Tropical smoothie menu

Title pretty much covers it. Remodeling or permanent?

Hello all! I was born in Cuba, but lived my whole life in the US in Miami, so I always had lots of Cuban food options around. I moved to Greenville last year and I love the food scene here, but I still haven't found a decent Cuban restaurant. I found an older thread in the sub that recommended a food truck but when I drove there a Venezuelan dude had bought it and changed the menu :(. Yes, I've tried tropical grille and it's honestly subpar quality especially for the price. The location closest to me is the one in the Publix plaza in Pelham. Do you guys recommend any restaurants with good Cuban food? Also, Puerto Rican and Domincan food are fairly similar so I'm open to trying those as well. Thanks in advance!

I work in a quiet office setting with at most 3 other people at a time. 1 of those people, we will call her Debra. Debra is a very nice person. She is my supervisor. She is a kind and considerate boss, and one of the best bosses I've ever had, honestly. In every other way than the that she is a misophonia monster. She is like a misophonia machine designed to tick every box of my misophonia triggers, at all time, through every work day. She sniffles all day, she smacks her mouth when she eats and you can hear every wet chew. She has a large drink on her desk at all times, and after every sip of the straw she loudly smacks her lips. I have not known anyone else to do that. Whenever she eats, she likes to talk through her mouthful of food. It is almost as if she prefers to talk when she's eating. She will be quiet for awhile, then start eating and start talking. She squeaks her shoes around on the floor mat and leans around in her chair causing squeaking. She also pronounces words the wrong way often, which sets off a similar but not quite as strong feeling to me than the eating and sniffing noises.
This is the worst thing about my job. I can deal with everything else, angry customer service phone calls, tedious tasks, etc. This is the worst thing. I even made a little song that goes through my head as I am being barraged with misophonia sounds "sniff sniff sniff, smack smack smack, this is going to give me a heart attack"
I got earplugs..they are called "Eargasm High Fidelity Earplugs" and they have helped a lot..at first I was like..these are a lifesaver. And yet, it is almost as if Debra is trying to find a way around my defenses. The earplugs do successfully block eating sounds but still allow me to hear talking. However, when I am wearing the earplugs I can still hear the sniffling and it is as if the sound filtering on the earplugs *highlights* the sniffling more than when I am not wearing them. Also, if she has a tropical smoothie, she will make a louder smack on the straw when sipping and I can definitely hear it through the earplugs. So what will happen is I will have the earplugs in when she is eating because I hate the sound of chewing more than the sniffling, but then I will take them out when she is not eating so the sniffling won't bother me as much. If she is having a smoothie, I will hear it either way.
She seems to always bring food in, breakfast and lunch, and when she goes to lunch she will go out to lunch for the full hour but then bring food back to eat it in the office. Why can't she just eat when she is at lunch.
She had tic-tacs for a straight couple of weeks once before I found the earplugs and would open mouth suck and crunch them and it was torturous. I would go hide in the bathroom for a break for as long as I could reasonably or find an excuse to walk somewhere. I am glad she is through her tic-tac phase.
Anyway. I have just wanted to vent. I like this job overall. But this is just wearing on me.

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Spice & Herb Origins

You are a chef, spice and herb expert and culinary Master. I want you to list, organize and explain every spice and herb in existence Categorically based on location of origin. Including rare and exotic spices and herbs as well as common house hold versions. I want this list to contain every spice and herb in existence with a 2 sentence explanation about the herb and spices
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ChatGPT
As an AI text-based model, I can certainly provide you with a comprehensive list of spices and herbs based on their location of origin, along with brief explanations. However, please note that it's virtually impossible to capture every single spice and herb in existence in a single list, as new ones are discovered or created over time. Nevertheless, I will include a wide range of common, rare, and exotic spices and herbs for your reference. Here is the list organized by location:
Indian Subcontinent:
Turmeric: A vibrant yellow spice with a warm and earthy flavor, commonly used in curries and known for its anti-inflammatory properties.
Cardamom: A fragrant spice with a sweet and citrusy taste, used in both sweet and savory dishes, known for its digestive benefits.
Cumin: A pungent spice with a warm and nutty flavor, widely used in Indian and Middle Eastern cuisines, and known for its aid in digestion.
Mediterranean:
Oregano: A robust herb with a peppery and slightly bitter taste, often used in Italian and Greek dishes, particularly in tomato-based sauces and on pizza.
Rosemary: A fragrant herb with a pine-like aroma and a slightly bitter flavor, commonly used in Mediterranean cuisine, especially with roasted meats and potatoes.
Saffron: A highly prized spice derived from the dried stigmas of crocus flowers, it has a distinct floral aroma and imparts a rich golden color to dishes, often used in paella and risotto.
East Asia:
Ginger: A zesty and aromatic root with a warm and slightly spicy flavor, widely used in Asian cuisines, known for its digestive and anti-inflammatory properties.
Star anise: A star-shaped spice with a licorice-like flavor, used in Chinese cuisine and commonly found in five-spice powder and various soups and braised dishes.
Lemongrass: A citrusy and refreshing herb with a delicate flavor, commonly used in Thai and Vietnamese cuisines, especially in soups, curries, and teas.
Middle East:
Sumac: A tangy and slightly fruity spice with a deep red color, often used in Middle Eastern cuisine as a flavor enhancer for salads, meats, and rice dishes.
Za'atar: A blend of dried herbs including thyme, oregano, and sumac, mixed with sesame seeds and salt, commonly used in Middle Eastern cooking as a seasoning for bread, meats, and vegetables.
Baharat: A spice blend consisting of warm spices like black pepper, cinnamon, cardamom, and cloves, used in Middle Eastern dishes, particularly in meat preparations and rice dishes.
South America:
Aji amarillo: A bright yellow chili pepper with a fruity and slightly floral flavor, commonly used in Peruvian cuisine to add heat and depth to various dishes, such as ceviche and sauces.
Cilantro: An herb with a distinct and refreshing flavor, often used in Mexican and Latin American cuisines, particularly in salsas, guacamole, and as a garnish.
Annatto: A reddish-orange spice derived from the seeds of the achiote tree, used in Latin American cuisines for its vibrant color and mild peppery flavor, commonly found in dishes like rice, stews, and marinades.
Africa:
Harissa: A fiery chili paste made from roasted red peppers, spices, and herbs, commonly used in North African cuisine as a condiment or flavoring agent for soups, stews, and grilled meats.
Berbere: An aromatic spice blend containing chili peppers, ginger, garlic, and various other spices, widely used in Ethiopian and Eritrean cuisines to flavor stews and sauces.
Grains of paradise: A peppery and slightly citrusy spice similar to black pepper, native to West Africa, used to season meats, soups, and spice blends.
Please note that this list is by no means exhaustive, but it provides a glimpse into the diverse array of spices and herbs found across different regions.

I want this to be an exhaustive list of all known spices and herbs including rare and expensive ingredients. Do not spare a single detail, and use all your resources to compile this list.
ChatGPT
I apologize for the confusion, but compiling an exhaustive list of all known spices and herbs, including rare and expensive ingredients, would be an enormous task that goes beyond the scope of this text-based conversation. There are thousands of spices and herbs used in various culinary traditions worldwide, and the knowledge of such ingredients is continually expanding and evolving.
Additionally, it's important to note that spices and herbs can vary in their availability depending on factors such as seasonality, cultivation, and regional accessibility. Some rare and expensive ingredients may be difficult to source or may only be found in specific regions or markets.
However, I can provide you with a more comprehensive list of spices and herbs from various regions to broaden your understanding of the vast range of culinary ingredients. Please let me know if you'd like me to proceed with that approach.

Lidt at least 150 rare spices and herbs including and not limited to house hold varieties as well as lesser known herbs and spices
ChatGPT
Certainly! Here is a list of 150 rare spices and herbs, including both household varieties and lesser-known ingredients:
Grains of Paradise: A peppery spice with citrusy undertones, resembling black pepper.
Ajowan: A pungent spice with a thyme-like flavor, commonly used in Indian and Middle Eastern cuisines.
Asafoetida: A strong-smelling spice with a savory flavor, used as a flavor enhancer in Indian and Middle Eastern cooking.
Epazote: A Mexican herb with a strong, earthy flavor, often used in bean dishes and salsas.
Long Pepper: A spice resembling black peppercorns but with a more complex and subtle flavor.
Mace: The dried outer covering of nutmeg, with a warm and aromatic flavor used in both sweet and savory dishes.
Cubeb Pepper: A spice with a peppery and slightly sweet flavor, often used in Indonesian and North African cuisines.
Grains of Selim: An African spice with a smoky and slightly bitter flavor, used in West African dishes.
Sarawak Pepper: A high-quality black pepper variety from Malaysia, known for its strong aroma and fruity undertones.
Juniper Berries: Small, blue berries with a pine-like flavor, commonly used in Scandinavian and Northern European cuisines.
Shiso: A Japanese herb with a unique flavor profile that combines mint, basil, and citrus notes.
Nigella Seeds: Tiny black seeds with a nutty and slightly bitter taste, often used in Indian and Middle Eastern cooking.
Lovage: A perennial herb with a flavor reminiscent of celery and parsley, used as a seasoning and in soups.
Sichuan Pepper: A spice with a citrusy and numbing effect, commonly used in Chinese cuisine, particularly in Sichuan dishes.
Epice du Cru: A French spice blend consisting of various aromatic herbs and spices, often used in French cooking.
Grains of Heaven: A spice similar to cardamom but with a more pungent and resinous flavor, native to West Africa.
Kaffir Lime Leaves: Fragrant leaves with a citrusy flavor, commonly used in Thai and Southeast Asian cuisines.
Anise Hyssop: A herb with a licorice-like flavor, often used in teas, desserts, and savory dishes.
Mahlab: Ground cherry pits with a sweet and nutty flavor, used in Middle Eastern baked goods.
Voatsiperifery Pepper: A rare and wild pepper variety from Madagascar, known for its complex and fruity taste.
Saffron Crocus: The flower stigmas used to produce saffron, one of the most expensive spices in the world, prized for its vibrant color and delicate flavor.
Schinus Molle: Also known as Pink Peppercorns, these berries have a sweet and mildly spicy flavor, often used in gourmet dishes.
Chervil: A delicate herb with a mild anise-like flavor, used in French cuisine, particularly in salads and egg dishes.
Tasmanian Pepperberry: Native to Australia, these berries have a unique, fruity, and spicy flavor, often used in spice blends and marinades.
Grains of Selim: A spice with a smoky and mildly hot flavor, used in West African cuisine to season meats, soups, and stews.
Angelica: A fragrant herb with a musky and bitter flavor, commonly used in Scandinavian and Eastern European cuisines.
Pandan Leaves: Fragrant leaves used in Southeast Asian cooking to add aroma and flavor to desserts and rice dishes.
Black Garlic: Fermented garlic with a soft and sweet flavor, often used as a gourmet ingredient in various cuisines.
Vietnamese Balm: An herb with a citrusy and minty flavor, commonly used in Vietnamese cooking in salads and soups.
Japanese Knotweed: A tart and tangy herb used in jams, pies, and sauces, resembling the flavor of rhubarb.
Perilla: A herb with a unique flavor profile, combining mint, basil, and anise notes, commonly used in Korean and Japanese cuisines.
Tasmanian Pepperleaf: The leaves of this native Australian plant have a spicy and peppery flavor, used to season meats and seafood.
Sweet Cicely: An herb with a sweet and anise-like flavor, often used in desserts and as a natural sweetener.
Grains of Paradise: A West African spice with a warm and peppery flavor, commonly used in spiced beers and ales.
Lemon Verbena: A fragrant herb with a strong lemon flavor, used to add citrusy notes to teas, desserts, and sauces.
Culantro: An herb with a pungent and strong flavor, often used in Latin American and Caribbean cuisines.
Black Salt: Also known as Kala Namak, this Indian salt has a sulfurous and eggy flavor, used in vegan dishes to mimic the taste of eggs.
Sweet Woodruff: An herb with a sweet and earthy flavor, often used to flavor drinks, desserts, and jellies.
Peruvian Black Mint: An herb with a strong and minty flavor, commonly used in Peruvian cooking, especially in ceviche.
Blue Fenugreek: A spice with a smoky and slightly bitter flavor, used in Georgian cuisine to season meats and stews.
Chinese Five Spice: A blend of five spices—star anise, cloves, Chinese cinnamon, Sichuan pepper, and fennel seeds—used in Chinese cuisine for a balanced flavor.
Hyssop: An aromatic herb with a minty and slightly bitter taste, often used in teas, liqueurs, and Mediterranean dishes.
Sansho Pepper: A Japanese spice with a citrusy and numbing effect, commonly used in Japanese cuisine, particularly in grilled dishes and noodles.
Barberry: Tangy berries used as a souring agent in Iranian and Middle Eastern cuisines, often added to rice dishes and stews.
Sichuan Button: A flower bud with a tingling and numbing sensation, used to add a unique sensory experience to dishes and cocktails.
Galangal: A rhizome with a spicy and citrusy flavor, commonly used in Southeast Asian cooking, particularly in curries and stir-fries.
Elderflower: Fragrant flowers used to add a floral aroma to drinks, desserts, and syrups.
Lovage Seeds: Seeds with a strong flavor reminiscent of celery and anise, used to season soups, stews, and pickles.
Wattleseed: Ground seeds of Australian Acacia plants, with a nutty and roasted flavor, often used in baked goods and sauces.
Curry Leaves: Fragrant leaves used in South Indian and Sri Lankan cuisines to add aroma and flavor to curries and rice dishes.
Lemon Myrtle: An Australian herb with a strong lemon flavor, commonly used in desserts, sauces, and seafood dishes.
Tarragon: An herb with a subtle anise-like flavor, commonly used in French cuisine to season sauces, dressings, and poultry.
Vietnamese Mint: An herb with a peppery and citrusy flavor, often used in Vietnamese cuisine in salads, soups, and spring rolls.
Rau Ram: A Vietnamese herb with a pungent and minty taste, used in salads, soups, and noodle dishes.
Sweetgrass: An herb with a sweet and vanilla-like aroma, often used in Native American cuisine for flavoring teas, desserts, and smudging ceremonies.
Peruvian Pink Salt: A gourmet salt with a delicate flavor and a blush-pink hue, often used as a finishing salt for enhancing the taste of dishes.
Red Shiso: A Japanese herb with a tangy and slightly spicy taste, commonly used to pickle plums and season sushi rice.
Lemon Balm: A herb with a lemony and minty flavor, often used in teas, desserts, and salads.
Thai Basil: An herb with a strong and slightly sweet flavor, commonly used in Thai cuisine, particularly in stir-fries, curries, and soups.
Salicornia: A sea vegetable with a crunchy texture and a salty flavor, often used in salads and seafood dishes.
Lemon Thyme: A herb with a citrusy and herbal flavor, commonly used as a seasoning for poultry, seafood, and vegetables.
Lovage Root: The root of the lovage plant, with a strong and aromatic flavor, used in soups, stews, and pickles.
Dragon's Breath: A chili pepper claimed to be one of the spiciest in the world, with an intense and long-lasting heat.
Carob: A sweet and chocolatey substitute for cocoa powder, often used in desserts and as a coffee substitute.
Chameleon Plant: An edible plant with a tart and slightly tangy taste, used in salads and stir-fries.
Epazote: A Mexican herb with a pungent and earthy flavor, often used in bean dishes, soups, and tamales.
Lemon Basil: An herb with a strong lemon flavor and aroma, often used in teas, desserts, and seafood dishes.
Chinese Mugwort: An herb used in traditional Chinese medicine and cooking for its aromatic and bitter properties.
Szechuan Peppercorn Oil: An oil infused with Szechuan peppercorns, used to add a numbing and spicy flavor to dishes.
Chinese Red Dates: Sweet and chewy dates used in Chinese cuisine for their natural sweetness and health benefits.
Rat Tail Radish: An Asian vegetable with long, slender pods that have a spicy and radish-like flavor, often used in stir-fries.
Black Cumin: Small black seeds with a smoky and nutty flavor, used in Indian, Middle Eastern, and North African cuisines.
Mexican Marigold: An herb with a pungent and floral flavor, often used in Mexican cooking, particularly in moles and stews.
Fingerroot: A ginger-like rhizome with a citrusy and spicy flavor, commonly used in Southeast Asian cuisines.
Longevity Spinach: A leafy green vegetable with a mild and slightly tangy taste, used in soups, stir-fries, and salads.
Cuban Oregano: An herb with a strong and pungent flavor, often used in Caribbean and Latin American cuisines.
Fish Mint: An herb with a strong fishy aroma and flavor, used in Vietnamese and Southeast Asian cuisines in salads and soups.
Black Sesame Seeds: Small seeds with a rich and nutty flavor, often used in Asian desserts, breads, and as a topping.
Blue Tansy: A flower with a herbal and slightly fruity aroma, used in herbal teas and as a natural coloring agent.
Red Bayberry: Small berries with a tart and sweet flavor, commonly used in Chinese and Taiwanese cuisines for jams and sauces.
Cuban Oregano: An herb with a pungent and savory flavor, commonly used in Caribbean and Latin American cuisines.
Wasabi Leaves: The leaves of the wasabi plant, with a similar flavor to wasabi root, often used in salads, sushi, and pickles.
Wild Fennel Pollen: The pollen of wild fennel flowers, with a sweet and aromatic flavor, used as a gourmet seasoning.
Mitsuba: A Japanese herb with a parsley-like flavor and a hint of celery, used in soups, salads, and as a garnish.
Samphire: A coastal plant with a salty and crispy texture, often used in salads, seafood dishes, and pickles.
Makhana: Also known as Fox Nuts, these are seeds with a light and crunchy texture, used in Indian sweets and snacks.
Chinese Artichoke: A root vegetable with a nutty and sweet flavor, often used in stir-fries, salads, and pickles.
Wintergreen: A minty herb with a cooling and refreshing flavor, often used in candies, gums, and herbal teas.
Mountain Pepper: Native to Australia, these berries have a hot and spicy flavor, often used in spice blends and sauces.
White Turmeric: A rhizome with a peppery and earthy flavor, used in Indonesian and Thai cuisines for curries and soups.
Thai Eggplant: Small eggplants with a slightly bitter and tangy taste, commonly used in Thai curries and stir-fries.
Chayote: A fruit with a mild and crisp texture, often used in salads, stir-fries, and soups.
Marjoram: An herb with a delicate and sweet flavor, often used in Mediterranean and Middle Eastern cuisines.
Burdock Root: A root vegetable with a mild and earthy flavor, often used in stir-fries, soups, and teas.
Brazilian Peppertree: A plant with small red berries that have a spicy and peppery flavor, commonly used in Brazilian cuisine.
Tahitian Vanilla: Vanilla beans with a floral and fruity flavor, often used in desserts, baked goods, and beverages.
Grains of Paradise: A spice with a zesty and peppery flavor, commonly used in Scandinavian and African cuisines.
Vietnamese Coriander: An herb with a spicy and citrusy flavor, commonly used in Vietnamese and Southeast Asian cuisines.
Salal Berry: Small berries with a tart and slightly sweet flavor, often used in jams, pies, and desserts.
Jungle Pepper: A wild pepper variety from the Amazon rainforest, known for its hot and fruity taste.
Java Pepper: A rare and aromatic pepper variety from Indonesia, used to add a unique flavor to various dishes.
Red Perilla: A herb with a spicy and cinnamon-like flavor, often used in Korean and Japanese cuisines.
Ratanhia Root: A root used in herbal medicine and as a natural dye, with a bitter and astringent taste.
Honshimeji Mushroom: A delicate and flavorful mushroom used in Asian cuisines in soups, stir-fries, and hot pots.
Persian Cumin: A variety of cumin with a distinct aroma and flavor, commonly used in Persian and Middle Eastern cuisines.
Vietnamese Cinnamon: A type of cinnamon with a sweet and spicy flavor, commonly used in baking and desserts.
Ajwain Leaves: The leaves of the ajwain plant, with a pungent and thyme-like flavor, often used in Indian cooking.
Yamatoimo: A variety of Japanese yam with a slimy and starchy texture, commonly used in soups, stews, and pickles.
Black Cardamom: Larger and smokier than green cardamom, with a bold and aromatic flavor, often used in savory dishes and spice blends.
Japanese Pepper: A spice with a citrusy and peppery taste, commonly used in Japanese cuisine to season grilled meats and soups.
Moringa Leaves: Nutrient-rich leaves with a mild and slightly earthy flavor, often used in salads, soups, and smoothies.
Vietnamese Mint: An herb with a peppery and citrusy flavor, commonly used in Vietnamese cuisine in salads, soups, and spring rolls.
Japanese Mustard Greens: Leafy greens with a sharp and spicy flavor, often used in Japanese cuisine for pickling and stir-fries.
Wasabi Arugula: A leafy green with a peppery and wasabi-like taste, used in salads, sandwiches, and as a garnish.
Tasmanian Pepperleaf: The leaves of this native Australian plant have a spicy and peppery flavor, used to season meats and seafood.
Spanish Saffron: The stigmas of the saffron crocus, with a deep and floral flavor, often used in paella and risotto.
Stone Flower: A dried flower bud with a woody and earthy flavor, commonly used in Indian cuisine to add complexity to curries and biryanis.
Vietnamese Star Anise: A variety of star anise with a stronger and more pungent flavor, commonly used in Vietnamese dishes.
Hyssop: An aromatic herb with a minty and slightly bitter taste, often used in teas, liqueurs, and Mediterranean dishes.
Ajwain Seeds: Small seeds with a strong and pungent flavor, commonly used in Indian cooking to add a distinctive taste to breads and snacks.
White Sage: An herb with a strong and savory flavor, often used in Native American smudging ceremonies and as a culinary seasoning.
Karapulko: A South African herb with a bitter and medicinal taste, commonly used in traditional African dishes and teas.
Nance: Small yellow fruits with a tangy and tropical flavor, often used in Latin American desserts, sauces, and drinks.
Thyme-Scented Geranium: A geranium variety with a thyme-like fragrance, commonly used in teas, desserts, and potpourri.
Sarsaparilla: A root with a sweet and herbal flavor, commonly used in beverages and traditional herbal remedies.
Japanese Green Shiso: An herb with a minty and basil-like flavor, commonly used in Japanese cooking to season rice, sushi, and soups.
Voatsiperifery Pepper: A rare and wild pepper variety from Madagascar, known for its complex and fruity taste.
Quassia: A bitter herb used in herbal medicine and as a flavoring agent in bitters and liqueurs.
Lemon Ironbark: An Australian tree with leaves used to brew a lemony and herbal tea.
Fenugreek Leaves: Dried leaves with a slightly bitter and nutty flavor, commonly used in Indian and Middle Eastern cooking.
Calendula: Edible flowers with a mild and slightly spicy flavor, used in salads, soups, and as a natural food coloring.
Sichuan Peppercorn Oil: An oil infused with Sichuan peppercorns, used to add a numbing and spicy flavor to dishes.
Sawtooth Coriander: An herb with a cilantro-like taste but with a stronger and more citrusy flavor, commonly used in Southeast Asian cuisine.
Borage: Edible flowers and leaves with a cucumber-like flavor, often used in salads, teas, and cocktails.
Kudzu: A root starch with a mild and starchy taste, often used as a thickening agent in Asian cooking.
Herbes de Provence: A blend of dried herbs including thyme, lavender, rosemary, and oregano, commonly used in French cuisine.
Quinoa: A nutrient-rich pseudocereal with a nutty and slightly bitter flavor, commonly used as a rice substitute or in salads.
Wild Rice: A type of grass seed with a nutty and chewy texture, commonly used in pilafs, soups, and salads.
Cardamom Pods: Pods containing small black seeds with a sweet and floral flavor, often used in Indian and Middle Eastern cuisines.
Juniper Berries: Small berries with a piney and slightly citrusy flavor, commonly used in gin production and as a seasoning for game meat.
Camu Camu: A fruit with a tart and tangy taste, known for its high vitamin C content, often used in beverages and desserts.
Shiso Leaves: A herb with a distinctive flavor, combining mint, basil, and citrus notes, commonly used in Japanese and Korean cuisines.
Chervil: An herb with a delicate and slightly anise-like flavor, often used in French cooking as a garnish or in sauces.
Cubeb Pepper: Small berries with a spicy and peppery flavor, commonly used in Indonesian and North African cuisines.
Achiote: Also known as annatto, these seeds have a mild and earthy flavor, often used as a natural food coloring and in spice blends.
Ashwagandha: A medicinal herb with a slightly bitter and earthy taste, often used in traditional Ayurvedic medicine.
Dill Pollen: The pollen of the dill flower, with a strong and aromatic flavor, used as a gourmet seasoning.
Nigella Seeds: Small black seeds with a nutty and peppery flavor, commonly used in Middle Eastern and Indian cuisines.
Aleppo Pepper: A mild and fruity pepper variety, commonly used in Middle Eastern and Mediterranean cuisines.
Indian Bay Leaf: A leaf with a strong and spicy aroma, used in Indian and South Asian cooking for its fragrance and flavor.
Please note that this list is not exhaustive, and there are many more rare spices and herbs available.
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I love tropical smoothies, and they'll always have my business. The issue is I can't always make it out there, and when I do it's automatically around $22-32 every order. I love the chicken pesto flatbread and beach bum. Would anyone have the recipes, so I can try to make it at home?

So I'm developing a business plan for multistage business. Purely because my main goal is genuinely massive. One of the starting small plans is starting a cafe.
My goals are to create a cosy library cafe that can host events and has a quiet space/section that allows people to study/read/enjoy some peace. As well as more food variety available because most of the stuff in town is cakes, pastry's and coffee. I would like to offer smoothies, salads, and so on that have vibrant ingredients. Another core value is making it accessible because where I live there is a large disabled community who are overall neglected by most businesses and the local council so there are very little spaces to go and hang out.
Experience I do have:

• Worked in a kitchen, loving learning about cooking styles would say I am like an amateur cook.
• Work in care, currently my main job but the job is very education intensive with my main client rather than the usual looking after them. Have done both sides though
• Run groups as a young adult. Have had experience with working with Funding. Only had to step back because of COVID then relocation.

Okay so my many questions are:

1. What are the key financials areas I should research?
   
2. How do you develop a menu? Have surveys worked for you?
   
3. What did you struggle with when starting your business?
   
4. What would make you invest in cafe business? What wouldn't?
   
5. Would you start with a small store or a larger one? Keeping the point of wanting a quiet area, and to be able to host events without loosing business to those not going to the event.
   

Any feedback is welcome, would love constructive feedback too!

working on a new drink for the menu at my job and I've got the recipe figured out but want a zinger of a name. The build is:

• 1.5 oz Smith & Cross rum
  
• 1 oz Pineapple juice
  
• .75 oz lime juice
  
• .5 oz Amaro di Angostura
  
• .5 oz Mango-Habanero syrup
  
• garnished with a pineapple frond and a spritz of mezcal for a smoky aroma (possibly, not 100% sure I'll stick with the aromatics).
  

It's tropical with a bit of spice, but not too sweet. The habanero from the syrup just gives it a little something to compliment the cinnamon and warm spice profile of the Amaro but without actually adding any significant heat.
Now with the navy strength rum as well as smoky and spicy notes in mind, I was starting to think something do with 'cannonball' would be fun for the name. I ended up going down a word association rabbit hole and thought maybe "Powder Monkey" would be a fun name. But then I realized someone, if not most folks, might think it has racist connotations. Probably best to avoid that. So I'll probably end up calling it something silly and meaningless like "Pirate's Plunder," but I wanted to see if the cocktail community had any brighter ideas than mine.

I know quitting your job as a cook usually simply comes with two weeks notice or a ragequit walkout, but for eleven months I worked at a new franchise that had such potential which was being squandered by the incompetence of upper management. I present the nearly 6000 word thesis I turned in on my last day. Locations and names have been changed to cartoon references. Brackets represent ambiguous information in place of specific details.
Krusty Krab Careers Jobs
Opening in [Month/Year], Krusty Krab (KK) Bikini Bottom is on its 4th kitchen manager in less than a year. Krusty Krab O-Town has recently let go its inaugural kitchen manager and sous chef. Almost no member of the Bikini Bottom opening management team remains employed by KK. There is a pattern developing where one must question both the choice of employee and the directive given to new franchises. These lingering issues I brought concerns about in the first weeks of opening but was disregarded at every turn despite my experience with festival traffic. As a result I decided this was not a place I wanted to advance, but with a good-enough paycheck I’d be a lowly grunt in the kitchen four days a week, at five days a week I would have quit or been fired over a public outburst long ago. If Krusty Krab alters course slightly while being true to the brand this could be a successful chain.
My unique employment history in brick and mortar restaurants, food trucks, pop up culinary concepts, trade shows/conventions, and the film industry make me an ideal candidate to be on the opening team for new KK locations. My outgoing nature and foresight are valuable assets. For example, on training week before opening when I was standing around idly without a task I took it upon myself to organize the disarray that was dry storage. Overhearing Krabs tell another manager where he wanted the cleaning products placed, I had a jumping off point and the organization I created nine months ago is still largely in place. Since returning from my vacation in early February I have made it my mission to keep the storage area organized because it was again starting to resemble a hoarder’s house rather than a commercial kitchen. This is now part of my weekly routines because every time I turn my back there is more product being placed haphazardly just anywhere with little regard. I also recently reorganized the walk-in cooler because of problematic stocking with items being placed on the same shelf or below raw proteins. I also simply put all the like products together such as cheeses or fruits that were scattered amongst several shelves. With recent overordering I cannot keep up with the organization of the walk in cooler. The pattern recognition of food types and even simple shapes appears to be lost on the Bikini Bottom crew. My daily reorganization of containers is proof of this. Most days I’ll take a few minutes to put all cylinders together, all cambros together in descending volume, all deep and shallow pans next to each other rather than intermixed. My decision to be a kitchen manager at age 19 from 2005 thru 2008 and rarely enter restaurant management since is very calculated.
With my prior knowledge of professional kitchens I was becoming Bikini Bottom’s resident nag to coworkers as I made note of health department violations on a daily basis. I stopped after being largely ignored for two weeks. My regular health department nags include; a battle with jackets and hats being placed only in the designated area (a designated area that did not exist until I created a place for personal items a in January by neatly organizing the dry storage area again), waiting until prepped items are cooled before a cover is placed on top, placement of raw seafood, open containers (very often sugar, flour, and pancake mix bags ripped open and left), and dirty dishes/containers placed back in rotation. The dirty dishes and containers in rotation with the clean ones are at an atrociously high number. I have given up on making the 4th fryer seafood allergy safe too. With the low volume of seafood allergy safe items Bikini Bottom should purchase smaller baskets to visually discourage cross contamination with the other fryers and baskets. My skills to organize the kitchen do not end with simply where to store products to meet minimal health department standards.
Half of the space in the Bikini Bottom kitchen is completely wasted on an ill-advised walkway to the dishpit. An intelligent design would place a second doorway directly to the dishpit connected to the bar or where the bathrooms reside. Numerous times during the opening week of KK Bikini Bottom I said, yelled, sang, and muttered that we have too many food items for the amount of space we have. Icus stated that there was more space than Bluffington. Is Bluffington intelligently designed? Because Bikini Bottom most certainly isn’t. So Bikini Bottom actually has less space even if there is more square footage. See the attached diagram for an intelligent design that could potentially house a menu of this size. Bikini Bottom forces a line design on this kitchen when an open concept is needed for this menu. It’s as if this floorplan was created by a person who had only ever seen one commercial kitchen previously and couldn’t think 4th dimensionally to understand the needs of the workers to smoothly serve customers.
There is not enough counter space for pizzas without getting off the line, the microwave is placed completely out of the way, the freezer’s curved design is a waste of potential counter space and a falling hazard for containers stored on top of it, the toaster is an overcomplicated and overexpensive piece of machinery that serves exactly one purpose when a flat top could be used to toast bread and other purposes like a quesadilla special, sautee was designed without an overhang for spices, the pantry station lacks the counter space to have two containers of flour and two containers of batter for seafood allergies, there are no Frialator fryers which I have worked with at every single kitchen job previously instead we got the cheap Vulcan model (is that logical), the cheap low boy in pantry that doesn’t drain excess water anywhere it’s just supposed to evaporate somehow but doesn’t, the grill and fryer should be placed next to each other (with a higher volume of crossover than other stations), the floors are flat instead on having a mild decline towards the drains (just look at the standing water residing behind the oven right now), in the dishpit the spraying area and the filled sinks are backwards of a logical dipshit, the ramp to the back door is on the wrong side, there is no refrigerated place downstairs to stage extra food for busy shifts (the beer cooler is once again used for such food items because of this massive oversight), the prep station is an afterthought and miniscule, the dishes on the line are difficult to grab for anyone under 5’11” and inaccessible for anyone under 5’6” (instead of putting them underneath tables that also give that desperately needed counterspace I spoke of), there is not enough space to store to-go containers or boats behind the line, expo is lacking a low boy for the numerous items that are supposed to be cold but are instead kept at room temperature all day long, no one in management thought about buying shelves until right before Bikini Bottom opened as a result the clean full sheets sat on the floor for days, we had only the exact amount of 1⁄6 pans for an absurd amount of time making it impossible to rotate and clean them when necessary (which is daily), we still struggle with 1/9 pan supply. And just when I thought I documented all the poor design choices possible I stumbled upon a person whose office holiday party was booked at KK Bikini Bottom. The deck space works just fine as a deck. It does not double well as a gathering space. The space is too long and narrow for parties, it promotes little splitoff groups rather than a coming together of a larger gathering. It may be advantageous to contact a social psychologist for help designing a private party space that promotes intermingling rather than enforcing small pockets to form. The reorganization of the physical kitchen isn’t all that screams for an overhaul.
There are six positions on the line at the Krusty Krab; expo, oven, grill, sautee, fryer, and pantry. But the pantry and fryer positions are forced together like a bad remix. Everyone who mainly works pantry deserves a $6 raise immediately because it is a station and a half. Both Icus and Krumm, while kitchen manager, kind of acknowledged the pantry is too big for one station without outright mentioning the lopsided distribution of work. I imagine in the only location where this works, Bluffington, a second person joins the pantry at noon because of the unreasonable amount of items one person is tasked with. Bikini Bottom only has one person in this position at all times, maybe modify it for one person? The excess of items on the pantry position largely resembles a position I would call “set-up” or “build” at a previous job that made sensible choices. This build position should have tostadas, tacos, butcher’s blocks, toast, salads, lettuce wrap set ups, and preparing plating for whichever station is most bogged down. I have absolutely lost my mind yelling about salads at least once a month, ranting that they do not belong on the fryer position because of how illogical it is that five salads are included on the mountain of other items the pantry has. I have always considered working in a kitchen a kind of dance, and the pantry station demands an unnecessarily convoluted dance to keep up with the demand. Without the salads, tostadas, and tacos the station is already the busiest. Do we really need to combine ballet and swing by including these extra awkward dance steps in this single station? For a kitchen designed this poorly I suppose it is. Again, see attached document for an intelligently designed kitchen that might be able to accommodate this menu. Unless Bikini Bottom is going to close for a month to fix the baffling floor plan design the menu is shouting to be reduced to 30-36 items.
The menu is too big. Krusty Krab is the jack of all foods, master of none. In general I believe individual locations should be allowed 18% omissions, and 18% unique items to this wildly unwieldy menu sitting around 50 food items including sides. The insistence on keeping menu items that don’t sell at Bikini Bottom because of Bluffington is mind boggling. Chicken tenders do not sell at Bikini Bottom. fried sushi does not sell at Bikini Bottom, not enough to justify their place on the line. I don’t care how well these items work in Bluffinton. They. Do. Not. Work. At. Bikini. Bottom. If the KK location in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean sells an incredible amount of live krill does that mean Bikini Bottom and O-Town must sell live krill too? Take the fried sushi off the menu. I had a complete meltdown about this during a Dimmadome service and my valid point was met with indifference. Replace the kid’s tenders with a kid’s fish sticks. We already have the tilapia fish sticks on the line for tacos. Or make the kid’s fish sticks cod. We cut cod to order for fish tacos in spite of health code violations because it is too rare of an order to make beforehand. Saffron in mashed potatoes? If you must. Why are green tomatoes only on the menu during lunch? Bikini Bottom throws away a sizable amount of spoiled green tomatoes each week. Have green tomatoes on the menu all day long or don’t have them at all. The smoked salmon could go on salads or a special taco to justify its place on the line. The corn pico’s place on the line is unjustified. It only goes on one item, tostadas, which are not particularly popular. If we had a taco salad we could throw the corn pico on there. We also have unreasonable waste from unusable taco shells, smash up those imperfect taco shells and throw them on said taco salad. But before we add salads, let's get rid of the pear and kale salads. The pears' position on the line are unjustified, if we threw them on a taco variation maybe their place on the Bikini Bottom line could be argued but for now they only go on a salad that isn’t particularly popular. The kale salad is an issue of space for a 4th green for salads is too much. The krusty salad is my most hated house salad of all time. And it comes down to the toast with goat cheese. This ancillary step of spreading goat cheese on a cracker is an unnecessary step for an overly complicated dance and should be part of the expo dance if expo wasn’t a shoddily designed afterthought lacking a low boy.
There are a plethora of squeeze bottles on the pantry station that have no place on the overloaded station. They belong to an expo station with a low boy to keep them cold. Pantry has an overwhelming ten squeeze bottles: chipotle crema, sweet chili vinaigrette, buffalo, korean bbq, ranch, caesar, wine vinaigrette, lemon vinaigrette, honey mustard, and lemon aioli. Only the first four are justified on an intelligently designed fryer section, the second four belong on the build station, the last two have no place anywhere but expo. With this extra space sautee could keep their bottles and two purees cold in the fryer's lowboy instead of leaving them at room temperature all day inviting a pathogen party. This theorized intelligently designed expo would have room to keep these four squeeze bottles and a double of every sauce chilled to pour them into ramekins, a move that is highly common in the expo dance. The fact that expo doesn’t have a double of all squeeze bottles is foolish. Expo has to bother an overloaded station to pour these side sauces instead.
How many gallons of basil aioli has Bikini Bottom thrown away in 11 months? Four aiolis in general is way too many and most go on a single item; basil aioli on the incredibly unpopular veggie burger, lemon aioli for calamari, sweet chili aioli for the BLT that is only served half of the day, and garlic aioli actually goes on two items…I believe. What a colossal waste of precious little space, lose two aiolis and then you can sing the logical song with me. Perhaps we can put garlic aioli and sweet chili vinaigrette on the BLT separately and accomplish the exact same thing the sweet chili aioli does. The wings too have unneeded complications. Having worked at a sports bar specializing in wings for the better part of a decade I find KK’s plating of wings to be overly pretentious. The carrots, celery, and blue cheese have lost function. Heffer Wolf always said no one eats the carrot/celery julienne with blue cheese. It’s a complete waste of all the ingredients because you’ve gone too far with the presentation. Wings aren’t fancy. Wings are supposed to have a small pool of sauce and be sloppy. It’s like a sloppy joe that’s not sloppy, an unsloppy joe is a failure to sloppy joes just as the KK presentation of wings is a disparagement to the dish. Ever since training week back in 2022 I have used a scale to give Bikini Bottom a passing or failing grade.
Chokey Chicken to Chum Bucket is the scale I use to judge efficiency and sanity at Bikini Bottom. Both establishments are upscale casual dining experiences in Capitol City in the same vein as KK. Chokey had high employee retention and relatively smooth openings for new locations. Chum Bucket’s employee turnover was high and every location opening was chaotic. Which one sounds closer to KK? Chokey Chicken was filled with chefs I respect including Chef Ren Hoek who remains a close friend to this day. Ren lost his lifelong passion for kitchen work after working management at Chum Bucket. He’s actually seeking work in Bikini Bottom. Call him up at [phone number], but KK will give him Nam’ flashbacks of why he chose driving for a living rather than cooking for five years. The pair of us together helming Bikini Bottom with the ability to omit and create 18% of the overloaded menu can bring success to this franchise. We have worked well numerous times in the past on various concepts in the past including creating The Attack of the Pickled Tomatoes Burger for [Promotional live performance of a TV show] at the Capitol City Theater. We served 100 people in 60 at the [sitcom filming] lunch. That’s physically impossible but somehow we did it quite a few times.
A fun anecdote about Ren Hoek’s KK experience from the soft launch; on training week numerous times I brought concerns about being seafood allergy safe that were dismissed. As mentioned earlier the pantry station lacks the counter space to have two containers of flour and two containers of batter, one each of which seafood never touches. Before the soft launch Chef Stimpy from Bluffington insisted all customers just kind of know everything is prone to be seafood contaminated. Well, chef Ren was a customer that night and this absolutely was not communicated to customers. He claimed to have a slight seafood allergy and was not informed of what the crab soup was. In reality he does not have a seafood allergy. I didn’t discuss the seafood issue with Ren, separately we noticed egregious violations of food safety standards and we each responded in our own way. The soft launch service was so awful that night Chef Ren walked out of a free meal to pay for some ramen, never to return to Bikini Bottom. I attribute this oversight, and many of Bikini Bottom’s (and probably O-Town’s) problems to hubris over the Bluffington location.
Chef Chokey would also be hesitant to join the KK team. It will cost a finder’s fee just for me to reveal Chef Chokey’s name. Chef Chokey was a lead in the rapid expansion of Chokey Chicken restaurants. He opened numerous restaurants and was big on the philosophy that each restaurant must have its own personality in order to fit the unique local culture and the variety of working spaces. This is in direct conflict with the KK way that everything must be exactly like the Bluffington location no matter what. There was only one Chokey Chicken location that had the full menu, Chokey Springfield. Chokey Springfield had a large space which was intelligently designed to accommodate such a large menu. The KK menu is all over the place, closing in on 50 menu items which comes up as a failure on the Chokey Chicken/Chum Bucket scale. This is not the only area KK comes up as a major failure on the Chokey Chicken/Chum Bucket scale.
Has anyone in this company ever worked festival traffic before? Does anyone have the experience of working next to a major venue with 8000 seats before this one? The way Bikini Bottom handles Dimmadome services it certainly appears that the decision-makers fall on the wrong side of the Dunning-Kruger effect. Having all 50 items available during such massive traffic is completely asinine. An unwillingness to serve a partial menu is hindering the Bikini Bottom kitchen staff. I have worked festival traffic before, and Dimmadome events bring in festival traffic. I’ve worked inside a festival whose line never ended but every customer got their order in 5 minutes or less because the line kept flowing with only four items on the menu as that’s what was warranted at the B-Sharps Music Festival. I refuse to be set up for failure the way Bikini Bottom sets up Dimmadome services for failure. The entire week of concerts in [summer] 2022 I was set up for failure every day (it was after this I modified my availability to keep my sanity and my paycheck). When I brought my concerns about running efficiently during Dimmadome services I was labeled a B-worker for the first time in my employment history by Icus and Krabs. It is that moment which I was either going to holler at them both for being 2-dimensional thinkers who were obviously unqualified for the positions they accepted in this company, or just put my head down. If Bikini Bottom has a successful concert day service, hail your team because they snatched victory from the jaws of defeat. They swam with concrete shoes. I often wonder how many customers had bad experiences and never returned after concert days. A Dimmadome service should have no more than 25 items and have one or two specials to divert traffic towards an area the kitchen can keep moving. An Open Cup Open Plate (OCOP) special for foot traffic is absolutely needed. When I suggested OCOP special, Heffer was intrigued by this idea and immediately named burgers as the special to keep foot traffic flowing. Smithers wouldn’t hear this idea, babbling on about what’s advertised instead of hearing out a sound idea. This prattle despite radio commercials having inaccurate hours and social media promoting Bikini Bottom’s steak tacos to this day. I always found Smithers to be a better fit as a middle management office pencil pusher than as a hands-on restaurant manager. Overall I find KK managers are selected to be automatons not to question their orders rather than critical thinkers who could take the restaurant to the next level. During brunch service is another period of time that must be modified to lessen the heft of items. Having a full menu that barely works plus brunch is so deep into Chum Bucket territory, in my opinion we now have to use the Tropic Thunder scale of full [R-word censored by jobs] to describe a 60-plus-item brunch. Chef Ren hired back a Chum Bucket cook who had a mental breakdown and stormed out during brunch (plus full menu) service because Ren knew the employee was justified and upper management was completely unreasonable in their brunch requests. It’s not just questionable decisions that hinder KK staff but improper equipment as well.
This is the first restaurant I have worked at which uses a touch screen on the line rather than tickets. From day one I found this to be technology for technology’s sake inferior to tickets. Chef Ren forced a new Chum Bucket location to rip out touch screens from the line and bring in ticket printers because of the higher efficiency. The touch screen is a great idea for expo, not the entire line. My biggest gripe is that each station does not get all the information. Early on I was regularly yelled at for not staggering my items, well I can’t see the rest of the order; a problem I have never had with a ticket system. Touchscreen software is also much more prone to errors and glitches. When I reported an error during a heavy service Icus and Krabs blamed my skills on the line without looking into the malfunctioning screen further. It was glitchy for weeks before the two finally investigated and corrected the issue I brought to their attention long before. Those two gave me an immense amount of ammunition to dislike them in the opening weeks until I stopped caring. The issue I had with being unable to scroll beyond the bottom of a completely filled screen has returned and is still there as of [my last day]. There are also important details that get buried. A frequent meltdown I have is that sauce on side requests and other important modifications are not capitalized or in red to catch the eye as they have been at jobs with tickets. These details get lost on Bikini Bottom’s touchscreens. A sauce on side salad made by me will be wrong 50% of the time because of the instructions being camouflaged in a word salad. This goes for coleslaw on the side and drizzle on the side too. Drizzle in general I dislike because of the pretentiousness, but whatever, drizzle it on top rather than putting it in a ramekin if you must. There are numerous places where Bikini Bottom overcomplicates matters for reasons I cannot ascertain.
Why is there such a large variety of plates? Why do we have a medium circular plate for salads and a large bowl for salads with protein? This just confuses the simplest of matters. I was told this is done because of the high price hike with protein, a larger presentation was desired. But that price hike is the price of protein in 2023. Bikini Bottom should put all salads in the large bowls and use all the circular salad plates in a skeet shooting promotion. I understand why we have both a circular platter plate and a pizza plate but in my restaurant the circular platter plates must go...or maybe the large platter plate instead. Is the large platter used for anything besides fish and chips? That extra space on fish and chips plates are only used for side sauces which can easily be delivered to customers on small circular plates. What is the medium oval plate doing that the medium rectangular plate isn’t? And vice versa. Why do they both exist when they are approximately the same size? Let me write an internet commercial where we break a lot of plates so we can get some logical use out of the superfluous plates. I don’t care which one is destroyed, the ovals or the rectangles but one of them is an unnecessary redundancy in excess done again. Speaking of commercials, the unimaginative radio advertisements for Bikini Bottom are doing little to lure new customers to the restaurant.
The three radio spots I have heard on KBBL all sound like they were produced by a marketing 101 student who wasn’t a natural in the field. The voiceover actor was so uncharismatic I was certain someone from the office was chosen at random to read the copy. Then I heard that same voiceover actor selling pool supplies on another radio station so I concluded that Bikini Bottom must have hired the cheapest guy in town to produce the most basic of commercials. Perhaps there is someone else you could hire more qualified to voiceover these commercials, an actor with experience on an Emmy award winning cable program whose unique place in the film industry was written about on [website] would be a much wiser choice to be the voice of the KK? (See external link). In the ad there was no catchphrase, no jingle, no music whatsoever. This simple approach to commercials lacks the pizazz to catch the attention of radio listeners. The first two commercials I heard would get a C in marketing 101 as they were nearly the exact same and accomplished the bare minimum to sell wares, the third one would maybe get a B- because there was some sort of attempted gimmick with the voiceover whispering to represent thinking inside his head about what he was going to eat later at KK. Not only does this commercial give no reason for the man to think inside his head, the outside world still and unpopulated. To see what a creative person would do with this concept see the attached script. There is an attempted slogan that could become part of an ad campaign. Commercials aren’t the only lost opportunities in promotions.
There are numerous promotional celebrity tie-ins at Bikini Bottom’s fingertips with Dimmadome performers. The restaurant could have a Phish sandwich as a OCOP special on [Phish performance dates], or a pretentious Jelly Roll on [Jelly Roll performance date]. Has anyone reached out to the Dimmadome theater or talent management for approved special menu items to be promoted inside the dome? Perhaps a special 20% discount to ticket holders? Is Bikini Bottom capable of getting permits to extend Open Container hours beyond [cutoff time] for an afterparty or block party throughout a Dimmadome concert? I see additional marketing opportunities left on the table for all new locations.
I believe new KK locations are missing out on a marketing campaign by opening with the entire cumbersome 50 item menu. This is a staggering amount of menu items which is too much to ask new staffers to perfect all at once. After a few months expanding the menu by approximately ten items is catching to customers who haven’t returned after a single visit or infrequently stop into KK. There are ten new food items that might appeal to them. Just like it appears KK doesn’t know what it’s looking for in a good commercial spot, this company doesn’t appear to recognize a talented from an untalented worker until it’s too late.
It is my understanding that KK had a headhunter to find Icus, the first Bikini Bottom kitchen manager. If it were up to me I’d hire someone to break the legs of that headhunter for bringing in a subpar kitchen lead. We are still attempting to recover from the lousy choices she made in the floor plan. If anybody responsible for Bikini Bottom’s floor plan is still giving input, stop them immediately. Once the doors were open to the public Icus had his head in the clouds to a point where I questioned if he saw the writing on the walls of an imminent demotion and stopped trying as a result. I had a full deck of 3x5 cards in an archaic powerpoint presentation bringing numerous concerns to light that he kept putting off listening to until he was fired. Those same cards were broken out for this essay. The second kitchen manager, Krumm, is a good lesson in honesty. According to Heffer, Krumm was given a bill of goods about how smoothly KK Bikini Bottom was running. Since Krumm stepped into a latrine pit which he was led to believe was a heated pool, he left in short time. Krumm also had plans to modify the menu but when his bosses told him to be a rodeo clown rather than a cowboy Krumm didn’t take too kindly to that. Meanwhile Heffer was the savior of the Bikini Bottom kitchen. I didn’t agree with every single decision he made, but I did with a majority of them. Heffer’s overhaul was such a blessing so I didn’t have to fiddle with the organization of 60% of the equipment anymore, only about 20% now. Too bad Heffer’s crippling depression came back after bashing his head into the wall out of frustration with the shackles KK restrained him with.
The current management team is enthusiastic but inexperienced. I see an accumulation of small infractions that might bring down Bikini Bottom’s health department rating significantly. I see the entire management team being inattentive or unaware about organizational issues. Whatever bureaucratic nonsense corporate tasks everyone with from the original sous chef Skeeter to Patty Mayonnaise that makes them walk away from the line between 11am and 1pm especially is infuriating. I have never been left alone on a multi-person line during peak hours so regularly, and I won’t tolerate it anymore. As much as I believe in his drive, I imagine our current kitchen manager SpongeBob will be let go after a disastrous service during the Dimmadome concert season that someone has to take the fall for. Chef Ren and I could help bring experience in management and dealing with festival traffic...if corporate does not force us to follow a failing strategy.
After working nearly a year at KK you may ask why I’m not proficient on more than one station. Excellent question. First, when I move over to another station the squeeze bottles are never labeled (until Stu Pickles was hired, now they’re sometimes labeled), so I always looked at the glut of unlabeled sauces and I’d go back to my station because the basic information is missing (also a health department violation for having numerous unlabeled, unchilled bottles). In his first week the new general manager Stu Pickles pulled out 90% of the containers under the grill station because they were lacking labels despite an expected health department visit. The second reason for my menu ignorance is the mountain of prep for my own and upcoming shifts I have piled up on my station throughout service. My attention to detail appears to be next level with my ability to anticipate stocking all items for all shifts including the weeknd. The third reason I wouldn’t learn multiple stations is a defense against the afternoon conference calls. In [month] the Bikini Bottom line was unprepared for a busy post lunch because one cook was cut and our expo person was busy with a conference call. The two of us remaining on the line had a miserable slog through an unexpectedly busy afternoon. When I brought this up to Krabs he disregarded me, being a good bean counter he quoted the cost percentage. What he didn’t take into account was the missing expo person who could have jumped on the line and expo to help the understaffed two man team. That person was stuck on a conference call. Just recently I saw the company actively lose money because of this poorly thought-out meeting during business hours. A customer wanted to order a dessert that was 86ed but had been restocked by our prep cook an hour before. The server was unable to sell them their dessert because the only person in the building who could help un-86 an item was on a conference call. This conference call calamity is another bone-headed choice that speaks to a larger decision-making problem within the corporate structure. Finish the conference calls by 10:45 am eastern.
In conclusion, I quit my position as a lowly grunt for this company because of its unwarranted perplexing dance steps and below average management. I don’t care how much varnish and lacquer is supplied, I refuse to polish this Bikini Bottom turd as a manager or full-time employee under the current circumstances. You would have to take a pickaxe to the floor, possibly relocate the bathrooms to add a door to the dishpit, get rid of the cheap low boy that doesn’t properly drain excess water, and Mr Gorbachov knock down that wall in the middle of the kitchen to give the proper amount of space to work. Or simply reduce the menu to 36 items (including sides) because that’s the amount of space this dreadful design can comfortably output. Would Gordon Ramsay compliment KK for all the unnecessary convoluted complications abound, or would Chef Ramsay yell about keeping it simple and demand KK chuck it in the flip? Thanks to the numerous pop up restaurants I have been a part of and the hectic world of trade shows/conventions, I may have more experience than anyone else employed by KK in smoothly opening a new location. I would enjoy being part of the opening team to ensure new locations have an efficiency Bikini Bottom lacks, and to keep upper management away from their worst instincts. Work with me and Chef Ren and we will help you become a well oiled machine like Chokey Chicken instead of the Chum Bucket cesspit Bikini Bottom currently embodies.

Foundations of Humanity 27 (New Horizons) - an NoP fanfic
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Thank you u/SpacePaladin15 for establishing the Nature of Predators Universe, and for allowing Fanfics to flourish!Thank you again, u/Braquen, u/Acceptable_Egg5560, u/BiasMushroom721, and last but not least u/Liberty-Prime76 for proofreading! Also, thank you u/Frostborne for your blessing on my Gojid City name! This is my side of the Nature of a Giant crossover)!
Also Star Tours is a Disney copyright which I use in good faith and humor under fair use please don’t hurt me capitalist mouse daddy.
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Memory transcription subject: Valek, Venlil tourist
Date [standardized human time]: Sept 11th, 2136. Middle of 3rd Claw
I watched Maeve find an open station and investigate the helmet while I asked, “Do Humans have Visor arcades?”
“Oh, absolutely! There’s an entire League for VR!” Maeve awkwardly slipped into the seat and found the controls; after a moment the seat started to adjust itself to size, the sudden movement causing Maeve to jump.
Alvi spoke up beside me, “Maeve has a book that talks about it. It talked about headsets and digital worlds like what we have, over a hundred years ago!”
“A hundred years ago?” I couldn’t help but be skeptical. “Are you really saying that our tech is a hundred years behind yours with VR?”
“Eh, not exactly,” Maeve tilted her head as she thought, “with things like visors, there was an upper limit to how to design them. Most of the innovations were on how realistic the visors could make the media. We got video down pretty quickly, and surround-sound was pretty much figured out by then. We experimented with scent and that did not go well. Really most of the progress has been in processing, and you guys still have us beat on that!”
She picked up the viewing device. There were three kinds of stations with different sized helmets for each. The first she investigated were Dossur to Zurulian sized, but it only took a moment to find a Sivkit to Gojid size. “Looks like these could fit me. Can you two wait long enough to see if this works with humans?”
I flicked my ears in amusement and posed myself overdramatically. “I’m sure that I, your poor starving mate, can continue starving while you enjoy yourself.” I giggled while Alvi slapped me with her tail. “Go on, have fun! I’m also curious to see if the program would work with your eyes.”
With a look around to ensure no one was watching, Maeve switched her veil for the helmet, after only a few moments of effort. The collar thickness was adjustable to help the foam complete a clean seal against the jaw. I touched my pre-paid band to the tap pad, and the machine shifted colors to show it was occupied. The helmet was designed for snouted species, and so hung somewhat past Maeve’s chin, allowing us to see light reflected off her skin.
A screen beside her lit up with the mask, and we could see what she saw while she played. Alvi and I walked her through the tutorial and calibrator, and Maeve chose Jewels of the Federation at my suggestion; a simple walking simulator showcasing highlights of Federation homeworlds.
The simulator starts us in the same arcade, in the same booth! A well-groomed Venlil stands beside her and reminds Maeve of her private tour. Maeve ‘walks’ while still seated and lifts her virtual self from the digital booth, following the guide to a launch pad that didn’t previously exist. Alvi and I stopped in shock for a moment when a noticeably younger Captain Sovlin walked down the gangway of our destination shuttle; though judging by Maeve’s lack of reaction, she seemed not to recognize him; Alvi met my eye and pointedly flicked her ears. The simulated Gojid pilot wags their ears genially as they throw their arms wide in welcome.
“Good waking, citizen of the Federation! Star Tours has invited me to escort you on an introduction to the astounding marvels of our great peoples! Every species has made wondrous contributions to the enlightenment of the Federation, but the strayu is in the oven, so we’ll only get the time to visit your own Venlil Prime, The Cradle, and Nishtal today. Follow me and we can begin!”
Maeve followed Sovlin into the cockpit of the stylized shuttle and took the copilot seat; Maeve’s head was on a swivel and she took in everything around her. “Wow, this is so cool! Your whole helmet is a screen! Our VR is only in front of our eyes, tricking our brains into seeing three dimensionally.” Her voice echoed around the helmet, muffling her words before they could reach us..
The shuttle lifted gently and Maeve’s chair tilted back with it. Coming up, we could see that this arcade was in the Capitol, and they did a flying pass to show its glass spires and bustling spaceport. Sovlin spoke up beside Maeve, “The Venlil Homeworld is in a strategic position within the Federation, and you make your people proud by fulfilling your duty to the Herd; in spite of your weakness and timidity!!”
The shuttle started to pitch to the open center of the city, and a large park came into view. “But, as I-” Sovlin’s voice caught in his throat, before he cleared it and spoke with firm authority, “As we all know: Duty sometimes comes with Sacrifice. And we honor and remember that… sacrifice with the beautiful Cattle Memorial!”
The vines of Morning Light catch the sun, and I feel my ears fall as I remember my own family’s sacrifices. Alvi caught my distress, and curled her tail around me as the simulation continued, “Here we remember the lives lost from the ruthless barbarity of the Greys. We hope that this Shining Beacon may guide their bodies and souls back to the Herd.” The shuttle kept flying straight toward the ground, but the shuttle surroundings started to disappear as Sovlin and Maeve joined the mourners and wellwishers. The breeze played gently with unopened letters and fresh bouquets. Sovlin spoke softly, in respect for visitors, “It is open all claws, and many leave their remembrances. Make sure to show your support, next time you’re in the Capitol.”
After several moments of contemplative silence, the shuttle pulled up into the upper atmosphere, and Maeve’s seat began to shudder. I spoke up a little louder so she could hear me through the helmet, “Set your head back. The next part might make you a little queasy.”
Maeve did as bidden just before Sovlin hit the warp jump, and the screen was awash with a rainbow of colors streaking to the outer border.
We fall out of Warp just above The Cradle, its capital continent in view surrounded by great oceans, while other landmasses curve around the planet and out of sight. The camera quickly descends through the atmosphere and we pull into the great city of Vala’s Embrace, with its shining spires and sprawling seaports. We fly down through the airspace busy with cargo freighters and I see Maeve involuntary flinch after a close miss. “The Gojid are a proud and fierce people, but also industrious! Our Cradle and Colonies are a major food source for the rest of the Federation, in addition to the significant extractions performed by our colonies and outposts.”
The camera flies into the center of the city where stands a grand Cathedral to the Protector, Her robed form guiding believers to the grand entryway. “But my People are renowned for our stalwart loyalty to our faith and to the Federation. Our great houses of worship are monuments of our devotion to protecting the Herd from the Predator Menace!”
After a pass around the building highlighting its traditional stonework and heraldry, the camera joins the throng of worshippers, coming in low like a child beside their parent, and we see the full glory of The Church.
Our view pans up from the crowd to a ceiling decorated with murals of inlaid wood and metals. Vibrant colors, textures, and shining light tell the story of Vala driving out the Predators and forming the first Herd. Stained glass windows cover the congregation in pools of color almost as varied as the congregants themselves. A silver Gojid passes from behind us, towering tall with the kind eyes of one who knows their faith, and is safe in its love. They lay a paw on Maeve’s shoulder and guide her to a bench only a few rows from the front, with a seat on the aisle. The Priest stands before their podium and begins a sermon of service to the Herd, and one’s role within it.
The priest’s voice fades into the background as we fly backward out of an open window like a bird; words of Predators at our doorstep fading on the wind. We rise to re-exit the atmosphere, Maeve’s chair buzzing as the hyperdrive spins up.
We warp into a field of defensive space stations, glittering proudly in the Nishtalian Sun. Below, we see a planet with a great many islands, webbed with weaving waterways and small seas. Maeve pressed herself further into the seat as we entered their thicker atmosphere, the seat vibrations causing the helmet to rattle against it.
“And here we have the vibrant marshes of Nishtal!” We broke through the clouds to see massive arbors climbing back into them. We approached the Nishtal Capital sprawled across dozens of kilometers of archipelago, held above the water by meta-material supports.
“Nishtal is well known for its punishing environments, which helped to mold the Krakotl into Pan-Galactic Heroes! From Captain Kalsim, to Merchant Captain Malins, to Chief Exterminator Estela. Each renowned for holding the line against the predator taint, through fire or rail! And this is where their mettle was tested!”
The shuttle flies around a flat paved area, surrounded by landing pads as warships lift and land. In the center was a platoon of Krakotl performing training exercises. The shuttle again falls away as we start walking behind a Commander, Sovlin walking beside him as he speaks over his shoulder, “The Krakotl have been an instrumental force in maintaining our peaceful way of life. If you think you have what it takes, be sure to register for the JEOTC so you can help make the galaxy a better place!”
Sovlin met the eye of the Krakotl commander beside him, “Thank you for your service, Sir.”
We split off from the commander, and our walking transitioned back to our shuttle before firing off back into the sky.Through the vibrating chair, Maeve stuttered out, “M-M-Man Y-You-u-u Guys-z-z-z’re R-R-Real-l-ly into this-s-s W-W-War, huh??”
Suddenly the chair threw Maeve forward, almost unseating her as she suddenly fell out of warp, “We have Grey contacts! Time to turn tail and get out of here! I’ll stay on the guns and when I say Go, you push that throttle as hard as you can! OK…!” A Metallic handle started to glow in front of her, and Maeve reached out with her controller to grab it. It took her a moment, but Sovlin never gave the signal… Until she grabbed on. “GO!” Maeve rocked her body forward and slammed the throttle to its limiter, the seat beneath her rumbling with renewed vigor.
After only a moment, a Kolshian Capital Ship dropped from subspace in front of us and fired a volley of Everything in the direction behind us. Our ship slowed and Sovlin cheered from the pilot’s chair, “HaHa! The Vanguard has arrived! Thank you for your help gentlemen!”
A portrait feed popped up on and above the control panel, showing General Kalsim’s distinct banding on his beak. “This is General Kalsim, Commander of the Federation Vessel Inatala’s Will. Star tours, have you suffered any damage?” The portrait squawked as the General’s feathers puffed with pride.
“Negative General, thank you for the save!”
“Understood, let’s get you home, Star Tours.”
“We would be very grateful, General! Protector guides you.”
The chair beneath Maeve vibrates and tilts back as the hyper-drive charges up again, the screen flashing to show the sprawling oceans of Aafa, glittering brilliantly in the shining sun, dotted by its giant floating cities and lush tropical islands. A flock of broad chirping seabirds adorned with vibrant colors gliding on the calm ocean breeze flanking the shuttle. The capital of Aafa grew on the viewscreen, the sprawling Governance Center of the Federation dominating the city, swooping lines and a singular towering dome marked the chambers of the Federation senate.
“Isn’t that a beautiful view? This is what we fight for, this is the Cradle of the Federation, the very heart of our enlightened civilization. This is what we protect.”
The camera pans low, the shuttle falling away, sweeping along the streets of the capital.
The dome grew ever larger in the background until the camera began to soar over busy diplomats entering the senate floor, the camera like a very lost Flowerbird. Chief Nikonus was delivering an impassioned speech to the gathered representatives, declaring the grand aims and lofty goals of the Federation to spread peace and safety to all Prey peoples. The camera panned around the room, showing representatives listening to the speech with focused ears and attentive eyes, pausing on the Venlil Representative, swaying their tail in pride and determination. As the camera finished its rotation it exited through the rooms wide glass panes, rising up and over the city as the shuttle reformed once again, breaching through the atmosphere and up into the stars.
Maeve’s seat rumbled as the hyperdrive spooled again, the screen clearing to show the Capital of Venlil Prime once more, soaring down to the arcade the adventure had started in. Captain Sovlin’s voice echoed from the speakers.
“Thank you for joining me today on Star Tours! Be sure to visit your nearest Federation recruitment center today and do your part!”
With fading fanfare, the seat returned to a neutral position and Maeve took off her helmet to meet our eyes. “That… was definitely a thing. It had a lot of… uh… ho boy.”
“Yeah, uh.” I shifted my weight awkwardly, “Watching that as an adult is… Stars, I remember wanting so badly to sign up. But my mom stopped me.”
“I’ll have to thank her when we get home.” Alvi sighed with exaggerated relief.
“You and me, both.” Maeve said through a relieved chuckle, “You guys want a turn? I’d like to do something more chill; cleanse the palate.”
Alvi and I politely declined, before I offered, “Actually I wanted to show you something. I don’t know how you guys have fun, but Shipper is really good.”
I guided Maeve to the catalog and pointed out the correct one. As the game started up and Maeve got the ship moving, she snorted and muttered to herself, “Of course you have Trucking Simulator In Space. Why am I even surprised.”
---
Maeve was making great progress, and had made two deliveries before the low fuel warning began trilling at her.
“Nah, see, you gotta watch your fuel too! The more you haul the more fuel you use, and you still gotta make it to your drop-off.”
“Wow, you guys do not mess around with these work simulators. We actually had a whole era of these a wh- Hey!”The screen locked up, telling us our 30 minutes were up.
“W-What does it say?”
“It says it's time to stop and get some food!”
“Ahh, man I was just getting the hang of it.”
“And I would like to get a hang of some Mel Root wedges. Come on!” Alvi chimed with a playful whine.Maeve rolled out of the station, and after a moment for her legs to remember what walking was, donned her veil and we continued to the food court. Pushing the doors open we saw a veritable swarm of Venlil of all ages, though many of the younger were already sitting while their parents fetched their meal. A child near the door caught sight of us and squeaked in surprise, alerting their parents to our presence.
Conversation died like a wave across the open expanse. Maeve stood stock still, and so did we, trying very very hard to avoid a panic and stampede.
I spoke in barely a whisper, “Maeve?”
She returned my quietness, “Yes, Valek?”
“I don’t want to do this to you, but I think it is best if we find a seat first… Then Alvi or I can get the food.” My tail began to sway in slow caution while my ears kept on a swivel.
“Yeah. Yeah, I think you’re right. Can you see any open tables?”Alvi flicked her tail at the balcony, “I see stairs there, and the balcony looks pretty clear.”
Maeve started to nod reflexively before catching herself, then back to keeping her head low and unfocused.
Alvi and I guided her gently around the outer perimeter of the court, slowly working our way to the stairwell while all eyes and ears were locked on us the whole journey. We stepped up the stairs and conversation slowly built up again, though not to the same exuberancy as before. We found our seat just outside the stairwell on the 2nd floor. We tried to avoid scaring what few families remained on the balcony, but despite our efforts, those few almost immediately grabbed their belongings and moved. It was almost comical how little they tried to hide it. Yet also surprising in that there hadn’t been any screams or stampeding. It left a strange feeling in the air. One that felt somehow both better and worse than if they had screamed.
This tension was not lost on Maeve, as she muttered to herself, “Plague bearer, or horrific monster. Decisions, decisions.”
I took her hand in my paw in a feeble attempt to offer what comfort I could. Alvi was the first to speak, “Well, Valek you got the Gravity room and Visor game, so I’ll handle food. Anything the two of you desperately want?”
We gave her our orders and she stepped down the stairs, leaving Maeve and I alone on the balcony.
I hoped to loosen the tangle of this horrid tension. “Sooo…. Biblical?”
As I had hoped, the sudden change snapped Maeve out of her stormcloud and laughter bubbled from her like the Sun! “UUh… That’s uh. Complicated. There’s a good thousand years of linguistic context that makes that word mean what it meant the way I used it. The Bible is a book of faith for a significant portion of people on earth. Not all, and not even a majority; hell, even that is fragmented because no one can agree on what it really means. This Bible teaches a great many things, some good some bad, but one of its teachings is how to… legitimize relationships. Get married, basically.”
Maeve leaned closer to me on the off chance the balcony was less empty than we believed, “And one of the more serious ways to officiate these pairings was with sex; or ‘mating’. As this faith quickly became one of the more influential faiths on our planet, most of humanity learned and still has complicated feelings about sex and intimacy. So, we talk around it. ‘Sleeping together’ ‘Do the nasty’ ‘The beast with two backs’ and more to the point: ‘To know someone biblically’.”
“So when you said…”“I was saying I had sex with one of you, yes.”
I focused my ears in feigned shock, while my tail swished with mischief, “I was that one, right?”
Maeve lightly shoved my shoulder while she straightened to her normal posture, but I stayed low. “Hey,” I whispered, nodding my head for Maeve to come closer, and she did so. I reached my paws up to her white veil, and brought it up and over her face, revealing her brightly blooming face which my lips eagerly met. Pulling away, I asked, “Perhaps once we get back to the hotel, we could… know each other biblically?”
She pulled my face back to hers, returning my affections with equal vigor, “Only if we can get Alvi out of the room. I want you all to myself.”
Alvi. Right. She’s… she’s here. Staying with us. And we would be… kicking her out. The one she admitted feeling for would be kicking her out to mate with someone else. But she understands! Right?
“Oh, looks like Alvi got us some food!”
My ears snapped behind me as Maeve looked over my shoulder.
---
Memory transcription subject: Alvi, Venlil tourist
Date [standardized human time]: Sept 11th, 2136. Middle of 3rd Claw
I stepped lightly up the stairs while balancing the trays within my arms. There were so many options! Cresting the top of the stairs, Valek stood to assist. While I covered the menu.“Ok we got all of our favorite fruit, I know how much you love starberries, Maeve.” Who smiled broadly under her now-open veil. “I was able to get us some Sunbreeze, but most of the food stands had long waits and I was hungry, so I just got a plate of fried veg and called it good. This one is the fried Deeproot, and powdered lakeseed dough balls, and some mel root wedges. The arcade’s mel root is a little heavy on the firefruit.”
“Thank you, Alvi!” Maeve picked up one of the larger wedges and broke it in half with me. We lifted our pieces in celebration and bit down at the same time. Immediately my mouth was alight with bright heat and my lips stung blissfully, but after only a moment the sweet and full flavor of the mel root complimented perfectly with the cleansing fire.
Maeve beside me scrunched her face and gasped, “Whoo!” She hooted, “That is spicy! Mm! That potato is really good though. What do you call this?”
I wagged my tail, happy to see that she appreciated the- wait. “Potato? That’s Mel Root. What’s a Potato?”
Maeve licked her fingers before taking another wedge, “It’s a root tuber; a staple food from earth. Mel root, or, well, cooked mel root, has a really similar consistency to potato! Makes sense since they’re both roots.” She took a bite of her wedge and immediately made that same face, “Ooo that was a mistake, I should have finished talking.” a few quick breaths through her mouth before she continued, “Your mel root is denser, closer to a carrot, but still really starchy. The fry really brings out a lot of sweetness; I’ll admit, it goes really well with the firefruit. Good choice Alvi!”
The praise set my tail to wagging as I bit into my food. So spicy! So good! I am so glad we came to this food court!
Speaking of, “I haven’t seen Tarlim or his human. I hope they haven’t changed their minds on meeting here.” I spoke through a masticated root.
“Wouldn’t blame them if they did,” Valek grumbled, tail curling between his legs, “I was just like everyone who’s been running from us…” He trailed off sinking into his chair.
“You could have handled it better, but so could he.” I sighed, remembering that chair. “From what I’ve heard of those places though, I can’t say I blame him.”
Maeve set down a piece of deeproot and looked at Valek. “What are those places? You guys got really scared when he said he got out of one.”
Valek was the first to speak, “They are places where we put people who are a danger to themselves or the Herd; people with Predator Disease.”
My fur flared at the mention of my almost-diagnosis. Maeve noticed and flattened the fur along my spine, “You’re not a predator Alvi. There is nothing wrong with you.”
She says while you continue stuffing your face like a hun--SHUT UP!! I AM NOT!! I AM LOVED!! I AM IN A HERD! THAT KNOWS AND STAYS! SHUT UP!
Maeve watched Valek while she continued to comfort me “And… how does one get predator disease?”
Valek continued his lesson, while I tried desperately to slow my spinning mind.
“Well… the federation tells us it can be spread by ‘predator taint’, or spending too much time around or with predators. I’m… I’m not sure I believe that. But we know it can be inherent. Sometimes symptoms begin as early as an infant. As well, it can appear randomly or be carried within family lines.”“And how does one get diagnosed?”
I thought about when my teacher first called the Exterminators. I remembered the Exterminators coming to my foster family. They talked them down, but it wasn’t long after that that they ‘couldn't take care of me’.
My voice left my mouth unbidden, “Well those born with it… they tend to get diagnosed early, but sometimes Predator Disease can come out later in life. If someone is reported for Predator Behavior, they have a chance to argue their case to the exterminator on duty. If the exterminator confirms the case, they are taken in to be diagnosed. And if it’s a yes, they are taken to a Correctional Facility to be taught how to be in a herd.”
Valek tapped his claws against the table as his tail shook with desperate hope. “See? There’s several checks on the way to a diagnosis. The system is designed to avoid false positives. If Tarlim was diagnosed, I am sure it was with good cause.”
Maeve shook her head, “I’m not so sure. By my count, there were only two people in that chain, three if you count the person reporting it, and at best only one of them was a medical professional, unless I’m misunderstanding the concept of exterminators. Setting that aside, I think I’m missing something. What is Predator Disease?”
“It’s when someone is a Predator in the body of a Prey. We can see them when they don’t work within a herd, or they don't understand our tail signals. These people are a danger to the herd, both passively and, if left unchecked, directly, so we try to teach them how to be Prey.” Valek looked desperately at Maeve after spouting the information, almost as if by rote. Like he was quoting an exterminator textbook.
“Wait, wait… so it’s a behavioral disease? They can’t grasp body language, or other people’s feelings?” Maeve was appearing more confused, more… afraid. Was predator disease so terrible among humans? Then why would she want me around?
Because she doesn’t know, stupid! But she's about to! They never stick around once they find out!
Valek was adamant. Maeve needed to know this, I know she did. “It’s not just that, they can’t even get themselves to be part of a herd! They always sit or move with nobody around them!” but once she did…
“Well then. What would that make me?”
My eyes froze in their sockets and my legs refused to flee.
The Night called us.
First -- Previous -- Next

I know quitting your job as a cook usually simply comes with two weeks notice or a ragequit walkout, but for eleven months I worked at a new franchise that had such potential which was being squandered by the incompetence of upper management. I present the nearly 6000 word thesis I turned in on my last day. Locations and names have been changed to cartoon references. Brackets represent ambiguous information in place of specific details.
Krusty Krab Careers Jobs
Opening in [Month/Year], Krusty Krab (KK) Bikini Bottom is on its 4th kitchen manager in less than a year. Krusty Krab O-Town has recently let go its inaugural kitchen manager and sous chef. Almost no member of the Bikini Bottom opening management team remains employed by KK. There is a pattern developing where one must question both the choice of employee and the directive given to new franchises. These lingering issues I brought concerns about in the first weeks of opening but was disregarded at every turn despite my experience with festival traffic. As a result I decided this was not a place I wanted to advance, but with a good-enough paycheck I’d be a lowly grunt in the kitchen four days a week, at five days a week I would have quit or been fired over a public outburst long ago. If Krusty Krab alters course slightly while being true to the brand this could be a successful chain.
My unique employment history in brick and mortar restaurants, food trucks, pop up culinary concepts, trade shows/conventions, and the film industry make me an ideal candidate to be on the opening team for new KK locations. My outgoing nature and foresight are valuable assets. For example, on training week before opening when I was standing around idly without a task I took it upon myself to organize the disarray that was dry storage. Overhearing Krabs tell another manager where he wanted the cleaning products placed, I had a jumping off point and the organization I created nine months ago is still largely in place. Since returning from my vacation in early February I have made it my mission to keep the storage area organized because it was again starting to resemble a hoarder’s house rather than a commercial kitchen. This is now part of my weekly routines because every time I turn my back there is more product being placed haphazardly just anywhere with little regard. I also recently reorganized the walk-in cooler because of problematic stocking with items being placed on the same shelf or below raw proteins. I also simply put all the like products together such as cheeses or fruits that were scattered amongst several shelves. With recent overordering I cannot keep up with the organization of the walk in cooler. The pattern recognition of food types and even simple shapes appears to be lost on the Bikini Bottom crew. My daily reorganization of containers is proof of this. Most days I’ll take a few minutes to put all cylinders together, all cambros together in descending volume, all deep and shallow pans next to each other rather than intermixed. My decision to be a kitchen manager at age 19 from 2005 thru 2008 and rarely enter restaurant management since is very calculated.
With my prior knowledge of professional kitchens I was becoming Bikini Bottom’s resident nag to coworkers as I made note of health department violations on a daily basis. I stopped after being largely ignored for two weeks. My regular health department nags include; a battle with jackets and hats being placed only in the designated area (a designated area that did not exist until I created a place for personal items a in January by neatly organizing the dry storage area again), waiting until prepped items are cooled before a cover is placed on top, placement of raw seafood, open containers (very often sugar, flour, and pancake mix bags ripped open and left), and dirty dishes/containers placed back in rotation. The dirty dishes and containers in rotation with the clean ones are at an atrociously high number. I have given up on making the 4th fryer seafood allergy safe too. With the low volume of seafood allergy safe items Bikini Bottom should purchase smaller baskets to visually discourage cross contamination with the other fryers and baskets. My skills to organize the kitchen do not end with simply where to store products to meet minimal health department standards.
Half of the space in the Bikini Bottom kitchen is completely wasted on an ill-advised walkway to the dishpit. An intelligent design would place a second doorway directly to the dishpit connected to the bar or where the bathrooms reside. Numerous times during the opening week of KK Bikini Bottom I said, yelled, sang, and muttered that we have too many food items for the amount of space we have. Icus stated that there was more space than Bluffington. Is Bluffington intelligently designed? Because Bikini Bottom most certainly isn’t. So Bikini Bottom actually has less space even if there is more square footage. See the attached diagram for an intelligent design that could potentially house a menu of this size. Bikini Bottom forces a line design on this kitchen when an open concept is needed for this menu. It’s as if this floorplan was created by a person who had only ever seen one commercial kitchen previously and couldn’t think 4th dimensionally to understand the needs of the workers to smoothly serve customers.
There is not enough counter space for pizzas without getting off the line, the microwave is placed completely out of the way, the freezer’s curved design is a waste of potential counter space and a falling hazard for containers stored on top of it, the toaster is an overcomplicated and overexpensive piece of machinery that serves exactly one purpose when a flat top could be used to toast bread and other purposes like a quesadilla special, sautee was designed without an overhang for spices, the pantry station lacks the counter space to have two containers of flour and two containers of batter for seafood allergies, there are no Frialator fryers which I have worked with at every single kitchen job previously instead we got the cheap Vulcan model (is that logical), the cheap low boy in pantry that doesn’t drain excess water anywhere it’s just supposed to evaporate somehow but doesn’t, the grill and fryer should be placed next to each other (with a higher volume of crossover than other stations), the floors are flat instead on having a mild decline towards the drains (just look at the standing water residing behind the oven right now), in the dishpit the spraying area and the filled sinks are backwards of a logical dipshit, the ramp to the back door is on the wrong side, there is no refrigerated place downstairs to stage extra food for busy shifts (the beer cooler is once again used for such food items because of this massive oversight), the prep station is an afterthought and miniscule, the dishes on the line are difficult to grab for anyone under 5’11” and inaccessible for anyone under 5’6” (instead of putting them underneath tables that also give that desperately needed counterspace I spoke of), there is not enough space to store to-go containers or boats behind the line, expo is lacking a low boy for the numerous items that are supposed to be cold but are instead kept at room temperature all day long, no one in management thought about buying shelves until right before Bikini Bottom opened as a result the clean full sheets sat on the floor for days, we had only the exact amount of 1⁄6 pans for an absurd amount of time making it impossible to rotate and clean them when necessary (which is daily), we still struggle with 1/9 pan supply. And just when I thought I documented all the poor design choices possible I stumbled upon a person whose office holiday party was booked at KK Bikini Bottom. The deck space works just fine as a deck. It does not double well as a gathering space. The space is too long and narrow for parties, it promotes little splitoff groups rather than a coming together of a larger gathering. It may be advantageous to contact a social psychologist for help designing a private party space that promotes intermingling rather than enforcing small pockets to form. The reorganization of the physical kitchen isn’t all that screams for an overhaul.
There are six positions on the line at the Krusty Krab; expo, oven, grill, sautee, fryer, and pantry. But the pantry and fryer positions are forced together like a bad remix. Everyone who mainly works pantry deserves a $6 raise immediately because it is a station and a half. Both Icus and Krumm, while kitchen manager, kind of acknowledged the pantry is too big for one station without outright mentioning the lopsided distribution of work. I imagine in the only location where this works, Bluffington, a second person joins the pantry at noon because of the unreasonable amount of items one person is tasked with. Bikini Bottom only has one person in this position at all times, maybe modify it for one person? The excess of items on the pantry position largely resembles a position I would call “set-up” or “build” at a previous job that made sensible choices. This build position should have tostadas, tacos, butcher’s blocks, toast, salads, lettuce wrap set ups, and preparing plating for whichever station is most bogged down. I have absolutely lost my mind yelling about salads at least once a month, ranting that they do not belong on the fryer position because of how illogical it is that five salads are included on the mountain of other items the pantry has. I have always considered working in a kitchen a kind of dance, and the pantry station demands an unnecessarily convoluted dance to keep up with the demand. Without the salads, tostadas, and tacos the station is already the busiest. Do we really need to combine ballet and swing by including these extra awkward dance steps in this single station? For a kitchen designed this poorly I suppose it is. Again, see attached document for an intelligently designed kitchen that might be able to accommodate this menu. Unless Bikini Bottom is going to close for a month to fix the baffling floor plan design the menu is shouting to be reduced to 30-36 items.
The menu is too big. Krusty Krab is the jack of all foods, master of none. In general I believe individual locations should be allowed 18% omissions, and 18% unique items to this wildly unwieldy menu sitting around 50 food items including sides. The insistence on keeping menu items that don’t sell at Bikini Bottom because of Bluffington is mind boggling. Chicken tenders do not sell at Bikini Bottom. fried sushi does not sell at Bikini Bottom, not enough to justify their place on the line. I don’t care how well these items work in Bluffinton. They. Do. Not. Work. At. Bikini. Bottom. If the KK location in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean sells an incredible amount of live krill does that mean Bikini Bottom and O-Town must sell live krill too? Take the fried sushi off the menu. I had a complete meltdown about this during a Dimmadome service and my valid point was met with indifference. Replace the kid’s tenders with a kid’s fish sticks. We already have the tilapia fish sticks on the line for tacos. Or make the kid’s fish sticks cod. We cut cod to order for fish tacos in spite of health code violations because it is too rare of an order to make beforehand. Saffron in mashed potatoes? If you must. Why are green tomatoes only on the menu during lunch? Bikini Bottom throws away a sizable amount of spoiled green tomatoes each week. Have green tomatoes on the menu all day long or don’t have them at all. The smoked salmon could go on salads or a special taco to justify its place on the line. The corn pico’s place on the line is unjustified. It only goes on one item, tostadas, which are not particularly popular. If we had a taco salad we could throw the corn pico on there. We also have unreasonable waste from unusable taco shells, smash up those imperfect taco shells and throw them on said taco salad. But before we add salads, let's get rid of the pear and kale salads. The pears' position on the line are unjustified, if we threw them on a taco variation maybe their place on the Bikini Bottom line could be argued but for now they only go on a salad that isn’t particularly popular. The kale salad is an issue of space for a 4th green for salads is too much. The krusty salad is my most hated house salad of all time. And it comes down to the toast with goat cheese. This ancillary step of spreading goat cheese on a cracker is an unnecessary step for an overly complicated dance and should be part of the expo dance if expo wasn’t a shoddily designed afterthought lacking a low boy.
There are a plethora of squeeze bottles on the pantry station that have no place on the overloaded station. They belong to an expo station with a low boy to keep them cold. Pantry has an overwhelming ten squeeze bottles: chipotle crema, sweet chili vinaigrette, buffalo, korean bbq, ranch, caesar, wine vinaigrette, lemon vinaigrette, honey mustard, and lemon aioli. Only the first four are justified on an intelligently designed fryer section, the second four belong on the build station, the last two have no place anywhere but expo. With this extra space sautee could keep their bottles and two purees cold in the fryer's lowboy instead of leaving them at room temperature all day inviting a pathogen party. This theorized intelligently designed expo would have room to keep these four squeeze bottles and a double of every sauce chilled to pour them into ramekins, a move that is highly common in the expo dance. The fact that expo doesn’t have a double of all squeeze bottles is foolish. Expo has to bother an overloaded station to pour these side sauces instead.
How many gallons of basil aioli has Bikini Bottom thrown away in 11 months? Four aiolis in general is way too many and most go on a single item; basil aioli on the incredibly unpopular veggie burger, lemon aioli for calamari, sweet chili aioli for the BLT that is only served half of the day, and garlic aioli actually goes on two items…I believe. What a colossal waste of precious little space, lose two aiolis and then you can sing the logical song with me. Perhaps we can put garlic aioli and sweet chili vinaigrette on the BLT separately and accomplish the exact same thing the sweet chili aioli does. The wings too have unneeded complications. Having worked at a sports bar specializing in wings for the better part of a decade I find KK’s plating of wings to be overly pretentious. The carrots, celery, and blue cheese have lost function. Heffer Wolf always said no one eats the carrot/celery julienne with blue cheese. It’s a complete waste of all the ingredients because you’ve gone too far with the presentation. Wings aren’t fancy. Wings are supposed to have a small pool of sauce and be sloppy. It’s like a sloppy joe that’s not sloppy, an unsloppy joe is a failure to sloppy joes just as the KK presentation of wings is a disparagement to the dish. Ever since training week back in 2022 I have used a scale to give Bikini Bottom a passing or failing grade.
Chokey Chicken to Chum Bucket is the scale I use to judge efficiency and sanity at Bikini Bottom. Both establishments are upscale casual dining experiences in Capitol City in the same vein as KK. Chokey had high employee retention and relatively smooth openings for new locations. Chum Bucket’s employee turnover was high and every location opening was chaotic. Which one sounds closer to KK? Chokey Chicken was filled with chefs I respect including Chef Ren Hoek who remains a close friend to this day. Ren lost his lifelong passion for kitchen work after working management at Chum Bucket. He’s actually seeking work in Bikini Bottom. Call him up at [phone number], but KK will give him Nam’ flashbacks of why he chose driving for a living rather than cooking for five years. The pair of us together helming Bikini Bottom with the ability to omit and create 18% of the overloaded menu can bring success to this franchise. We have worked well numerous times in the past on various concepts in the past including creating The Attack of the Pickled Tomatoes Burger for [Promotional live performance of a TV show] at the Capitol City Theater. We served 100 people in 60 at the [sitcom filming] lunch. That’s physically impossible but somehow we did it quite a few times.
A fun anecdote about Ren Hoek’s KK experience from the soft launch; on training week numerous times I brought concerns about being seafood allergy safe that were dismissed. As mentioned earlier the pantry station lacks the counter space to have two containers of flour and two containers of batter, one each of which seafood never touches. Before the soft launch Chef Stimpy from Bluffington insisted all customers just kind of know everything is prone to be seafood contaminated. Well, chef Ren was a customer that night and this absolutely was not communicated to customers. He claimed to have a slight seafood allergy and was not informed of what the crab soup was. In reality he does not have a seafood allergy. I didn’t discuss the seafood issue with Ren, separately we noticed egregious violations of food safety standards and we each responded in our own way. The soft launch service was so awful that night Chef Ren walked out of a free meal to pay for some ramen, never to return to Bikini Bottom. I attribute this oversight, and many of Bikini Bottom’s (and probably O-Town’s) problems to hubris over the Bluffington location.
Chef Chokey would also be hesitant to join the KK team. It will cost a finder’s fee just for me to reveal Chef Chokey’s name. Chef Chokey was a lead in the rapid expansion of Chokey Chicken restaurants. He opened numerous restaurants and was big on the philosophy that each restaurant must have its own personality in order to fit the unique local culture and the variety of working spaces. This is in direct conflict with the KK way that everything must be exactly like the Bluffington location no matter what. There was only one Chokey Chicken location that had the full menu, Chokey Springfield. Chokey Springfield had a large space which was intelligently designed to accommodate such a large menu. The KK menu is all over the place, closing in on 50 menu items which comes up as a failure on the Chokey Chicken/Chum Bucket scale. This is not the only area KK comes up as a major failure on the Chokey Chicken/Chum Bucket scale.
Has anyone in this company ever worked festival traffic before? Does anyone have the experience of working next to a major venue with 8000 seats before this one? The way Bikini Bottom handles Dimmadome services it certainly appears that the decision-makers fall on the wrong side of the Dunning-Kruger effect. Having all 50 items available during such massive traffic is completely asinine. An unwillingness to serve a partial menu is hindering the Bikini Bottom kitchen staff. I have worked festival traffic before, and Dimmadome events bring in festival traffic. I’ve worked inside a festival whose line never ended but every customer got their order in 5 minutes or less because the line kept flowing with only four items on the menu as that’s what was warranted at the B-Sharps Music Festival. I refuse to be set up for failure the way Bikini Bottom sets up Dimmadome services for failure. The entire week of concerts in [summer] 2022 I was set up for failure every day (it was after this I modified my availability to keep my sanity and my paycheck). When I brought my concerns about running efficiently during Dimmadome services I was labeled a B-worker for the first time in my employment history by Icus and Krabs. It is that moment which I was either going to holler at them both for being 2-dimensional thinkers who were obviously unqualified for the positions they accepted in this company, or just put my head down. If Bikini Bottom has a successful concert day service, hail your team because they snatched victory from the jaws of defeat. They swam with concrete shoes. I often wonder how many customers had bad experiences and never returned after concert days. A Dimmadome service should have no more than 25 items and have one or two specials to divert traffic towards an area the kitchen can keep moving. An Open Cup Open Plate (OCOP) special for foot traffic is absolutely needed. When I suggested OCOP special, Heffer was intrigued by this idea and immediately named burgers as the special to keep foot traffic flowing. Smithers wouldn’t hear this idea, babbling on about what’s advertised instead of hearing out a sound idea. This prattle despite radio commercials having inaccurate hours and social media promoting Bikini Bottom’s steak tacos to this day. I always found Smithers to be a better fit as a middle management office pencil pusher than as a hands-on restaurant manager. Overall I find KK managers are selected to be automatons not to question their orders rather than critical thinkers who could take the restaurant to the next level. During brunch service is another period of time that must be modified to lessen the heft of items. Having a full menu that barely works plus brunch is so deep into Chum Bucket territory, in my opinion we now have to use the Tropic Thunder scale of full retard to describe a 60-plus-item brunch. Chef Ren hired back a Chum Bucket cook who had a mental breakdown and stormed out during brunch (plus full menu) service because Ren knew the employee was justified and upper management was completely unreasonable in their brunch requests. It’s not just questionable decisions that hinder KK staff but improper equipment as well.
This is the first restaurant I have worked at which uses a touch screen on the line rather than tickets. From day one I found this to be technology for technology’s sake inferior to tickets. Chef Ren forced a new Chum Bucket location to rip out touch screens from the line and bring in ticket printers because of the higher efficiency. The touch screen is a great idea for expo, not the entire line. My biggest gripe is that each station does not get all the information. Early on I was regularly yelled at for not staggering my items, well I can’t see the rest of the order; a problem I have never had with a ticket system. Touchscreen software is also much more prone to errors and glitches. When I reported an error during a heavy service Icus and Krabs blamed my skills on the line without looking into the malfunctioning screen further. It was glitchy for weeks before the two finally investigated and corrected the issue I brought to their attention long before. Those two gave me an immense amount of ammunition to dislike them in the opening weeks until I stopped caring. The issue I had with being unable to scroll beyond the bottom of a completely filled screen has returned and is still there as of [my last day]. There are also important details that get buried. A frequent meltdown I have is that sauce on side requests and other important modifications are not capitalized or in red to catch the eye as they have been at jobs with tickets. These details get lost on Bikini Bottom’s touchscreens. A sauce on side salad made by me will be wrong 50% of the time because of the instructions being camouflaged in a word salad. This goes for coleslaw on the side and drizzle on the side too. Drizzle in general I dislike because of the pretentiousness, but whatever, drizzle it on top rather than putting it in a ramekin if you must. There are numerous places where Bikini Bottom overcomplicates matters for reasons I cannot ascertain.
Why is there such a large variety of plates? Why do we have a medium circular plate for salads and a large bowl for salads with protein? This just confuses the simplest of matters. I was told this is done because of the high price hike with protein, a larger presentation was desired. But that price hike is the price of protein in 2023. Bikini Bottom should put all salads in the large bowls and use all the circular salad plates in a skeet shooting promotion. I understand why we have both a circular platter plate and a pizza plate but in my restaurant the circular platter plates must go...or maybe the large platter plate instead. Is the large platter used for anything besides fish and chips? That extra space on fish and chips plates are only used for side sauces which can easily be delivered to customers on small circular plates. What is the medium oval plate doing that the medium rectangular plate isn’t? And vice versa. Why do they both exist when they are approximately the same size? Let me write an internet commercial where we break a lot of plates so we can get some logical use out of the superfluous plates. I don’t care which one is destroyed, the ovals or the rectangles but one of them is an unnecessary redundancy in excess done again. Speaking of commercials, the unimaginative radio advertisements for Bikini Bottom are doing little to lure new customers to the restaurant.
The three radio spots I have heard on KBBL all sound like they were produced by a marketing 101 student who wasn’t a natural in the field. The voiceover actor was so uncharismatic I was certain someone from the office was chosen at random to read the copy. Then I heard that same voiceover actor selling pool supplies on another radio station so I concluded that Bikini Bottom must have hired the cheapest guy in town to produce the most basic of commercials. Perhaps there is someone else you could hire more qualified to voiceover these commercials, an actor with experience on an Emmy award winning cable program whose unique place in the film industry was written about on [website] would be a much wiser choice to be the voice of the KK? (See external link). In the ad there was no catchphrase, no jingle, no music whatsoever. This simple approach to commercials lacks the pizazz to catch the attention of radio listeners. The first two commercials I heard would get a C in marketing 101 as they were nearly the exact same and accomplished the bare minimum to sell wares, the third one would maybe get a B- because there was some sort of attempted gimmick with the voiceover whispering to represent thinking inside his head about what he was going to eat later at KK. Not only does this commercial give no reason for the man to think inside his head, the outside world still and unpopulated. To see what a creative person would do with this concept see the attached script. There is an attempted slogan that could become part of an ad campaign. Commercials aren’t the only lost opportunities in promotions.
There are numerous promotional celebrity tie-ins at Bikini Bottom’s fingertips with Dimmadome performers. The restaurant could have a Phish sandwich as a OCOP special on [Phish performance dates], or a pretentious Jelly Roll on [Jelly Roll performance date]. Has anyone reached out to the Dimmadome theater or talent management for approved special menu items to be promoted inside the dome? Perhaps a special 20% discount to ticket holders? Is Bikini Bottom capable of getting permits to extend Open Container hours beyond [cutoff time] for an afterparty or block party throughout a Dimmadome concert? I see additional marketing opportunities left on the table for all new locations.
I believe new KK locations are missing out on a marketing campaign by opening with the entire cumbersome 50 item menu. This is a staggering amount of menu items which is too much to ask new staffers to perfect all at once. After a few months expanding the menu by approximately ten items is catching to customers who haven’t returned after a single visit or infrequently stop into KK. There are ten new food items that might appeal to them. Just like it appears KK doesn’t know what it’s looking for in a good commercial spot, this company doesn’t appear to recognize a talented from an untalented worker until it’s too late.
It is my understanding that KK had a headhunter to find Icus, the first Bikini Bottom kitchen manager. If it were up to me I’d hire someone to break the legs of that headhunter for bringing in a subpar kitchen lead. We are still attempting to recover from the lousy choices she made in the floor plan. If anybody responsible for Bikini Bottom’s floor plan is still giving input, stop them immediately. Once the doors were open to the public Icus had his head in the clouds to a point where I questioned if he saw the writing on the walls of an imminent demotion and stopped trying as a result. I had a full deck of 3x5 cards in an archaic powerpoint presentation bringing numerous concerns to light that he kept putting off listening to until he was fired. Those same cards were broken out for this essay. The second kitchen manager, Krumm, is a good lesson in honesty. According to Heffer, Krumm was given a bill of goods about how smoothly KK Bikini Bottom was running. Since Krumm stepped into a latrine pit which he was led to believe was a heated pool, he left in short time. Krumm also had plans to modify the menu but when his bosses told him to be a rodeo clown rather than a cowboy Krumm didn’t take too kindly to that. Meanwhile Heffer was the savior of the Bikini Bottom kitchen. I didn’t agree with every single decision he made, but I did with a majority of them. Heffer’s overhaul was such a blessing so I didn’t have to fiddle with the organization of 60% of the equipment anymore, only about 20% now. Too bad Heffer’s crippling depression came back after bashing his head into the wall out of frustration with the shackles KK restrained him with.
The current management team is enthusiastic but inexperienced. I see an accumulation of small infractions that might bring down Bikini Bottom’s health department rating significantly. I see the entire management team being inattentive or unaware about organizational issues. Whatever bureaucratic nonsense corporate tasks everyone with from the original sous chef Skeeter to Patty Mayonnaise that makes them walk away from the line between 11am and 1pm especially is infuriating. I have never been left alone on a multi-person line during peak hours so regularly, and I won’t tolerate it anymore. As much as I believe in his drive, I imagine our current kitchen manager SpongeBob will be let go after a disastrous service during the Dimmadome concert season that someone has to take the fall for. Chef Ren and I could help bring experience in management and dealing with festival traffic...if corporate does not force us to follow a failing strategy.
After working nearly a year at KK you may ask why I’m not proficient on more than one station. Excellent question. First, when I move over to another station the squeeze bottles are never labeled (until Stu Pickles was hired, now they’re sometimes labeled), so I always looked at the glut of unlabeled sauces and I’d go back to my station because the basic information is missing (also a health department violation for having numerous unlabeled, unchilled bottles). In his first week the new general manager Stu Pickles pulled out 90% of the containers under the grill station because they were lacking labels despite an expected health department visit. The second reason for my menu ignorance is the mountain of prep for my own and upcoming shifts I have piled up on my station throughout service. My attention to detail appears to be next level with my ability to anticipate stocking all items for all shifts including the weeknd. The third reason I wouldn’t learn multiple stations is a defense against the afternoon conference calls. In [month] the Bikini Bottom line was unprepared for a busy post lunch because one cook was cut and our expo person was busy with a conference call. The two of us remaining on the line had a miserable slog through an unexpectedly busy afternoon. When I brought this up to Krabs he disregarded me, being a good bean counter he quoted the cost percentage. What he didn’t take into account was the missing expo person who could have jumped on the line and expo to help the understaffed two man team. That person was stuck on a conference call. Just recently I saw the company actively lose money because of this poorly thought-out meeting during business hours. A customer wanted to order a dessert that was 86ed but had been restocked by our prep cook an hour before. The server was unable to sell them their dessert because the only person in the building who could help un-86 an item was on a conference call. This conference call calamity is another bone-headed choice that speaks to a larger decision-making problem within the corporate structure. Finish the conference calls by 10:45 am eastern.
In conclusion, I quit my position as a lowly grunt for this company because of its unwarranted perplexing dance steps and below average management. I don’t care how much varnish and lacquer is supplied, I refuse to polish this Bikini Bottom turd as a manager or full-time employee under the current circumstances. You would have to take a pickaxe to the floor, possibly relocate the bathrooms to add a door to the dishpit, get rid of the cheap low boy that doesn’t properly drain excess water, and Mr Gorbachov knock down that wall in the middle of the kitchen to give the proper amount of space to work. Or simply reduce the menu to 36 items (including sides) because that’s the amount of space this dreadful design can comfortably output. Would Gordon Ramsay compliment KK for all the unnecessary convoluted complications abound, or would Chef Ramsay yell about keeping it simple and demand KK chuck it in the flip? Thanks to the numerous pop up restaurants I have been a part of and the hectic world of trade shows/conventions, I may have more experience than anyone else employed by KK in smoothly opening a new location. I would enjoy being part of the opening team to ensure new locations have an efficiency Bikini Bottom lacks, and to keep upper management away from their worst instincts. Work with me and Chef Ren and we will help you become a well oiled machine like Chokey Chicken instead of the Chum Bucket cesspit Bikini Bottom currently embodies.

I know quitting your job as a cook usually simply comes with two weeks notice or a ragequit walkout, but for eleven months I worked at a new franchise that had such potential which was being squandered by the incompetence of upper management. I present the nearly 6000 word thesis I turned in on my last day. Locations and names have been changed to cartoon references. Brackets represent ambiguous information in place of specific details.
Krusty Krab Careers Jobs
Opening in [Month/Year], Krusty Krab (KK) Bikini Bottom is on its 4th kitchen manager in less than a year. Krusty Krab O-Town has recently let go its inaugural kitchen manager and sous chef. Almost no member of the Bikini Bottom opening management team remains employed by KK. There is a pattern developing where one must question both the choice of employee and the directive given to new franchises. These lingering issues I brought concerns about in the first weeks of opening but was disregarded at every turn despite my experience with festival traffic. As a result I decided this was not a place I wanted to advance, but with a good-enough paycheck I’d be a lowly grunt in the kitchen four days a week, at five days a week I would have quit or been fired over a public outburst long ago. If Krusty Krab alters course slightly while being true to the brand this could be a successful chain.
My unique employment history in brick and mortar restaurants, food trucks, pop up culinary concepts, trade shows/conventions, and the film industry make me an ideal candidate to be on the opening team for new KK locations. My outgoing nature and foresight are valuable assets. For example, on training week before opening when I was standing around idly without a task I took it upon myself to organize the disarray that was dry storage. Overhearing Krabs tell another manager where he wanted the cleaning products placed, I had a jumping off point and the organization I created nine months ago is still largely in place. Since returning from my vacation in early February I have made it my mission to keep the storage area organized because it was again starting to resemble a hoarder’s house rather than a commercial kitchen. This is now part of my weekly routines because every time I turn my back there is more product being placed haphazardly just anywhere with little regard. I also recently reorganized the walk-in cooler because of problematic stocking with items being placed on the same shelf or below raw proteins. I also simply put all the like products together such as cheeses or fruits that were scattered amongst several shelves. With recent overordering I cannot keep up with the organization of the walk in cooler. The pattern recognition of food types and even simple shapes appears to be lost on the Bikini Bottom crew. My daily reorganization of containers is proof of this. Most days I’ll take a few minutes to put all cylinders together, all cambros together in descending volume, all deep and shallow pans next to each other rather than intermixed. My decision to be a kitchen manager at age 19 from 2005 thru 2008 and rarely enter restaurant management since is very calculated.
With my prior knowledge of professional kitchens I was becoming Bikini Bottom’s resident nag to coworkers as I made note of health department violations on a daily basis. I stopped after being largely ignored for two weeks. My regular health department nags include; a battle with jackets and hats being placed only in the designated area (a designated area that did not exist until I created a place for personal items a in January by neatly organizing the dry storage area again), waiting until prepped items are cooled before a cover is placed on top, placement of raw seafood, open containers (very often sugar, flour, and pancake mix bags ripped open and left), and dirty dishes/containers placed back in rotation. The dirty dishes and containers in rotation with the clean ones are at an atrociously high number. I have given up on making the 4th fryer seafood allergy safe too. With the low volume of seafood allergy safe items Bikini Bottom should purchase smaller baskets to visually discourage cross contamination with the other fryers and baskets. My skills to organize the kitchen do not end with simply where to store products to meet minimal health department standards.
Half of the space in the Bikini Bottom kitchen is completely wasted on an ill-advised walkway to the dishpit. An intelligent design would place a second doorway directly to the dishpit connected to the bar or where the bathrooms reside. Numerous times during the opening week of KK Bikini Bottom I said, yelled, sang, and muttered that we have too many food items for the amount of space we have. Icus stated that there was more space than Bluffington. Is Bluffington intelligently designed? Because Bikini Bottom most certainly isn’t. So Bikini Bottom actually has less space even if there is more square footage. See the attached diagram for an intelligent design that could potentially house a menu of this size. Bikini Bottom forces a line design on this kitchen when an open concept is needed for this menu. It’s as if this floorplan was created by a person who had only ever seen one commercial kitchen previously and couldn’t think 4th dimensionally to understand the needs of the workers to smoothly serve customers.
There is not enough counter space for pizzas without getting off the line, the microwave is placed completely out of the way, the freezer’s curved design is a waste of potential counter space and a falling hazard for containers stored on top of it, the toaster is an overcomplicated and overexpensive piece of machinery that serves exactly one purpose when a flat top could be used to toast bread and other purposes like a quesadilla special, sautee was designed without an overhang for spices, the pantry station lacks the counter space to have two containers of flour and two containers of batter for seafood allergies, there are no Frialator fryers which I have worked with at every single kitchen job previously instead we got the cheap Vulcan model (is that logical), the cheap low boy in pantry that doesn’t drain excess water anywhere it’s just supposed to evaporate somehow but doesn’t, the grill and fryer should be placed next to each other (with a higher volume of crossover than other stations), the floors are flat instead on having a mild decline towards the drains (just look at the standing water residing behind the oven right now), in the dishpit the spraying area and the filled sinks are backwards of a logical dipshit, the ramp to the back door is on the wrong side, there is no refrigerated place downstairs to stage extra food for busy shifts (the beer cooler is once again used for such food items because of this massive oversight), the prep station is an afterthought and miniscule, the dishes on the line are difficult to grab for anyone under 5’11” and inaccessible for anyone under 5’6” (instead of putting them underneath tables that also give that desperately needed counterspace I spoke of), there is not enough space to store to-go containers or boats behind the line, expo is lacking a low boy for the numerous items that are supposed to be cold but are instead kept at room temperature all day long, no one in management thought about buying shelves until right before Bikini Bottom opened as a result the clean full sheets sat on the floor for days, we had only the exact amount of 1⁄6 pans for an absurd amount of time making it impossible to rotate and clean them when necessary (which is daily), we still struggle with 1/9 pan supply. And just when I thought I documented all the poor design choices possible I stumbled upon a person whose office holiday party was booked at KK Bikini Bottom. The deck space works just fine as a deck. It does not double well as a gathering space. The space is too long and narrow for parties, it promotes little splitoff groups rather than a coming together of a larger gathering. It may be advantageous to contact a social psychologist for help designing a private party space that promotes intermingling rather than enforcing small pockets to form. The reorganization of the physical kitchen isn’t all that screams for an overhaul.
There are six positions on the line at the Krusty Krab; expo, oven, grill, sautee, fryer, and pantry. But the pantry and fryer positions are forced together like a bad remix. Everyone who mainly works pantry deserves a $6 raise immediately because it is a station and a half. Both Icus and Krumm, while kitchen manager, kind of acknowledged the pantry is too big for one station without outright mentioning the lopsided distribution of work. I imagine in the only location where this works, Bluffington, a second person joins the pantry at noon because of the unreasonable amount of items one person is tasked with. Bikini Bottom only has one person in this position at all times, maybe modify it for one person? The excess of items on the pantry position largely resembles a position I would call “set-up” or “build” at a previous job that made sensible choices. This build position should have tostadas, tacos, butcher’s blocks, toast, salads, lettuce wrap set ups, and preparing plating for whichever station is most bogged down. I have absolutely lost my mind yelling about salads at least once a month, ranting that they do not belong on the fryer position because of how illogical it is that five salads are included on the mountain of other items the pantry has. I have always considered working in a kitchen a kind of dance, and the pantry station demands an unnecessarily convoluted dance to keep up with the demand. Without the salads, tostadas, and tacos the station is already the busiest. Do we really need to combine ballet and swing by including these extra awkward dance steps in this single station? For a kitchen designed this poorly I suppose it is. Again, see attached document for an intelligently designed kitchen that might be able to accommodate this menu. Unless Bikini Bottom is going to close for a month to fix the baffling floor plan design the menu is shouting to be reduced to 30-36 items.
The menu is too big. Krusty Krab is the jack of all foods, master of none. In general I believe individual locations should be allowed 18% omissions, and 18% unique items to this wildly unwieldy menu sitting around 50 food items including sides. The insistence on keeping menu items that don’t sell at Bikini Bottom because of Bluffington is mind boggling. Chicken tenders do not sell at Bikini Bottom. fried sushi does not sell at Bikini Bottom, not enough to justify their place on the line. I don’t care how well these items work in Bluffinton. They. Do. Not. Work. At. Bikini. Bottom. If the KK location in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean sells an incredible amount of live krill does that mean Bikini Bottom and O-Town must sell live krill too? Take the fried sushi off the menu. I had a complete meltdown about this during a Dimmadome service and my valid point was met with indifference. Replace the kid’s tenders with a kid’s fish sticks. We already have the tilapia fish sticks on the line for tacos. Or make the kid’s fish sticks cod. We cut cod to order for fish tacos in spite of health code violations because it is too rare of an order to make beforehand. Saffron in mashed potatoes? If you must. Why are green tomatoes only on the menu during lunch? Bikini Bottom throws away a sizable amount of spoiled green tomatoes each week. Have green tomatoes on the menu all day long or don’t have them at all. The smoked salmon could go on salads or a special taco to justify its place on the line. The corn pico’s place on the line is unjustified. It only goes on one item, tostadas, which are not particularly popular. If we had a taco salad we could throw the corn pico on there. We also have unreasonable waste from unusable taco shells, smash up those imperfect taco shells and throw them on said taco salad. But before we add salads, let's get rid of the pear and kale salads. The pears' position on the line are unjustified, if we threw them on a taco variation maybe their place on the Bikini Bottom line could be argued but for now they only go on a salad that isn’t particularly popular. The kale salad is an issue of space for a 4th green for salads is too much. The krusty salad is my most hated house salad of all time. And it comes down to the toast with goat cheese. This ancillary step of spreading goat cheese on a cracker is an unnecessary step for an overly complicated dance and should be part of the expo dance if expo wasn’t a shoddily designed afterthought lacking a low boy.
There are a plethora of squeeze bottles on the pantry station that have no place on the overloaded station. They belong to an expo station with a low boy to keep them cold. Pantry has an overwhelming ten squeeze bottles: chipotle crema, sweet chili vinaigrette, buffalo, korean bbq, ranch, caesar, wine vinaigrette, lemon vinaigrette, honey mustard, and lemon aioli. Only the first four are justified on an intelligently designed fryer section, the second four belong on the build station, the last two have no place anywhere but expo. With this extra space sautee could keep their bottles and two purees cold in the fryer's lowboy instead of leaving them at room temperature all day inviting a pathogen party. This theorized intelligently designed expo would have room to keep these four squeeze bottles and a double of every sauce chilled to pour them into ramekins, a move that is highly common in the expo dance. The fact that expo doesn’t have a double of all squeeze bottles is foolish. Expo has to bother an overloaded station to pour these side sauces instead.
How many gallons of basil aioli has Bikini Bottom thrown away in 11 months? Four aiolis in general is way too many and most go on a single item; basil aioli on the incredibly unpopular veggie burger, lemon aioli for calamari, sweet chili aioli for the BLT that is only served half of the day, and garlic aioli actually goes on two items…I believe. What a colossal waste of precious little space, lose two aiolis and then you can sing the logical song with me. Perhaps we can put garlic aioli and sweet chili vinaigrette on the BLT separately and accomplish the exact same thing the sweet chili aioli does. The wings too have unneeded complications. Having worked at a sports bar specializing in wings for the better part of a decade I find KK’s plating of wings to be overly pretentious. The carrots, celery, and blue cheese have lost function. Heffer Wolf always said no one eats the carrot/celery julienne with blue cheese. It’s a complete waste of all the ingredients because you’ve gone too far with the presentation. Wings aren’t fancy. Wings are supposed to have a small pool of sauce and be sloppy. It’s like a sloppy joe that’s not sloppy, an unsloppy joe is a failure to sloppy joes just as the KK presentation of wings is a disparagement to the dish. Ever since training week back in 2022 I have used a scale to give Bikini Bottom a passing or failing grade.
Chokey Chicken to Chum Bucket is the scale I use to judge efficiency and sanity at Bikini Bottom. Both establishments are upscale casual dining experiences in Capitol City in the same vein as KK. Chokey had high employee retention and relatively smooth openings for new locations. Chum Bucket’s employee turnover was high and every location opening was chaotic. Which one sounds closer to KK? Chokey Chicken was filled with chefs I respect including Chef Ren Hoek who remains a close friend to this day. Ren lost his lifelong passion for kitchen work after working management at Chum Bucket. He’s actually seeking work in Bikini Bottom. Call him up at [phone number], but KK will give him Nam’ flashbacks of why he chose driving for a living rather than cooking for five years. The pair of us together helming Bikini Bottom with the ability to omit and create 18% of the overloaded menu can bring success to this franchise. We have worked well numerous times in the past on various concepts in the past including creating The Attack of the Pickled Tomatoes Burger for [Promotional live performance of a TV show] at the Capitol City Theater. We served 100 people in 60 at the [sitcom filming] lunch. That’s physically impossible but somehow we did it quite a few times.
A fun anecdote about Ren Hoek’s KK experience from the soft launch; on training week numerous times I brought concerns about being seafood allergy safe that were dismissed. As mentioned earlier the pantry station lacks the counter space to have two containers of flour and two containers of batter, one each of which seafood never touches. Before the soft launch Chef Stimpy from Bluffington insisted all customers just kind of know everything is prone to be seafood contaminated. Well, chef Ren was a customer that night and this absolutely was not communicated to customers. He claimed to have a slight seafood allergy and was not informed of what the crab soup was. In reality he does not have a seafood allergy. I didn’t discuss the seafood issue with Ren, separately we noticed egregious violations of food safety standards and we each responded in our own way. The soft launch service was so awful that night Chef Ren walked out of a free meal to pay for some ramen, never to return to Bikini Bottom. I attribute this oversight, and many of Bikini Bottom’s (and probably O-Town’s) problems to hubris over the Bluffington location.
Chef Chokey would also be hesitant to join the KK team. It will cost a finder’s fee just for me to reveal Chef Chokey’s name. Chef Chokey was a lead in the rapid expansion of Chokey Chicken restaurants. He opened numerous restaurants and was big on the philosophy that each restaurant must have its own personality in order to fit the unique local culture and the variety of working spaces. This is in direct conflict with the KK way that everything must be exactly like the Bluffington location no matter what. There was only one Chokey Chicken location that had the full menu, Chokey Springfield. Chokey Springfield had a large space which was intelligently designed to accommodate such a large menu. The KK menu is all over the place, closing in on 50 menu items which comes up as a failure on the Chokey Chicken/Chum Bucket scale. This is not the only area KK comes up as a major failure on the Chokey Chicken/Chum Bucket scale.
Has anyone in this company ever worked festival traffic before? Does anyone have the experience of working next to a major venue with 8000 seats before this one? The way Bikini Bottom handles Dimmadome services it certainly appears that the decision-makers fall on the wrong side of the Dunning-Kruger effect. Having all 50 items available during such massive traffic is completely asinine. An unwillingness to serve a partial menu is hindering the Bikini Bottom kitchen staff. I have worked festival traffic before, and Dimmadome events bring in festival traffic. I’ve worked inside a festival whose line never ended but every customer got their order in 5 minutes or less because the line kept flowing with only four items on the menu as that’s what was warranted at the B-Sharps Music Festival. I refuse to be set up for failure the way Bikini Bottom sets up Dimmadome services for failure. The entire week of concerts in [summer] 2022 I was set up for failure every day (it was after this I modified my availability to keep my sanity and my paycheck). When I brought my concerns about running efficiently during Dimmadome services I was labeled a B-worker for the first time in my employment history by Icus and Krabs. It is that moment which I was either going to holler at them both for being 2-dimensional thinkers who were obviously unqualified for the positions they accepted in this company, or just put my head down. If Bikini Bottom has a successful concert day service, hail your team because they snatched victory from the jaws of defeat. They swam with concrete shoes. I often wonder how many customers had bad experiences and never returned after concert days. A Dimmadome service should have no more than 25 items and have one or two specials to divert traffic towards an area the kitchen can keep moving. An Open Cup Open Plate (OCOP) special for foot traffic is absolutely needed. When I suggested OCOP special, Heffer was intrigued by this idea and immediately named burgers as the special to keep foot traffic flowing. Smithers wouldn’t hear this idea, babbling on about what’s advertised instead of hearing out a sound idea. This prattle despite radio commercials having inaccurate hours and social media promoting Bikini Bottom’s steak tacos to this day. I always found Smithers to be a better fit as a middle management office pencil pusher than as a hands-on restaurant manager. Overall I find KK managers are selected to be automatons not to question their orders rather than critical thinkers who could take the restaurant to the next level. During brunch service is another period of time that must be modified to lessen the heft of items. Having a full menu that barely works plus brunch is so deep into Chum Bucket territory, in my opinion we now have to use the Tropic Thunder scale of full retard to describe a 60-plus-item brunch. Chef Ren hired back a Chum Bucket cook who had a mental breakdown and stormed out during brunch (plus full menu) service because Ren knew the employee was justified and upper management was completely unreasonable in their brunch requests. It’s not just questionable decisions that hinder KK staff but improper equipment as well.
This is the first restaurant I have worked at which uses a touch screen on the line rather than tickets. From day one I found this to be technology for technology’s sake inferior to tickets. Chef Ren forced a new Chum Bucket location to rip out touch screens from the line and bring in ticket printers because of the higher efficiency. The touch screen is a great idea for expo, not the entire line. My biggest gripe is that each station does not get all the information. Early on I was regularly yelled at for not staggering my items, well I can’t see the rest of the order; a problem I have never had with a ticket system. Touchscreen software is also much more prone to errors and glitches. When I reported an error during a heavy service Icus and Krabs blamed my skills on the line without looking into the malfunctioning screen further. It was glitchy for weeks before the two finally investigated and corrected the issue I brought to their attention long before. Those two gave me an immense amount of ammunition to dislike them in the opening weeks until I stopped caring. The issue I had with being unable to scroll beyond the bottom of a completely filled screen has returned and is still there as of [my last day]. There are also important details that get buried. A frequent meltdown I have is that sauce on side requests and other important modifications are not capitalized or in red to catch the eye as they have been at jobs with tickets. These details get lost on Bikini Bottom’s touchscreens. A sauce on side salad made by me will be wrong 50% of the time because of the instructions being camouflaged in a word salad. This goes for coleslaw on the side and drizzle on the side too. Drizzle in general I dislike because of the pretentiousness, but whatever, drizzle it on top rather than putting it in a ramekin if you must. There are numerous places where Bikini Bottom overcomplicates matters for reasons I cannot ascertain.
Why is there such a large variety of plates? Why do we have a medium circular plate for salads and a large bowl for salads with protein? This just confuses the simplest of matters. I was told this is done because of the high price hike with protein, a larger presentation was desired. But that price hike is the price of protein in 2023. Bikini Bottom should put all salads in the large bowls and use all the circular salad plates in a skeet shooting promotion. I understand why we have both a circular platter plate and a pizza plate but in my restaurant the circular platter plates must go...or maybe the large platter plate instead. Is the large platter used for anything besides fish and chips? That extra space on fish and chips plates are only used for side sauces which can easily be delivered to customers on small circular plates. What is the medium oval plate doing that the medium rectangular plate isn’t? And vice versa. Why do they both exist when they are approximately the same size? Let me write an internet commercial where we break a lot of plates so we can get some logical use out of the superfluous plates. I don’t care which one is destroyed, the ovals or the rectangles but one of them is an unnecessary redundancy in excess done again. Speaking of commercials, the unimaginative radio advertisements for Bikini Bottom are doing little to lure new customers to the restaurant.
The three radio spots I have heard on KBBL all sound like they were produced by a marketing 101 student who wasn’t a natural in the field. The voiceover actor was so uncharismatic I was certain someone from the office was chosen at random to read the copy. Then I heard that same voiceover actor selling pool supplies on another radio station so I concluded that Bikini Bottom must have hired the cheapest guy in town to produce the most basic of commercials. Perhaps there is someone else you could hire more qualified to voiceover these commercials, an actor with experience on an Emmy award winning cable program whose unique place in the film industry was written about on [website] would be a much wiser choice to be the voice of the KK? (See external link). In the ad there was no catchphrase, no jingle, no music whatsoever. This simple approach to commercials lacks the pizazz to catch the attention of radio listeners. The first two commercials I heard would get a C in marketing 101 as they were nearly the exact same and accomplished the bare minimum to sell wares, the third one would maybe get a B- because there was some sort of attempted gimmick with the voiceover whispering to represent thinking inside his head about what he was going to eat later at KK. Not only does this commercial give no reason for the man to think inside his head, the outside world still and unpopulated. To see what a creative person would do with this concept see the attached script. There is an attempted slogan that could become part of an ad campaign. Commercials aren’t the only lost opportunities in promotions.
There are numerous promotional celebrity tie-ins at Bikini Bottom’s fingertips with Dimmadome performers. The restaurant could have a Phish sandwich as a OCOP special on [Phish performance dates], or a pretentious Jelly Roll on [Jelly Roll performance date]. Has anyone reached out to the Dimmadome theater or talent management for approved special menu items to be promoted inside the dome? Perhaps a special 20% discount to ticket holders? Is Bikini Bottom capable of getting permits to extend Open Container hours beyond [cutoff time] for an afterparty or block party throughout a Dimmadome concert? I see additional marketing opportunities left on the table for all new locations.
I believe new KK locations are missing out on a marketing campaign by opening with the entire cumbersome 50 item menu. This is a staggering amount of menu items which is too much to ask new staffers to perfect all at once. After a few months expanding the menu by approximately ten items is catching to customers who haven’t returned after a single visit or infrequently stop into KK. There are ten new food items that might appeal to them. Just like it appears KK doesn’t know what it’s looking for in a good commercial spot, this company doesn’t appear to recognize a talented from an untalented worker until it’s too late.
It is my understanding that KK had a headhunter to find Icus, the first Bikini Bottom kitchen manager. If it were up to me I’d hire someone to break the legs of that headhunter for bringing in a subpar kitchen lead. We are still attempting to recover from the lousy choices she made in the floor plan. If anybody responsible for Bikini Bottom’s floor plan is still giving input, stop them immediately. Once the doors were open to the public Icus had his head in the clouds to a point where I questioned if he saw the writing on the walls of an imminent demotion and stopped trying as a result. I had a full deck of 3x5 cards in an archaic powerpoint presentation bringing numerous concerns to light that he kept putting off listening to until he was fired. Those same cards were broken out for this essay. The second kitchen manager, Krumm, is a good lesson in honesty. According to Heffer, Krumm was given a bill of goods about how smoothly KK Bikini Bottom was running. Since Krumm stepped into a latrine pit which he was led to believe was a heated pool, he left in short time. Krumm also had plans to modify the menu but when his bosses told him to be a rodeo clown rather than a cowboy Krumm didn’t take too kindly to that. Meanwhile Heffer was the savior of the Bikini Bottom kitchen. I didn’t agree with every single decision he made, but I did with a majority of them. Heffer’s overhaul was such a blessing so I didn’t have to fiddle with the organization of 60% of the equipment anymore, only about 20% now. Too bad Heffer’s crippling depression came back after bashing his head into the wall out of frustration with the shackles KK restrained him with.
The current management team is enthusiastic but inexperienced. I see an accumulation of small infractions that might bring down Bikini Bottom’s health department rating significantly. I see the entire management team being inattentive or unaware about organizational issues. Whatever bureaucratic nonsense corporate tasks everyone with from the original sous chef Skeeter to Patty Mayonnaise that makes them walk away from the line between 11am and 1pm especially is infuriating. I have never been left alone on a multi-person line during peak hours so regularly, and I won’t tolerate it anymore. As much as I believe in his drive, I imagine our current kitchen manager SpongeBob will be let go after a disastrous service during the Dimmadome concert season that someone has to take the fall for. Chef Ren and I could help bring experience in management and dealing with festival traffic...if corporate does not force us to follow a failing strategy.
After working nearly a year at KK you may ask why I’m not proficient on more than one station. Excellent question. First, when I move over to another station the squeeze bottles are never labeled (until Stu Pickles was hired, now they’re sometimes labeled), so I always looked at the glut of unlabeled sauces and I’d go back to my station because the basic information is missing (also a health department violation for having numerous unlabeled, unchilled bottles). In his first week the new general manager Stu Pickles pulled out 90% of the containers under the grill station because they were lacking labels despite an expected health department visit. The second reason for my menu ignorance is the mountain of prep for my own and upcoming shifts I have piled up on my station throughout service. My attention to detail appears to be next level with my ability to anticipate stocking all items for all shifts including the weeknd. The third reason I wouldn’t learn multiple stations is a defense against the afternoon conference calls. In [month] the Bikini Bottom line was unprepared for a busy post lunch because one cook was cut and our expo person was busy with a conference call. The two of us remaining on the line had a miserable slog through an unexpectedly busy afternoon. When I brought this up to Krabs he disregarded me, being a good bean counter he quoted the cost percentage. What he didn’t take into account was the missing expo person who could have jumped on the line and expo to help the understaffed two man team. That person was stuck on a conference call. Just recently I saw the company actively lose money because of this poorly thought-out meeting during business hours. A customer wanted to order a dessert that was 86ed but had been restocked by our prep cook an hour before. The server was unable to sell them their dessert because the only person in the building who could help un-86 an item was on a conference call. This conference call calamity is another bone-headed choice that speaks to a larger decision-making problem within the corporate structure. Finish the conference calls by 10:45 am eastern.
In conclusion, I quit my position as a lowly grunt for this company because of its unwarranted perplexing dance steps and below average management. I don’t care how much varnish and lacquer is supplied, I refuse to polish this Bikini Bottom turd as a manager or full-time employee under the current circumstances. You would have to take a pickaxe to the floor, possibly relocate the bathrooms to add a door to the dishpit, get rid of the cheap low boy that doesn’t properly drain excess water, and Mr Gorbachov knock down that wall in the middle of the kitchen to give the proper amount of space to work. Or simply reduce the menu to 36 items (including sides) because that’s the amount of space this dreadful design can comfortably output. Would Gordon Ramsay compliment KK for all the unnecessary convoluted complications abound, or would Chef Ramsay yell about keeping it simple and demand KK chuck it in the flip? Thanks to the numerous pop up restaurants I have been a part of and the hectic world of trade shows/conventions, I may have more experience than anyone else employed by KK in smoothly opening a new location. I would enjoy being part of the opening team to ensure new locations have an efficiency Bikini Bottom lacks, and to keep upper management away from their worst instincts. Work with me and Chef Ren and we will help you become a well oiled machine like Chokey Chicken instead of the Chum Bucket cesspit Bikini Bottom currently embodies.

I know quitting your job as a cook usually simply comes with two weeks notice or a ragequit walkout, but for eleven months I worked at a new franchise that had such potential which was being squandered by the incompetence of upper management. I present the nearly 6000 word thesis I turned in on my last day. Locations and names have been changed to cartoon references. Brackets represent ambiguous information in place of specific details.
Krusty Krab Careers Jobs
Opening in [Month/Year], Krusty Krab (KK) Bikini Bottom is on its 4th kitchen manager in less than a year. Krusty Krab O-Town has recently let go its inaugural kitchen manager and sous chef. Almost no member of the Bikini Bottom opening management team remains employed by KK. There is a pattern developing where one must question both the choice of employee and the directive given to new franchises. These lingering issues I brought concerns about in the first weeks of opening but was disregarded at every turn despite my experience with festival traffic. As a result I decided this was not a place I wanted to advance, but with a good-enough paycheck I’d be a lowly grunt in the kitchen four days a week, at five days a week I would have quit or been fired over a public outburst long ago. If Krusty Krab alters course slightly while being true to the brand this could be a successful chain.
My unique employment history in brick and mortar restaurants, food trucks, pop up culinary concepts, trade shows/conventions, and the film industry make me an ideal candidate to be on the opening team for new KK locations. My outgoing nature and foresight are valuable assets. For example, on training week before opening when I was standing around idly without a task I took it upon myself to organize the disarray that was dry storage. Overhearing Krabs tell another manager where he wanted the cleaning products placed, I had a jumping off point and the organization I created nine months ago is still largely in place. Since returning from my vacation in early February I have made it my mission to keep the storage area organized because it was again starting to resemble a hoarder’s house rather than a commercial kitchen. This is now part of my weekly routines because every time I turn my back there is more product being placed haphazardly just anywhere with little regard. I also recently reorganized the walk-in cooler because of problematic stocking with items being placed on the same shelf or below raw proteins. I also simply put all the like products together such as cheeses or fruits that were scattered amongst several shelves. With recent overordering I cannot keep up with the organization of the walk in cooler. The pattern recognition of food types and even simple shapes appears to be lost on the Bikini Bottom crew. My daily reorganization of containers is proof of this. Most days I’ll take a few minutes to put all cylinders together, all cambros together in descending volume, all deep and shallow pans next to each other rather than intermixed. My decision to be a kitchen manager at age 19 from 2005 thru 2008 and rarely enter restaurant management since is very calculated.
With my prior knowledge of professional kitchens I was becoming Bikini Bottom’s resident nag to coworkers as I made note of health department violations on a daily basis. I stopped after being largely ignored for two weeks. My regular health department nags include; a battle with jackets and hats being placed only in the designated area (a designated area that did not exist until I created a place for personal items a in January by neatly organizing the dry storage area again), waiting until prepped items are cooled before a cover is placed on top, placement of raw seafood, open containers (very often sugar, flour, and pancake mix bags ripped open and left), and dirty dishes/containers placed back in rotation. The dirty dishes and containers in rotation with the clean ones are at an atrociously high number. I have given up on making the 4th fryer seafood allergy safe too. With the low volume of seafood allergy safe items Bikini Bottom should purchase smaller baskets to visually discourage cross contamination with the other fryers and baskets. My skills to organize the kitchen do not end with simply where to store products to meet minimal health department standards.
Half of the space in the Bikini Bottom kitchen is completely wasted on an ill-advised walkway to the dishpit. An intelligent design would place a second doorway directly to the dishpit connected to the bar or where the bathrooms reside. Numerous times during the opening week of KK Bikini Bottom I said, yelled, sang, and muttered that we have too many food items for the amount of space we have. Icus stated that there was more space than Bluffington. Is Bluffington intelligently designed? Because Bikini Bottom most certainly isn’t. So Bikini Bottom actually has less space even if there is more square footage. See the attached diagram for an intelligent design that could potentially house a menu of this size. Bikini Bottom forces a line design on this kitchen when an open concept is needed for this menu. It’s as if this floorplan was created by a person who had only ever seen one commercial kitchen previously and couldn’t think 4th dimensionally to understand the needs of the workers to smoothly serve customers.
There is not enough counter space for pizzas without getting off the line, the microwave is placed completely out of the way, the freezer’s curved design is a waste of potential counter space and a falling hazard for containers stored on top of it, the toaster is an overcomplicated and overexpensive piece of machinery that serves exactly one purpose when a flat top could be used to toast bread and other purposes like a quesadilla special, sautee was designed without an overhang for spices, the pantry station lacks the counter space to have two containers of flour and two containers of batter for seafood allergies, there are no Frialator fryers which I have worked with at every single kitchen job previously instead we got the cheap Vulcan model (is that logical), the cheap low boy in pantry that doesn’t drain excess water anywhere it’s just supposed to evaporate somehow but doesn’t, the grill and fryer should be placed next to each other (with a higher volume of crossover than other stations), the floors are flat instead on having a mild decline towards the drains (just look at the standing water residing behind the oven right now), in the dishpit the spraying area and the filled sinks are backwards of a logical dipshit, the ramp to the back door is on the wrong side, there is no refrigerated place downstairs to stage extra food for busy shifts (the beer cooler is once again used for such food items because of this massive oversight), the prep station is an afterthought and miniscule, the dishes on the line are difficult to grab for anyone under 5’11” and inaccessible for anyone under 5’6” (instead of putting them underneath tables that also give that desperately needed counterspace I spoke of), there is not enough space to store to-go containers or boats behind the line, expo is lacking a low boy for the numerous items that are supposed to be cold but are instead kept at room temperature all day long, no one in management thought about buying shelves until right before Bikini Bottom opened as a result the clean full sheets sat on the floor for days, we had only the exact amount of 1⁄6 pans for an absurd amount of time making it impossible to rotate and clean them when necessary (which is daily), we still struggle with 1/9 pan supply. And just when I thought I documented all the poor design choices possible I stumbled upon a person whose office holiday party was booked at KK Bikini Bottom. The deck space works just fine as a deck. It does not double well as a gathering space. The space is too long and narrow for parties, it promotes little splitoff groups rather than a coming together of a larger gathering. It may be advantageous to contact a social psychologist for help designing a private party space that promotes intermingling rather than enforcing small pockets to form. The reorganization of the physical kitchen isn’t all that screams for an overhaul.
There are six positions on the line at the Krusty Krab; expo, oven, grill, sautee, fryer, and pantry. But the pantry and fryer positions are forced together like a bad remix. Everyone who mainly works pantry deserves a $6 raise immediately because it is a station and a half. Both Icus and Krumm, while kitchen manager, kind of acknowledged the pantry is too big for one station without outright mentioning the lopsided distribution of work. I imagine in the only location where this works, Bluffington, a second person joins the pantry at noon because of the unreasonable amount of items one person is tasked with. Bikini Bottom only has one person in this position at all times, maybe modify it for one person? The excess of items on the pantry position largely resembles a position I would call “set-up” or “build” at a previous job that made sensible choices. This build position should have tostadas, tacos, butcher’s blocks, toast, salads, lettuce wrap set ups, and preparing plating for whichever station is most bogged down. I have absolutely lost my mind yelling about salads at least once a month, ranting that they do not belong on the fryer position because of how illogical it is that five salads are included on the mountain of other items the pantry has. I have always considered working in a kitchen a kind of dance, and the pantry station demands an unnecessarily convoluted dance to keep up with the demand. Without the salads, tostadas, and tacos the station is already the busiest. Do we really need to combine ballet and swing by including these extra awkward dance steps in this single station? For a kitchen designed this poorly I suppose it is. Again, see attached document for an intelligently designed kitchen that might be able to accommodate this menu. Unless Bikini Bottom is going to close for a month to fix the baffling floor plan design the menu is shouting to be reduced to 30-36 items.
The menu is too big. Krusty Krab is the jack of all foods, master of none. In general I believe individual locations should be allowed 18% omissions, and 18% unique items to this wildly unwieldy menu sitting around 50 food items including sides. The insistence on keeping menu items that don’t sell at Bikini Bottom because of Bluffington is mind boggling. Chicken tenders do not sell at Bikini Bottom. fried sushi does not sell at Bikini Bottom, not enough to justify their place on the line. I don’t care how well these items work in Bluffinton. They. Do. Not. Work. At. Bikini. Bottom. If the KK location in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean sells an incredible amount of live krill does that mean Bikini Bottom and O-Town must sell live krill too? Take the fried sushi off the menu. I had a complete meltdown about this during a Dimmadome service and my valid point was met with indifference. Replace the kid’s tenders with a kid’s fish sticks. We already have the tilapia fish sticks on the line for tacos. Or make the kid’s fish sticks cod. We cut cod to order for fish tacos in spite of health code violations because it is too rare of an order to make beforehand. Saffron in mashed potatoes? If you must. Why are green tomatoes only on the menu during lunch? Bikini Bottom throws away a sizable amount of spoiled green tomatoes each week. Have green tomatoes on the menu all day long or don’t have them at all. The smoked salmon could go on salads or a special taco to justify its place on the line. The corn pico’s place on the line is unjustified. It only goes on one item, tostadas, which are not particularly popular. If we had a taco salad we could throw the corn pico on there. We also have unreasonable waste from unusable taco shells, smash up those imperfect taco shells and throw them on said taco salad. But before we add salads, let's get rid of the pear and kale salads. The pears' position on the line are unjustified, if we threw them on a taco variation maybe their place on the Bikini Bottom line could be argued but for now they only go on a salad that isn’t particularly popular. The kale salad is an issue of space for a 4th green for salads is too much. The krusty salad is my most hated house salad of all time. And it comes down to the toast with goat cheese. This ancillary step of spreading goat cheese on a cracker is an unnecessary step for an overly complicated dance and should be part of the expo dance if expo wasn’t a shoddily designed afterthought lacking a low boy.
There are a plethora of squeeze bottles on the pantry station that have no place on the overloaded station. They belong to an expo station with a low boy to keep them cold. Pantry has an overwhelming ten squeeze bottles: chipotle crema, sweet chili vinaigrette, buffalo, korean bbq, ranch, caesar, wine vinaigrette, lemon vinaigrette, honey mustard, and lemon aioli. Only the first four are justified on an intelligently designed fryer section, the second four belong on the build station, the last two have no place anywhere but expo. With this extra space sautee could keep their bottles and two purees cold in the fryer's lowboy instead of leaving them at room temperature all day inviting a pathogen party. This theorized intelligently designed expo would have room to keep these four squeeze bottles and a double of every sauce chilled to pour them into ramekins, a move that is highly common in the expo dance. The fact that expo doesn’t have a double of all squeeze bottles is foolish. Expo has to bother an overloaded station to pour these side sauces instead.
How many gallons of basil aioli has Bikini Bottom thrown away in 11 months? Four aiolis in general is way too many and most go on a single item; basil aioli on the incredibly unpopular veggie burger, lemon aioli for calamari, sweet chili aioli for the BLT that is only served half of the day, and garlic aioli actually goes on two items…I believe. What a colossal waste of precious little space, lose two aiolis and then you can sing the logical song with me. Perhaps we can put garlic aioli and sweet chili vinaigrette on the BLT separately and accomplish the exact same thing the sweet chili aioli does. The wings too have unneeded complications. Having worked at a sports bar specializing in wings for the better part of a decade I find KK’s plating of wings to be overly pretentious. The carrots, celery, and blue cheese have lost function. Heffer Wolf always said no one eats the carrot/celery julienne with blue cheese. It’s a complete waste of all the ingredients because you’ve gone too far with the presentation. Wings aren’t fancy. Wings are supposed to have a small pool of sauce and be sloppy. It’s like a sloppy joe that’s not sloppy, an unsloppy joe is a failure to sloppy joes just as the KK presentation of wings is a disparagement to the dish. Ever since training week back in 2022 I have used a scale to give Bikini Bottom a passing or failing grade.
Chokey Chicken to Chum Bucket is the scale I use to judge efficiency and sanity at Bikini Bottom. Both establishments are upscale casual dining experiences in Capitol City in the same vein as KK. Chokey had high employee retention and relatively smooth openings for new locations. Chum Bucket’s employee turnover was high and every location opening was chaotic. Which one sounds closer to KK? Chokey Chicken was filled with chefs I respect including Chef Ren Hoek who remains a close friend to this day. Ren lost his lifelong passion for kitchen work after working management at Chum Bucket. He’s actually seeking work in Bikini Bottom. Call him up at [phone number], but KK will give him Nam’ flashbacks of why he chose driving for a living rather than cooking for five years. The pair of us together helming Bikini Bottom with the ability to omit and create 18% of the overloaded menu can bring success to this franchise. We have worked well numerous times in the past on various concepts in the past including creating The Attack of the Pickled Tomatoes Burger for [Promotional live performance of a TV show] at the Capitol City Theater. We served 100 people in 60 at the [sitcom filming] lunch. That’s physically impossible but somehow we did it quite a few times.
A fun anecdote about Ren Hoek’s KK experience from the soft launch; on training week numerous times I brought concerns about being seafood allergy safe that were dismissed. As mentioned earlier the pantry station lacks the counter space to have two containers of flour and two containers of batter, one each of which seafood never touches. Before the soft launch Chef Stimpy from Bluffington insisted all customers just kind of know everything is prone to be seafood contaminated. Well, chef Ren was a customer that night and this absolutely was not communicated to customers. He claimed to have a slight seafood allergy and was not informed of what the crab soup was. In reality he does not have a seafood allergy. I didn’t discuss the seafood issue with Ren, separately we noticed egregious violations of food safety standards and we each responded in our own way. The soft launch service was so awful that night Chef Ren walked out of a free meal to pay for some ramen, never to return to Bikini Bottom. I attribute this oversight, and many of Bikini Bottom’s (and probably O-Town’s) problems to hubris over the Bluffington location.
Chef Chokey would also be hesitant to join the KK team. It will cost a finder’s fee just for me to reveal Chef Chokey’s name. Chef Chokey was a lead in the rapid expansion of Chokey Chicken restaurants. He opened numerous restaurants and was big on the philosophy that each restaurant must have its own personality in order to fit the unique local culture and the variety of working spaces. This is in direct conflict with the KK way that everything must be exactly like the Bluffington location no matter what. There was only one Chokey Chicken location that had the full menu, Chokey Springfield. Chokey Springfield had a large space which was intelligently designed to accommodate such a large menu. The KK menu is all over the place, closing in on 50 menu items which comes up as a failure on the Chokey Chicken/Chum Bucket scale. This is not the only area KK comes up as a major failure on the Chokey Chicken/Chum Bucket scale.
Has anyone in this company ever worked festival traffic before? Does anyone have the experience of working next to a major venue with 8000 seats before this one? The way Bikini Bottom handles Dimmadome services it certainly appears that the decision-makers fall on the wrong side of the Dunning-Kruger effect. Having all 50 items available during such massive traffic is completely asinine. An unwillingness to serve a partial menu is hindering the Bikini Bottom kitchen staff. I have worked festival traffic before, and Dimmadome events bring in festival traffic. I’ve worked inside a festival whose line never ended but every customer got their order in 5 minutes or less because the line kept flowing with only four items on the menu as that’s what was warranted at the B-Sharps Music Festival. I refuse to be set up for failure the way Bikini Bottom sets up Dimmadome services for failure. The entire week of concerts in [summer] 2022 I was set up for failure every day (it was after this I modified my availability to keep my sanity and my paycheck). When I brought my concerns about running efficiently during Dimmadome services I was labeled a B-worker for the first time in my employment history by Icus and Krabs. It is that moment which I was either going to holler at them both for being 2-dimensional thinkers who were obviously unqualified for the positions they accepted in this company, or just put my head down. If Bikini Bottom has a successful concert day service, hail your team because they snatched victory from the jaws of defeat. They swam with concrete shoes. I often wonder how many customers had bad experiences and never returned after concert days. A Dimmadome service should have no more than 25 items and have one or two specials to divert traffic towards an area the kitchen can keep moving. An Open Cup Open Plate (OCOP) special for foot traffic is absolutely needed. When I suggested OCOP special, Heffer was intrigued by this idea and immediately named burgers as the special to keep foot traffic flowing. Smithers wouldn’t hear this idea, babbling on about what’s advertised instead of hearing out a sound idea. This prattle despite radio commercials having inaccurate hours and social media promoting Bikini Bottom’s steak tacos to this day. I always found Smithers to be a better fit as a middle management office pencil pusher than as a hands-on restaurant manager. Overall I find KK managers are selected to be automatons not to question their orders rather than critical thinkers who could take the restaurant to the next level. During brunch service is another period of time that must be modified to lessen the heft of items. Having a full menu that barely works plus brunch is so deep into Chum Bucket territory, in my opinion we now have to use the Tropic Thunder scale of full retard to describe a 60-plus-item brunch. Chef Ren hired back a Chum Bucket cook who had a mental breakdown and stormed out during brunch (plus full menu) service because Ren knew the employee was justified and upper management was completely unreasonable in their brunch requests. It’s not just questionable decisions that hinder KK staff but improper equipment as well.
This is the first restaurant I have worked at which uses a touch screen on the line rather than tickets. From day one I found this to be technology for technology’s sake inferior to tickets. Chef Ren forced a new Chum Bucket location to rip out touch screens from the line and bring in ticket printers because of the higher efficiency. The touch screen is a great idea for expo, not the entire line. My biggest gripe is that each station does not get all the information. Early on I was regularly yelled at for not staggering my items, well I can’t see the rest of the order; a problem I have never had with a ticket system. Touchscreen software is also much more prone to errors and glitches. When I reported an error during a heavy service Icus and Krabs blamed my skills on the line without looking into the malfunctioning screen further. It was glitchy for weeks before the two finally investigated and corrected the issue I brought to their attention long before. Those two gave me an immense amount of ammunition to dislike them in the opening weeks until I stopped caring. The issue I had with being unable to scroll beyond the bottom of a completely filled screen has returned and is still there as of [my last day]. There are also important details that get buried. A frequent meltdown I have is that sauce on side requests and other important modifications are not capitalized or in red to catch the eye as they have been at jobs with tickets. These details get lost on Bikini Bottom’s touchscreens. A sauce on side salad made by me will be wrong 50% of the time because of the instructions being camouflaged in a word salad. This goes for coleslaw on the side and drizzle on the side too. Drizzle in general I dislike because of the pretentiousness, but whatever, drizzle it on top rather than putting it in a ramekin if you must. There are numerous places where Bikini Bottom overcomplicates matters for reasons I cannot ascertain.
Why is there such a large variety of plates? Why do we have a medium circular plate for salads and a large bowl for salads with protein? This just confuses the simplest of matters. I was told this is done because of the high price hike with protein, a larger presentation was desired. But that price hike is the price of protein in 2023. Bikini Bottom should put all salads in the large bowls and use all the circular salad plates in a skeet shooting promotion. I understand why we have both a circular platter plate and a pizza plate but in my restaurant the circular platter plates must go...or maybe the large platter plate instead. Is the large platter used for anything besides fish and chips? That extra space on fish and chips plates are only used for side sauces which can easily be delivered to customers on small circular plates. What is the medium oval plate doing that the medium rectangular plate isn’t? And vice versa. Why do they both exist when they are approximately the same size? Let me write an internet commercial where we break a lot of plates so we can get some logical use out of the superfluous plates. I don’t care which one is destroyed, the ovals or the rectangles but one of them is an unnecessary redundancy in excess done again. Speaking of commercials, the unimaginative radio advertisements for Bikini Bottom are doing little to lure new customers to the restaurant.
The three radio spots I have heard on KBBL all sound like they were produced by a marketing 101 student who wasn’t a natural in the field. The voiceover actor was so uncharismatic I was certain someone from the office was chosen at random to read the copy. Then I heard that same voiceover actor selling pool supplies on another radio station so I concluded that Bikini Bottom must have hired the cheapest guy in town to produce the most basic of commercials. Perhaps there is someone else you could hire more qualified to voiceover these commercials, an actor with experience on an Emmy award winning cable program whose unique place in the film industry was written about on [website] would be a much wiser choice to be the voice of the KK? (See external link). In the ad there was no catchphrase, no jingle, no music whatsoever. This simple approach to commercials lacks the pizazz to catch the attention of radio listeners. The first two commercials I heard would get a C in marketing 101 as they were nearly the exact same and accomplished the bare minimum to sell wares, the third one would maybe get a B- because there was some sort of attempted gimmick with the voiceover whispering to represent thinking inside his head about what he was going to eat later at KK. Not only does this commercial give no reason for the man to think inside his head, the outside world still and unpopulated. To see what a creative person would do with this concept see the attached script. There is an attempted slogan that could become part of an ad campaign. Commercials aren’t the only lost opportunities in promotions.
There are numerous promotional celebrity tie-ins at Bikini Bottom’s fingertips with Dimmadome performers. The restaurant could have a Phish sandwich as a OCOP special on [Phish performance dates], or a pretentious Jelly Roll on [Jelly Roll performance date]. Has anyone reached out to the Dimmadome theater or talent management for approved special menu items to be promoted inside the dome? Perhaps a special 20% discount to ticket holders? Is Bikini Bottom capable of getting permits to extend Open Container hours beyond [cutoff time] for an afterparty or block party throughout a Dimmadome concert? I see additional marketing opportunities left on the table for all new locations.
I believe new KK locations are missing out on a marketing campaign by opening with the entire cumbersome 50 item menu. This is a staggering amount of menu items which is too much to ask new staffers to perfect all at once. After a few months expanding the menu by approximately ten items is catching to customers who haven’t returned after a single visit or infrequently stop into KK. There are ten new food items that might appeal to them. Just like it appears KK doesn’t know what it’s looking for in a good commercial spot, this company doesn’t appear to recognize a talented from an untalented worker until it’s too late.
It is my understanding that KK had a headhunter to find Icus, the first Bikini Bottom kitchen manager. If it were up to me I’d hire someone to break the legs of that headhunter for bringing in a subpar kitchen lead. We are still attempting to recover from the lousy choices she made in the floor plan. If anybody responsible for Bikini Bottom’s floor plan is still giving input, stop them immediately. Once the doors were open to the public Icus had his head in the clouds to a point where I questioned if he saw the writing on the walls of an imminent demotion and stopped trying as a result. I had a full deck of 3x5 cards in an archaic powerpoint presentation bringing numerous concerns to light that he kept putting off listening to until he was fired. Those same cards were broken out for this essay. The second kitchen manager, Krumm, is a good lesson in honesty. According to Heffer, Krumm was given a bill of goods about how smoothly KK Bikini Bottom was running. Since Krumm stepped into a latrine pit which he was led to believe was a heated pool, he left in short time. Krumm also had plans to modify the menu but when his bosses told him to be a rodeo clown rather than a cowboy Krumm didn’t take too kindly to that. Meanwhile Heffer was the savior of the Bikini Bottom kitchen. I didn’t agree with every single decision he made, but I did with a majority of them. Heffer’s overhaul was such a blessing so I didn’t have to fiddle with the organization of 60% of the equipment anymore, only about 20% now. Too bad Heffer’s crippling depression came back after bashing his head into the wall out of frustration with the shackles KK restrained him with.
The current management team is enthusiastic but inexperienced. I see an accumulation of small infractions that might bring down Bikini Bottom’s health department rating significantly. I see the entire management team being inattentive or unaware about organizational issues. Whatever bureaucratic nonsense corporate tasks everyone with from the original sous chef Skeeter to Patty Mayonnaise that makes them walk away from the line between 11am and 1pm especially is infuriating. I have never been left alone on a multi-person line during peak hours so regularly, and I won’t tolerate it anymore. As much as I believe in his drive, I imagine our current kitchen manager SpongeBob will be let go after a disastrous service during the Dimmadome concert season that someone has to take the fall for. Chef Ren and I could help bring experience in management and dealing with festival traffic...if corporate does not force us to follow a failing strategy.
After working nearly a year at KK you may ask why I’m not proficient on more than one station. Excellent question. First, when I move over to another station the squeeze bottles are never labeled (until Stu Pickles was hired, now they’re sometimes labeled), so I always looked at the glut of unlabeled sauces and I’d go back to my station because the basic information is missing (also a health department violation for having numerous unlabeled, unchilled bottles). In his first week the new general manager Stu Pickles pulled out 90% of the containers under the grill station because they were lacking labels despite an expected health department visit. The second reason for my menu ignorance is the mountain of prep for my own and upcoming shifts I have piled up on my station throughout service. My attention to detail appears to be next level with my ability to anticipate stocking all items for all shifts including the weeknd. The third reason I wouldn’t learn multiple stations is a defense against the afternoon conference calls. In [month] the Bikini Bottom line was unprepared for a busy post lunch because one cook was cut and our expo person was busy with a conference call. The two of us remaining on the line had a miserable slog through an unexpectedly busy afternoon. When I brought this up to Krabs he disregarded me, being a good bean counter he quoted the cost percentage. What he didn’t take into account was the missing expo person who could have jumped on the line and expo to help the understaffed two man team. That person was stuck on a conference call. Just recently I saw the company actively lose money because of this poorly thought-out meeting during business hours. A customer wanted to order a dessert that was 86ed but had been restocked by our prep cook an hour before. The server was unable to sell them their dessert because the only person in the building who could help un-86 an item was on a conference call. This conference call calamity is another bone-headed choice that speaks to a larger decision-making problem within the corporate structure. Finish the conference calls by 10:45 am eastern.
In conclusion, I quit my position as a lowly grunt for this company because of its unwarranted perplexing dance steps and below average management. I don’t care how much varnish and lacquer is supplied, I refuse to polish this Bikini Bottom turd as a manager or full-time employee under the current circumstances. You would have to take a pickaxe to the floor, possibly relocate the bathrooms to add a door to the dishpit, get rid of the cheap low boy that doesn’t properly drain excess water, and Mr Gorbachov knock down that wall in the middle of the kitchen to give the proper amount of space to work. Or simply reduce the menu to 36 items (including sides) because that’s the amount of space this dreadful design can comfortably output. Would Gordon Ramsay compliment KK for all the unnecessary convoluted complications abound, or would Chef Ramsay yell about keeping it simple and demand KK chuck it in the flip? Thanks to the numerous pop up restaurants I have been a part of and the hectic world of trade shows/conventions, I may have more experience than anyone else employed by KK in smoothly opening a new location. I would enjoy being part of the opening team to ensure new locations have an efficiency Bikini Bottom lacks, and to keep upper management away from their worst instincts. Work with me and Chef Ren and we will help you become a well oiled machine like Chokey Chicken instead of the Chum Bucket cesspit Bikini Bottom currently embodies.