Junior was a decent, but typical angry cook at a middle class restaurant. I liked him and we never had an issue. He had five kids and three jobs just to support them. He loved them but Junior occasionally had meltdowns over usual nonsense restaurants suffer.

He once went ape over a Facebook group for our bar’s fantasy football league. The bartender posted “Junior fucking sucks” as a joke so he screamed at him the next time they worked together. I don’t recall everything but I know he said “I hate my job, my family sucks, I’m gonna kill myself.” It wasn’t a pleasant scene. To be clear he was never violent and this didn’t lead to tragedy… but it was clearly a shocking moment.

***

Then came a more light-hearted incident.

It was early 2008 and somehow the broom (cheap restaurants only have one) was broken. The owner saw this and went to Home Depot to buy another. He wasn’t the usual drunk and intrusive owner, but a wealthy, self-made man, who took pride in his establishment. Whatever qualities I associate with most owners and managers I’ve dealt with in 17 years… pride in their restaurants doesn’t rank highly.

The owner interrupted his day to visit Home Depot, find a broom, wait in line to buy it, and brought it back to the bar immediately. That’s a good leader, even a respectable man.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the next day Junior freaked out and snapped the broom in half over his knee. Then he jumped on its remains while frothing at the mouth. I wasn’t there to know the context, but it was probably over a busy night or another wisecrack from the bartender.

Soon afterwards the owner entered the kitchen and saw the broken broom. He wasn’t pleased. After a brief investigation Junior admitted his tragic outburst. Being a mild-mannered man, the owner berated him in a polite manner: “Hey you, come here. You broke my broom, I waited in line 10 minutes to buy it. You owe me (whatever the cost of a generic broom was in 2008).” 

I’m sure the situation ended amicably but it was hilarious.