue Team's catching up — don't give them any room to breathe!" The war entered a white-hot phase. Chris knew nothing of it. His whole mind was fixed on the battlefield in front of him. He could feel the team's rhythm being drawn up by him, bit by bit. The panic and bewilderment were fading from their faces, replaced by a highly focused, machine-like precision. [Ding! Sub-quest 1: Flow-line correction complete. Team coordination efficiency +20%, service success rate projection revised to 88%.] Eighty-eight percent. Looking at the number, Chris felt not the slightest relaxation. Two final, and hardest, steps still stood between him and the 90% target. He knew the real test was still ahead. Ethan and his Red Team would never sit and wait to die. And in a kitchen running at high speed, the smallest failure of any one part could trigger a chain reaction that collapsed the whole system.

He had to watch every link that might break, like the most vigilant sentry. And just then, his gaze landed on Owen. Owen had just finished a resupply and was prepping the next batch of Caesar salad at the cold station. Chris saw him pick up the salt shaker — his wrist trembling slightly. Chris's brow furrowed.