Ben Adams’ Restaurant Roots Inform His Day-to-Day at United Trimen
Ben Adams is a National Multi-Unit Account Manager for United Trimen. In this interview, he shares his 25+ years of boots-on-the-ground restaurant experience and the importance of maintaining and investing in quality supplies in this month’s Spotlight On.
The first ten years of his career were spent back of house, eventually shifting from dishwasher to line cook. And that’s when things clicked for Ben. He was adaptable, proactive, and enjoyed the fast-paced demands of life as a cook.
Before long, he’d become adept enough to recognize his own burgeoning talent and started taking classes at a culinary arts school in Toronto. After graduation, Ben made his way through the city’s fine dining scene. It was then that he realized the back of house might not be the right fit for him after all. But when he left the restaurant industry for a career in sales, he wasn’t gone for long.
“Funny enough, the restaurant business sucked me back in. This time, I wanted to see what it was like being out front as a server.”
It was this taste of something new in a still-familiar setting that propelled him toward an even bigger shift in his career.
Paving The Way To Operational Excellence
It wasn’t long before Ben’s ability to bridge front-and-back-of-house caught the eye of his superior.
“There was a new restaurant opening, and my manager at the time asked me to join her. Told me I’d be a great kitchen manager. So, I came along to the new place.”
This shift in roles opened up the next leg of Ben’s restaurant career, moving from kitchen manager to general manager before staying in operations for the next fifteen years.
It was during this time that he tuned in to the finer details of operational management, like investing in quality supplies — and keeping spares on hand.
“Your grill is packed, but the brush breaks mid-shift, and you can’t clean it properly. You’re sauteing and don’t have enough saute pans to keep up. Your cooks won’t stop clicking the empty tongs between flipping or tossing food — it’s a little thing I’ve noticed a lot of them do — and it makes them break down faster, especially if they’re poorly made.
Buying the proper smallwares ahead of time helps save you from all the unnecessary stress of being empty-handed.”
Applying 25+ Years of Experience in The Present Day
Ben talked enthusiastically about how his restaurant experience directly impacts his work at United Trimen.
“I was trained with the phrase, and enforced it myself, ‘if you have time to lean, you have time to clean.’ If I’m coming to the tail end of a project, I start planning when I can get on the road to meet an operator or touch base with a vendor about new products. I don’t believe in downtime. There’s always something to be done in this industry, and staying busy just comes naturally to me after all these years.”
He speaks to the time-saving and waste-preventing equipment innovations that have arrived since his time in chef school.
“Food processors can do so much of the knife work that I learned how to do as a young cook. They save time, and some can even help preserve the quality of your ingredients, reducing waste. You can pre-program ovens with recipes and set them to cook while you focus on tasks that need a human touch. They make cooking simple, as they should be. The potential for consolidating steps and cooking at a high volume, consistently, saves on an operator’s labour usage and utilities.”
Ben enjoys educating operators on the advantages of each brand and the new equipment available at United Trimen. He takes pride in helping them find supplies and tools that will help save them time, money, and labour.
