the family meal

eat together as a family

For most people, a family meal is a dinner shared among relatives at home. For restaurant workers, it’s a meal cooked in an industrial kitchen, served on prep counters, and eaten while sitting on milk crates. It’s not glamorous, but that’s the point.

In Hulu’s hit series “The Bear,” family meal is the only thing that can stop the constant bickering among restaurant staff at The Beef. In a tear-jerking season finale montage, they laugh and share stories together while twirling forkfuls of homemade spaghetti (the recipe for which went viral). It’s a beautiful scene, and apparently, it’s a pretty accurate portrayal of family meal.

“It’s an opportunity for the whole team to come together and become a family before the fast-paced hit of dinner service,” said Daniel Kenney, executive chef at Clink in Boston. “The restaurant industry, the hospitality industry, it’s pretty demanding. Family meal is that give back. It shows the team that you really care.”

what is a family meal?

A family meal or staff meal is a group meal that a restaurant serves its staff outside of peak business hours. The restaurant provides the meal free of charge, as a perk of employment. Typically the meal is served to the entire staff at once, with all staff being treated equally, like a "family". The restaurant's own chefs (traditionally, but not always, the lowest in the pecking order) prepare the meal, often using leftover or unused ingredients. As a result usually the meals don't involve dishes on the restaurant's regular menu. Chefs may also use the family meal to experiment with new recipes, or simply whip up something from their own ethnic backgrounds.

why do restaurants have a staff or family meal?

For those who work in the restaurant industry, however, “family meal” has a different connotation, even if it’s not entirely dissimilar.

Family meal — or staff meal — is a longstanding restaurant tradition whereby the kitchen prepares a simple, satisfying meal for the staff to share before opening the doors to customers. The consensus among restaurant workers is that it’s a ritual that appears to be in decline.

But for restaurants that make the effort, even when time and finances make it difficult, family meal can play an important role in keeping the staff focused, and helping a hectic, high-pressure workplace feel more like a home.

“You look at how a team performs after they have a family meal, and how a team performs if they don’t,” says Ryan Swanson, chef de cuisine at Kai, the flagship restaurant at the Sheraton Grand at Wild Horse Pass and one of the Valley's most prestigious dining destinations. “(When they don’t), everyone’s a bit angry — 'hangry' — but if you have a full meal and you have something to sustain you through the night, you feel more productive. It’s tradition."

“You look at how a team performs after they have a family meal, and how a team performs if they don’t”. ---ryan swanson

Depending on the restaurant, each family meal, also called staff meal, looks different. But usually, it’s served daily around 4 p.m., before the pre-shift meeting. Most often, cooking it is a group effort by kitchen staff who use leftovers, extra produce, or specially ordered non-menu items. The food is served buffet style for waiters, hosts, chefs, washers, and management alike.

The cuisine served at family meal doesn’t always line up with that of the restaurant. At Bar Enza, an Italian restaurant in Cambridge, “anything goes,” said executive chef Tony Susi. “You don’t wanna keep serving the same stuff over and over again.”

“I don’t like to put out junk food for staff meal,” Susi said. “I don’t like to cook something heavy or fried because something like that slows you down during service.”

Bar Enza staff usually eat family meal in one of the restaurant’s private dining rooms or at their stations while prepping for service. Conversation can be work-related, about service experiences from the previous night or upcoming events, but more often, the staff talks about “anything that’s going on in the world,” Susi said. “It definitely affects staff morale.”

Harvest, in Cambridge, does family meal a similar way, focusing on variety, nutritional value, and staff preferences.

“It’s a lot of comfort food as opposed to fancy restaurant food,” said executive chef Nick Deutmeyer. “People want something familiar.”

At Harvest, family meal is assigned to a different cook every day. Deutmeyer sees it as a teaching opportunity.

“The cook and I will go to the walk-in together and see what’s kicking around,” he said. “It’s kind of like a ‘Chopped’ basket. . . . We gather up those products and look at them like, ‘OK, what can we do to turn this into a really nice family meal?’”

Previous meals have consisted of “gyro casserole” made with leftover roasted leg of lamb; a strata, or savory bread pudding, made with leftover handmade pizza; and mustard-roasted chicken thighs, which the staff has at least once a week. “I don’t think anyone ever gets sick of them,” Deutmeyer said.

Chicken thighs are a go-to for family meal at many restaurants because while chefs purchase whole chickens for their menus, people tend to order breasts more often than thighs. This means there’s always extra in the stock room — and prepping them for family meal is much better than throwing them out.

The cooks at Harvest, most of whom are from South America, also like to “bring flavors from their home countries, like fried plantains,” Deutmeyer said. His staff eats family meal together at a long table in the dining room or on the restaurant’s patio.

“The reason why we do it is to bring a little normalcy to everyone’s lives. The staff can rely on it always being there,” Deutmeyer said.

Family meal is a convenient means of eliminating waste, but restaurants purchase food for it as well. At Clink, Kenney has to. The hotel restaurant serves three meals a day, with a family meal before each one. Leftovers alone are not enough to feed everyone. And with the dining room constantly in use, staff eat in a separate cafeteria.

“It’s just as important as serving our guests that pay for their meals,” Kenney said. “It’s a meal that the employees pay for with their effort.”

At Clink, family meal can be prepared by anyone from the head chef to a steward.

“It’s a source of pride and sometimes a great outlet for creativity from potentially somebody who doesn’t always get a chance to be so creative,” Kenney said.

Once a month, Kenney and his staff have a “culture day” where they pick a country and use it as the inspiration for family meal. They decorate the cafeteria with flags and play the nation’s music while eating. If anyone on staff is from that country, they’ll get to help design the menu. The next culture day country will be Colombia at the end of the month. Menus have already been written and posted in the hallways.

“On Thanksgiving, everybody’s getting fresh turkey and all the sides,” Kenney said. “They get the whole nine yards, the full meal, the pies, the ice cream. July 4th, everybody’s getting burgers and barbecue chicken. Those type of days are really great to give back.”

videos on family meals

Family Meal at Louise with Chef Franckelie Laloum | Hong Kong

Family Meal is a mini-documentary series from Tatler Hong Kong that features a behind-the-scenes peek into the interstitial between-lunch-and-dinner-service space with the chefs and restaurant teams who embody the city's spirit of innovation, creativity, and culture.

At Louise in Hong Kong, Chef Franckelie Laloum's team sits down for a pre-dinner service staff meal featuring Moroccan cous cous, roasted chicken, and lamb spicy sausage.

"Staff meal is very important for us," Laloum says. "There is no barrier—there is no barrier for us, there is no chef, there is no commis, we are all together."

"The Staff Meal At Noma" by Simon Ladefoged

Danish photographer and filmmaker Simon Ladefoged captures what Noma founder Rene Redzepi calls his restaurant's 'family meal,' revealing what the chefs at the world's best restaurant cook for each other.

Staff Meals: What do the chefs at Restaurant Born eat during their shifts?

What do chefs eat during their shifts? Along with Leon Chua of Uncle Lim Chiak, we go into the kitchen to find out what the chefs at Restaurant Born fill their stomachs with while they are on duty.

Staff Meal - Motelombroso

The staff are the backbone of every restaurant and even more so at @motelombroso on the Naviglio Pavese, a former road worker’s house with a hedonistic flavor and contemporary aesthetic. A place of leisure and wellbeing, as owners Alessandra Straccamore and Matteo Mazza like to define it. And behind the gourmet menu, premium ingredients and elaborate preparation, is the kitchen gang: Nicola, Amir, Andrea and Igor.

Nicola Bonora is the ringleader, teasing the team with nicknames and jokes. His righthand man Amir Sahbani handles antipasti and bread-making, nimbly dancing between the two stations. Igor Kumarasiri, shy and reserved, is in charge of hot dishes. And Andrea Terramoccia is stingy with the salt, which is why he’s on desserts. These diverse characters and backgrounds make for a winning recipe in the kitchen. Staff meal is their space.

in conclusion

There are other ways of giving back, though. Table restaurant in the North End doesn’t do the traditional family meal. “My staff is just too small,” said chef and owner Jen Royle. Instead, Royle has a policy: “If you work in my restaurant, you are to never be hungry. There is absolutely no excuse. . . . You can eat whatever you want, whenever you want.

That is my family meal.”However it’s done, family meal brings people together. And in an industry that’s known for its stressful environment, it’s a necessary breather. “We cook all day,” Deutmeyer said, “but this meal in particular we’re cooking for our own people. We wanna make sure we make it with love.”

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