You Never Know...



All of us have stories about cool people we have met during our years in the ‘Hospitality Industry’. From actors and athletes to politicians and rock stars, we've all met our fair share of people that make us sometimes step back to catch our breath. Moreover, even with all the manufactured coolness "celebrity" brings, I have to admit some of the biggest bad-asses I've ever met are some of the people I've worked with in the restaurant business. Here is the story of one of those unbelievable people I had the pleasure to know years ago.



This is the story of a guy named “Andrew” (All real names have been changed to character names in John Hughes movies not only to protect the guilty but because it’s funny.) who I met at a restaurant in Raleigh, North Carolina. Andrew moved to NC from a small country in Africa with his sister and a good friend named “Brian” in order to attend college. Andrew and Brian both were hired for the kitchen staff in a restaurant where I was running the FOH(Front of the House); Andrew as a grill cook and Brian on the ovens. Both of these guys excelled on their stations like they had been doing it all of the lives. I swear at times Andrew had eight arms the way he rocked that grill. It turned out that he really had very little experience as a cook and just happened to be really smart and just “got it”.



During the beginning of a dinner shift, our kitchen manager Richard was training a couple of new dishwashers from Russia that we had hired through a local church group that helped new immigrants to the US find work. Richard was having a hard time explaining the job because of the language barrier. It was funny to watch because Richard was kind of a douche and it also brought back memories for some of us watching Richard train the Colombians who were also on the dish station. Andrew watched from the grill for a few minutes then went over to Richard and said, “I speak Russian”. Shocked and amazed, Richard let Andrew take over the training. In mere seconds, Andrew had the Russians and the Colombians (he spoke Spanish too.) rolling with laughter, probably over something he said about Richard. The whole staff was baffled by this exchange. Turns out that Andrew was a hat trick of fluency (reading, writing, and speaking) in NINE different languages! Visions of the movie “Coming to America” flashed in everyone’s head. No, he and Brian weren't royals coming to the US to ‘sow their Royal oats’, but regular college students. They did, however, throw out the occasional Nietzsche quote just to keep us guessing.





Years later I found out from another guy in that restaurant that Andrew’s father was the owner of the largest construction company in his country. Andrew’s dad became really sick and requested that Andrew come home to look after his affairs and learn the family business. His father soon died and left Andrew the company to run. That quiet, polite, crazy smart grill cook with eight arms is now a business mogul worth 100’s of millions of dollars. You just never know who you are going to meet.


Ciao down,
Penn

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