It is a well known fact around people that have hung out with a lot of chefs – that a lot of chefs are not very happy. A big issue in the chef industry is drinking – and here at Capones Restaurant we want to find out how we can improve this situation. While a high profile suicide like Bourdain is a tragedy – we must remember there are many chefs committing suicide everyday.
In fact if we look at how likely a chef is to commit suicide – you can see that we are not the first to notice this. On the Australian site news.com.au you can find this article which talks about the poor state of the industry. Long story short – chefs in Australia – and by reflection as can be seen in the case of Bourdain – all over the world – are experiencing poor mental health.
The difference with Bourdain was that he was a successful chef – with a popular show on Netflix and well off. While of course we don’t say that money and fame will solve our problems – as many cases of depression in the movie industry and music industry will show – we have to remember there are many chefs out there that are doing it tough.
So the first thing we will be doing at Capones Restaurant is instituting a care package for our chefs – where any chef that is suffering with thoughts of suicide will be allowed to take time off – up to a month – with a full guarantee of a wage position when they come back.
In the past – what many restaurants in our indsury have done is made it stressful for chefs to leave for any period of time – because a chef is so important to any restaurant what will happen is that their over reliance on the chef will cause them to treat him badly at certain points. We want all of our chefs to feel valued – that is why we would rather close the kitchen for a day as we search for a replacement then have a chef work on and contibrute to his declining mental health.
We understand that we are a for profit organisation – and we will continue to be so. However the recent suicide of one of our chefs – that may have been preventable has made us re-evaluate how we want to stand in the industry – and we want to be the best – and most importantly we want to be the most caring.
Our customers love our food – but there is no point in providing great food if it is at the expense of a chef. So we hope that you can join us in understanding – we will be mourning our head chef Alexander – who passed trargically abot 4 months ago.
Personally – as the owner of Capones Restaurant I have not spokena bout this publicly because I felt it was not the place – and while we are dealing with a litigiation suit at the moment I still felt it important to speak my mind on the entire situation and say what I believe in.
In the future we will ensure that no member of our staff – from the chef to the bell boy – will ever be put in a position where they could consider taking their life as a result of anything to do with our business. We are about expanding and becoming the best we can be.
It is important that we support suicide – and we’d like to thank George Sten & Co – criminal defence lawyers for their support of this important cause.