this week, plant-based denizens of three major cities will have something a little dreamier on the menu at their local Taco Bell. Starting June 8, the chain is testing its first, fully vegan entrée: the Vegan Crunchwrap.
This new item features all of the components of the original, but without any animal products, including plant-based beef, a cool dairy-free sour cream “blanco sauce,” warm nacho sauce, shredded lettuce, diced tomatoes, and a crunchy tostada wrapped in an oversized flour tortilla.
Las Angeles, New York, Orlando

In honour of the rising costs everywhere I thought it might be a good time to recommend some places that still do a filling meal under a tenner.
For me I'd say Bunsik is a pretty good shout. They do korean-style corndogs that are really great and very affordable. You can get them from as little as £4! I love the ones with added potato though. Their mozzarella and potato dog is £5.9 and very reasonable for how filling they are imo. If that's not enough they even do a special where you can get 2 for a tenner. Healhy? No! Delicious? Yes! I'm normally a meat person but I think the cheese ones with potato are actually better here, the texture is SO good! Top it with some ketchup or spicy sauce and it's my favourite naughty treat lunch in London.
A lot more obvious is McD. But it's gotta be mentioned. A chicken mayo and cheeseburger are about 1.20 each. So for me that's a 'warm' lunch sorted under 2.5 if I'm on the go. They also do pretty fair meal combos. Like a wrap of the day meal which is a wrap with drink and sidesalad, fruit or veg for under 4£ I think. Or full salad + drink for about the same.
As far as wraps go you can some that are more pricy than mcD but also big/filling enough to be a meal on their own. Which personally often make them my go to 'on the go' lunch of choice.
Chipotle/Tortilla each have affordable and decent sized options. You can get a wrap with protein, rice, beans, veggies, cheese, sour cream + salsa for £8 something depending on the protein at Chipotle. And the size is large enough that I personally struggle to finish it. Tortilla is in the same price range their medium chicken/pork/vegan-chili/grilled veg tortillas are 7.70£ and their large or beef options are 1 pound more. Their free options for fillings actually are a little bit more. They offer pickled red onions and jalapenos for example. But make you choose between cheese and sour cream. On top of that both chains offer additional things for extra pay like guacamole, extra protein, cheese sauce, chorizo etc
Personally prefer chipotle but Tortilla probably has the more extensive options when it comes to fillings, they also do bowls from what I recall which are about the same price as their wraps. Though I haven't tried them and can't speak for how reasonable their portions are.
I also remember Chipotle, Tortilla and McD each have apps or membership kind of things that offer additional free/discounted stuff. So if you are someone who eats lunch out on a semi-regular basis and are looking for cheap-ish options it might be worth downloading their apps and seeing if you can get additional perks.

Hey all,
Recently between shows, podcasts, and videos I've seen, I can't stop hearing people talk about beef wellington and how good it is. I've never had it and I'm dying to try it. My 30th birthday is coming up soon and I'd like to go somewhere that has it that is good. I know the main place everyone raves about is Gordon Ramsay's place down in AC, but I'm totally not driving down to AC on my birthday as I'd rather spend the day at the DMV then be down in AC for my birthday.
Anyone have any good suggestions for a spot that has great beef wellington in the Northern New Jersey area? I'm around Wayne, but I'm cool with just about anywhere in the northern area.
Thanks in advance!

A lettuce wrap is far superior to a bun. It allows you to actually taste the beef without filling your pallet with flavorless nonsense! Screw buns, try lettuce wrapped and you won't go back.

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.

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.

As I'm writing this there are still about 10 hours left until Diablo IV launches in my region.
But I can use that time for something I haven't done before: Preparing meals so I don't need to order Takeouts or live from snacks and microwave food.
My Plan is to have enough meals until Monday/Tuesday, so I will prepare the following:

• 1 Pot of Curry
  
• 1 Pot of Rice
  
• 1 Bowl of Tiramisu
  
• 1 Bowl of Salad
  
• 1 Banana breads
  
• Some stuff for Breakfast and Snacks in between.
  

Curry:

This takes about an hour to make. That's why we start with this. You need:

• Curry mix (I use Golden curry but there might be other brands in your Region)
  
• about 500g of Meat (I use Beef, Goulash fit's pretty well here)
  
• about 350g Onions
  
• 3 Medium sized Potatoes
  
• 3-4 Carrots
  
• about 600 ml water or broth
  
• some vegetable oil
  

And these secret ingredients:

• 1 Tablespoon of Apricot Jam
  
• 2 cl Worcester Sauce
  
• 20g Dark chocolate (I use 85% cocoa)
  

Step 1: Chop the Onions into rings. No need to be precise, you aren't Gordon Ramsay. Take a big pot and heat some oil. Then roast the meat until it's slightly brown and place it on a Plate/Tray. Now place the onions in the same pot and fry them until at least slightly brown or further (to your liking). Then fill the pot with 600ml of Watebroth and put the meat back in, leave it on medium heat. Set a timer to 40 minutes. Now you have time to peel and chop the potatoes and Carrots (should take you about 10 minutes). Add them to your Water with meat and onions.
Step 2:
If the 40 min are over you should test if the meat is tender. If it's not, leave it for about 10 more minutes. If it is, reduce the heat and add the curry mix to the pot. Let it simmer for about 5 more minutes and you're done. UNLESS you want to try my secret ingredients - if you do, add them, too and stir until the chocolate is completely melted.
The cooking time depends a lot on which type of meat you use, some need more and some need less time cooking.
CURRY DONE - it gets tastier after a day in the fridge, so this is perfect. An alternative to Curry would be a pot of goulash, but I prefer curry.

Pot of Rice

Step 1: Cook rice.
Step 2: you're done. Unless you don't know how to cook rice, in that case: Long grain rice needs double the amount of water, short grain rice needs the same amout of water. So if you use long grain you take a cup or some container and fill it with rice, add it to a pot, then you fill it with water, add that to the same pot and then you fill it with water again and add it to the same pot. If you want to make double of that amount... well I guess you can figure it out. I advise you to fill it with rice first, since if you start with water the grains will stick to whatever container you used. With short grain rice (also known as "sushi" rice) you only add as much water as you added rice (in volume). Then you heat it until the water boils and leave it on medium to low heat until the water is either evaporated or sucked up by the rice.
Or you use a Rice cooker and follow the instructions there.

Tiramisu

This is probably the most complicated recipe on this list, but it's tasty.
You need

• 750g Mascarpone
  
• 300g "Ladyfingers" (google said that's the correct translation, they are these things )
  
• 1,5 cups of coffee
  
• 75g Sugar
  
• 1/2 cup of Amaretto
  
• 4 Eggs
  
• cocoa powder
  

Step 1
Seperate the eggs into yolks and whites. Mix the Yolks and amaretto. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites with the sugar until stiff. Mix the Mascarpone with the Egg yellow/Amaretto. Then carefully add the egg whites.
Step 2
Now you take the container for the tiramisu (A caserole for example) and add layers of ladyfingers and mascarpone, starting with the ladyfingers. Dipp them in coffee, but don't let them get soggy. Then add a layer of mascarpone. repeat until you're satisfied or out of ingredients, usually 4 layers (2 of each) are enough.
Sprinkle the top layer with cocoa powder and put it into the fridge.

Salad

This is very quick, my salad contains these ingredients:

• 1 cucumber
  
• 3 Tomatoes
  
• 1/2 cup of green olives
  
• 1/2 cup of black olives
  
• 2 spring onions
  
• 100g of feta cheese
  
• 1/2 Pomgranade
  

Preparation
Wash and chop the ingredients and add them to a container with a lid. Do not add oil, salt or vinegar yet - they will damage the veggies and they'll get soggy quickly. Add them shortly before you want to eat the salad.

Banana Bread

This is an easy recipe, you can make it while you wait for the curry to finish to save time.

• 300g flour
  
• 80g Honey
  
• 3 ripe Bananas
  
• 6 Table Spoons grated coconut
  
• pinch of salt
  
• 1 Table Spoon baking powder
  
• 1 table spoon Vanillin Sugar
  
• Cinamon to taste
  
• 200g nuts (whatever is available in your area, I use hazelnuts, almonds and walnuts)
  
• as many nuts as you need for topping, I used 100g hazelnuts
  
• 450ml Coconut milk
  
• 50ml Water
  
• 1 teaspoon grated ginger (optional)
  

Mix together and bake for 45 min at 175 °C in a convection oven

Breakfast

I bought 4x500 ml of Quark and will mix it with Cherrys and some seeds. This mixture is rich in protein and fiber, so it is a good breakfast for anyone who isn't lactose intolerant.
I also bought some Nuts, peanuts and dried fruit as healthy snacks.

And don't forget to hydrate.

"Come inside, the kids are upstairs." Molly was in a rush, I knew this much from the phone call we had earlier. She had never used me before but heard about me through word of mouth. Which meant that my little side hustle was starting to gain traction.
I am a babysitter for a good neighborhood. There's cars parked outside, lawns are manicured, and the occasional termite company is out doing rounds. I don't know why but I always feel as if there's a termite guy nearby, it's a pretty decent area. Which is a far cry from where I live, on the other side of the tracks, literally. There are train tracks that run through our town and it acts as a divide. But they didn't need to know that. They only needed to see the straightened hair, well spoken, fake braces wearing girl in glasses sporting a skirt that wasn't too short where the neighbors would talk.
Usually I sat down with new clients, have them introduce me to their kids (trust me it helps) in order to make a clear cut line with them that I am in their parent's employ and I am not there to be their bestfriend and will definitely tell on them if they act up or break something. That's not to say I won't play silly games with them, feed them, laugh, tell bed time stories, and age appropriate jokes. But I am nobody's rug.
That's what I usually do, but there wasn't such luxury this time. Molly called me on the phone and she sounded desperate for me to come out. I had concert tickets and told her that they were non-refundable and she suggested that if I could make it in 30 minutes then she'd pay me twice the amount for the tickets and 1.5x my usual rate. I got there in 29 minutes. It would have been sooner but I needed to air myself out if you know what I mean.
Anyways, Molly barely had time to look at my face, let alone get any of my credentials as she was rushing out. Working mom it looked like. Business, by the looks of the pencil skirt and the bag that doubled as a folder. It always amazes me how much trust some people put in others to watch their kids. What if I was a serial killer? Or a deranged lunatic? What if I killed the babysitter on my way here and now I'm in a house, alone, with all her children.
I'm not. But I mean, what if, right?
She didn't seem to think about any of these things, leaving me to mumble goodbyes as she pulled out of the driveway, barely audible as the turbos wound up and she shouted something out the window to the likes of, "It's all on the iPad".
Yeah, no more yellow lined paper stuck with the realtor's magnet on the fridge anymore. It's all digital now.
I closed the door and figured that I better check up on the kids before I did a rundown. God this house was beautiful. I climbed the stairs two at a time and rounded the hall. To be fair, calling it a hall was so basic of me. It was more like a wing. West wing madam. The wing could have fit my living room. I click my heels when I heard a snort come from behind me. I came to face a shaggy dog that was well groomed. The collar was black with an underline of blue. Tiffany's undoubtedly. "Hey," I reached a hand and scratched the mop of top. "Let's go find the kids," I tell the dog as if it could understand me.
There were a series of rooms, most of them closed, but it didn't take me a second guess which one was occupied. The second door on the left, I could hear a kid shouting obscenities about someone being trash. I knocked on that door first.
"Come in," he shouted still loud but slightly less angry.
I opened the door and saw a stereotypical gamer's room. Posters, action figures, a rocking gaming chair on the floor in front of a huge flat screen, and a boy about 9 or 10. He had on his headphones and was sipping a Dr. Pepper.
"Don't they know trash day is on Thursdays?"
He cocked his head and laughed, "If you're looking for my mom I think she's downstairs."
"I'm actually looking for you." And let me tell you something. The audacity of this younger generation. The way he looked at me. Almost made me feel as bad as how I felt when he shrugged his shoulders after he had a good look. "Excuse me," I walk in front of him and blocked the screen. "I'm your new babysitter."
He shrugged. "Cool."
"What's your name?"
"You can read all about it somewhere else."
"What?"
"It's all on the iPad," he told me.
"What's your name," I repeated.
He rolls his eyes and looks at me as if I had asked him a stupid question, "Well I'm not Max."
I don't budge.
He whined, "Bobbie. Now come on, the next rounds about to start." he pulled his headphones over his ears. I grabbed the remote to get his attention. "What. Hey come on."
"It's nice to meet you Bobbie. Your mom's going to be away for a few hours and I'll be here until she gets back. Dinner is at 6:00 and I will make snacks at 4:30."
"No cap," he motioned at the tv, "Now can I get back to my game.
"Sure I tell him." Pocketing the remote.
"Hey!"
"Bye," I tell him as I close the door behind me.
So I'm back out in the hallway. And I open a few more doors. Some were locked. Before I get into one that's rather plain. There's a picture hanging up behind the bed, a tv, some lamps and shade. On the bed sits an identical, about 9 or 10, twins it seems. Probably why Bobbie was tired of being asked which one he was.
This one was staring at the blank screen. No video games. And quiet. Now I've babysat my share of kids before, and have seen all sorts. Quiet kids are my favorite. They don't mind board games, or listening. Most often times they only need to be left alone. I don't do too much talking in case they get tired of hearing my voice. And I give them a lot of space. "Hey, sorry about that. I didn't think anyone was in here."
He turned to me slowly, "Hi. Are you the new sitter?"
I nodded, "Yup. And I'm guessing that you're Max. I'll be watching you guys while your mom is away."
"She's probably going to work."
"Yeah, looked like it." I see the iPad in his hands. "Hey. I was looking for that."
"She's always at work." He hands it over. "It's dead. And mom took the charger."
I tried not to sigh. This was not how I wanted things to go. "Well, ok. If you need anything. Let me know. Or else I can come get you at 4:30 for snacks and dinner at 6."
He nodded, "Thanks," and goes back to staring at the screen.
I smile but he doesn't see, so I leave, closing the door softly behind me.
I make my way downstairs, wandering into the kitchen and start taking stock of what's there. Which was practically everything. This kitchen was so chic that I half expected Gordon Ramsay to pop out and tell me that the banana bread I made didn't have a clue if he staked the curved yellow fruit down the middle (it's a bad question mark joke. Listen. I never said I was funny).
Once I made sure that there was food, or ingredients to make food. There wasn't much else to do. The house was spotless. The kids were fine. And even the dog seemed well behaved. So I plopped on the couch, took out my fake braces, and watched tv until about 4:10 before I started slicing apples and celery to go with some peanut butter.
I fed the dog some peanut butter and licked my fingers (not with the hand I fed the dog with), before heading upstairs. Bobbie took the plate no problem but I couldn't find Max for the life of me. I wandered the rooms as the dog followed, still trying to lick my hand. "Max, I've got snacks." I knocked on what seemed like the umpteenth door before I get to a rather solid oak one that seemed custom.
Inside was the biggest home library I had ever seen. And I once dog sat for a pretentious professor from the college nearby. I mean, there was a portrait of said academic holding his dog in 18th century art style hanging over the mantle place of the deep wood cabinets filled with books. And yet this library made the other one look like a neighborhood book exchange birdbox.
"Holy..."
"Cow."
I whirled around to find Max standing in the doorway.
"You shouldn't wander into Father's study."
"I was just looking for you," holding up the plate. He made a face. "What? You don't like PB&C?" I took a stick and crunched on the celery.
"I'm not hungry."
I shrug. "Take it anyway. In case you get hungry."
He grabs the plate from me without much struggle so I decide to leave him be. I went back downstairs and crashed in front of the tv.
When I woke up. It was dark. My mouth was dry and all of the lights were off. The screen saver flashed the logo in blinks, lighting up the room only momentarily. For a second I forgot where I was and felt my heart thumping in my chest. My alarm didn't go off but I don't know why I woke up. Then I heard it again. The sound that must have jerked me awake. A crash. It came from upstairs. I grab my phone and glance down at the numbers. It was 8:10. I had slept through dinner. Shit. Shit. Shit. Here I was trying to make a good first impression and I missed out on dinner.
I wipe what drool was on my face and took to the stairs. Bobbie was probably so immersed in his game that he probably didn't even know he was hungry. Max on the other hand. "Max?" I call out down the hall. All of the doors are shut. I can hear something panting behind me. I turn to see the dog again. Its head is down and there's barely any light touching its face. "Hey come here," I called but it retreated in the opposite direction.
Then I shit me not. I heard a creaking come from behind me. It was the only noise in the house. I couldn't even hear Bobbie yelling in his room. I turn slowly and see one of the doors down the hall is now slightly ajar. It's dark in here. It was dark everywhere. I pressed my hands against the wall searching for a light switch. "Bobbie," I call out. There's no answer. "Hey, sorry about the delay in dinner. I'm going to get to it now."
Why was this place so big? And why could I see the door?
"Bobbie. Max?" I hear the dog tapping its paws behind me. Someone on the other side of the house by now. "Hey, where are you guys?" I peer at the single door that's open and realized why it was so prominent. The hall was dark, but what was inside was even darker. Instead of going toward it, I try the first knob my blind fingers came across. Process of elimination I told myself. It was locked. I tried the next one. Also locked. I finally get to Bobbie's door and I knock. "Bobbie." There's no answer. I press my head against the door and listen. But I don't hear a single sound.
"Where are all the light switches in this place!"
The door that was open before slightly opens again. Creaking, *tic tic tic tic*, with each ungreased turn of the hinge. "Shit. Hey, stop playing around."
There's laughing coming from behind me. It sounded like a little kids. Too young to be either of the boys. Followed by smaller footsteps. It sounded like they were barefoot. "Hey, this isn't funny. I'm going to tell your mother when she gets home." I take out my phone and turn on the flashlight. "When is she coming home?" It was almost 8:30, when I realized that we never set a time.
I hear footsteps again, they were odd. Almost like falling. Like a toddler learning how to run for the first time but the hollow ground sounded as if the person was much heavier. I shine my flashlight over the hall. "Shit." The dog was sitting on all fours in the corner. It was facing the wall. I couldn't even see his face. Every hair on its body completely still.
"Hey," I called out. "Come here." I clicked my tongue. "Come here." The dog didn't move. I couldn't even see it breathing.
Bang! It sounded like thunder behind me. As if someone dropped something on the floor. As if something fell off a shelf or was pushed. I jumped around and shone my light down the west wing. I didn't know if I should have been more or less afraid now that the door was closed. "Bobbie? Max?"
God. I did not want to try the door. And I stood there for a minute before realizing how stupid I must have looked. These were some rich kids playing a joke on you Camilia. I know it. The thought of their smug little faces made me stomp out of my frozen state. I took a couple of strides over and grabbed the handle.
"Fuck!" The thing was hot. "What the hell! You guys could have hurt me," I yelled. I banged on the door. "Open up. You two are in so much trouble." I banged on the door again. "Open the door. Right now!" I could hear something on the other side. It sounded like shuffling. Heavy furniture perhaps. "You guys better not be messing things up in there. I'm not going to clean it. I mean it."
I banged on the door. "I can hear you in there! Now come on!" I put my hands on my hips and tapped my foot. "I'm waiting. Your little jokes over now." I banged on the door again.
That's when the door knocked back.
It wouldn't have scared me. I don't think. Except for the fact that I was surprised. And alone in the hall. Without any of the lights on. In a strange house. And before I could say anything else. Another door behind me knocked from the inside. "Shit. Both of you are in on this?" I grabbed the handle to the other door. It was also locked. I banged on it. "Come out right now. Max?"
But then a third door started knocked from down the hall. I felt my throat clump as I tried to swallow. "You guys weren't supposed to have anyone over." The knocking didn't stop. It kept echoing down the hall. "I'm not getting paid for three kids you know?"
Tat-tat-tat-tat. Tat-tat-tat.
I took a single step. And then all of the doors in the hallway suddenly started banging.
I almost tripped as I ran toward the stairs. The doors were thundering on so hard I thought they would crack their hinges. I skipped the stairs, the sounds chasing me as I tried to not fall and break my neck. When I got to the front landing I hear someone say my name.
"Camilia. Are you okay?"
I'm trying not to choke on a lung here as I shot my eyes toward the kitchen. The kids are sitting on the barstools lining the counter. There are two plates in front of them. As if they didn't hear the drumline upstairs.
"Is it dinner time yet," one of them asks quietly.
"Max?"
He smiles.
"Kids. I think there's someone in the house." I rush over to grab each of their hands. Bobbie's wrists are limp but it was Max's hands that shocked me. They were ice cold. I tried to let go but my fingers wouldn't uncurl.
He turns my hand over and says, "There's no one else in this house except us. I promise."
"No," I wasn't about to listen to the kid even if it was his house. "Something is wrong. We have to go. Now." I pick up Bobbie and he doesn't seem to want to move. "Come on Bobbie. Let's go." He looks over at Max who shrugs and get out of his seat.
Bobbie follows as I drag them toward the front door.
"Camilia," Max says.
"What?" He looked scared. Which made me turn toward what he was staring out. At the front door was a tall figure. I couldn't see its face through the glass. It was a stark figure of a man.
"Do you think it's your dad?"
Max shakes his head. I feel him pulling against my arm.
I call out to the man, "Hey! Who is it?" The man doesn't budge. "I'm calling the police." I turn to Bobbie, "Get the phone." He doesn't move. "Hey!" I'm trying to sound as angry as possible. "Get the fuck out of here!" I grabbed a roll of painter's tape from the side table and hurl it across the hall, hitting the glass squarely in the face where the man's head stood blocking the exit. He doesn't even twitch as the glass shakes.
"Come on," I grab their hands and rush to the back. I don't get 10 steps before I feel a scream crawl up my throat making me cough. The man was standing at the sliding door. "Fuck!" I drag the two of them with me towards the kitchen. It's a big place so there had to be a way out to the garage. We push through one of the doors and end up in the laundry room. The next door gets us out into a 3 car garage. My hands find the glowing green opener against the wall and I hear the opener fold seamlessly towards the ceiling.
It started with his feet. Then his ankles. His shins. Then his legs. Light poured in behind him from the streetlamp. I watched as the door went to his waist before I hit the button for the garage to close, before rushing back inside. We make it into the kitchen to where I still see the tall man standing at the sliding door. A part of me wants to hide in the laundry room but I didn't want to be sandwiched in the middle of the house. So I pull the boys back up the stairs, back to where the doors banged themselves. Taking out my phone as we ascended, and called 911.
"This is the police operator speaking."
"HELLO", I hope they could hear me, "There are several men trying to get inside!"
"Men? Are you in any danger?"
"No! But they have us surrounded!"
"Why don't you go outside?"
My tongue suddenly felt numb in my mouth. Like I didn't know what to do with it. "W-what?"
"It's stranger in the house."
The line went dead as we hit the hallway.
I only took my eyes off of them for a second before Bobbie. Or Max. Runs down the hall. The one or the other already slipping through a door ahead. I look back down the stairs and see that the man is still standing in front of the doorway. I look back up and see the other boy also going through the same door. I take a single step and the doors start pounding on either side. I shut my eyes and turn around. Afraid to go. Almost deciding that these weren't my kids. That I should run away. I take a step backwards mouthing that I was sorry. But I was too scared to go! "Max! Bobbie!" My back foot sticks to the floor. I don't want to look down but the next step sticks too. I point my phone to the ground and see a trail of blood. And just behind me. It's the dog. Split right down the middle, its spine shiny and white, still facing the wall. I could see its organs still pulsing.
I couldn't go back downstairs. I couldn't go the other way. I couldn't leave them here. I couldn't be alone.
I ran after them. The thundering of the doors following me as frames fell to the floor. A vase rolled off a table in the hall. It came crashing at my feet. I run my shoulder through the door, except it wasn't locked. Which caused me to go crashing, sprawling to the floor. Running into the desk in the middle of the room.
The study.
Many of the books were off the shelves. The carpet was torn. There were curtains on fire. It was the first time a saw a window as they burned.
"Camilia!"
I hear one of their voices shouting at me.
"Camilia!" It came again. "Help!"
I get to my feet and start working my hands along the desk. I didn't have to search far. The bookcase directly behind the chair had been swung open. "Camilia!" I wipe the blood from my eyebrow where it had split and step into the tunnel behind the secret passage.
The tunnel started off tall and wide, but as I kept walking in. It got smaller and smaller. I started having to hunch. Several times I decided to turn back. But their voices would echo through, calling for me. Asking for help. "I'm coming!"
"I can't hold on! Camilia! Please!"
The twins cry for help bounced off the walls. I was finally on my hands and knees when I finally see two holes on either side. I'm afraid to look but then one of their voices came through clear as day. "Camilia." It was right in my ear now. I turned to see the boy naked and huddling, hugging his knees at the back of his hole.
"Camilia! Help! I don't want to play this game anymore!"
"Bobbie?"
"Help me!"
I look into the hole, the walls are pressing on my back and there's dust going into my lungs. I can barely turn my shoulder. "Crawl out!"
"I can't!"
"Crawl out! I'm right here." I take out my hand, "Come on!"
"Camilia!" Came a voice from the other side.
I turn my head and see Max in the other hole.
"No!" Bobbie shouts at me. "No!"
"Hold on," I tell him. "I'm going to get both of you out of here."
"No," Bobbie cries. "It's all his fault. He's the one that did it. He's the one that wants to get out!"
"Bobbie, what are you talking about."
"He's the one that put something in your drink so you'd fall asleep!"
"He's lying!" Max's voice rang through. "It's him! I saw him. Always in father's study! Reading those books! Trying out those things he reads. Those curses. Those spells. It's why the shadow men are after him! Camilia! You have to believe me."
I can hear Bobbie crying, "Why are you lying! I don't want to play anymore," he screeches. "I don't want to play!" He sobs. "You said you'd go away if I told you that I didn't want to play anymore."
I don't know what made me do it. It sure wasn't the nauseating squealing tantrum of the boy which made me reach for him first. Maybe it was because I wanted him to shut up. I don't know but I plunged my arm up to my shoulder in to grab Bobbie's collar.
Instantly I screamed and saw tiny spiders, short thin legs with round white backs crawl over my arms. I shook my arm in the hole, trying to smother them against the walls. That only caused these long brown flat slugs to fall. I saw one land on my hand. It had three distinct tendon-like lines running across its back and was about a half inch long. I pulled my arm out of the hole as I felt it pierce its flat head into the back of my thumb. I dropped my phone and heard it crack as the light splintered in the small, suffocating tunnel. But I didn't care as I looked at my hand and saw it burrowing its tiny spearhead below my skin. I grabbed at the wiggling tail still exposed and tried pulling it out.
It was like trying to pull our barbed wire. The spines on its body were facing me. So with each pull they dug deeper inside. I could see blood pooling under my skin, it was starting to turn purple as I tugged on its tail even harder. Until it gave. Popped right off and lay twitching in my hand. The head missing.
I couldn't take it anymore. Really. I had tried my best. I shake my head. "Bobbie. Bobbie. I'm sorry." But it didn't matter. When I looked over at Bobbie. He was covered in it. All of it. Even the spiders.
My jeans started shifting as I tried to wiggle myself out of there. But I hear Max's cry again. "Camilia! Please!"
"No," I whimpered. Shaking. I couldn't reach my hand in there again. But his voice was so scared. More scared than the pain I felt.
I shot my arm inside. Bracing. Waiting for the pain. But there was none. Instead my hands grasped around his collar and I felt his cold clammy skin, and yanked him from the hole. He came without much struggle. His face covered in the soot of it all. "Camilia," he cried. "You picked me. You did it."
I didn't have the heart to tell him that I almost didn't.
"Come on," I cried. "We. Have. To go."
The two of us wiggled our way out of there, crawling on our hands and knees, and running when we could. We finally make it back into the study. And the fire is roaring now. One of the books fall from the shelves and when it hit the fire I swear it started screaming. There was so much smoke that I couldn't see. And the door was covered by the flames.
I pointed to the window, the curtains on the floor in ashes. I kick the window. It didn't budge. I coughed. I kicked it again. The glass shook. I kicked it again and my foot went through. Pieces of the glass still hung in the frame, I use the tips of my fingers and pull them back. They fall to the floor cracking until there was a hole big enough for me to get through.
I plunge my head out and take my first breath of fresh air. The moon was full and the sky was clear. I could hear sirens coming off in the distance. When both of my feet were on the roof. I reach my hand back and grab Max from the burning house. Together we run across the clay tiles and climb down the arched tree. The red fire truck comes screeching to a stop as several firemen help us down.
One of them pushes a breathing mask on me, and wraps me up. The neighbors are outside, and the police arrive. I see a familiar car come roaring down the street, screaming to a halt as Molly runs out. Her face is flustered and she's shouting. Pushing through the cops until she reaches me next to the ambulance.
"What happened," she literally screamed at me.
"I'm so sorry," I tell her. "There were these men." I take another breath. "I couldn't do anything! B-but I saved Max! I saved him!"
She looked at the house. It was blazing now in the cool night. "Oh my god. Is Bobbie still in there?" Molly starts to cry. "My baby!"
"Max. But Max." I cough. "Max is okay!"
And she turns to me. I wasn't expecting her to be grateful. But there's anger on her face. "You didn't save my son. But you saved our dog?"
I shake my head. "No. Max. Your other son." I looked around but he was nowhere to be found.
s

"Come inside, the kids are upstairs." Molly was in a rush, I knew this much from the phone call we had earlier. She had never used me before but heard about me through word of mouth. Which meant that my little side hustle was starting to gain traction.
I am a babysitter for a good neighborhood. There's cars parked outside, lawns are manicured, and the occasional termite company is out doing rounds. I don't know why but I always feel as if there's a termite guy nearby, it's a pretty decent area. Which is a far cry from where I live, on the other side of the tracks, literally. There are train tracks that run through our town and it acts as a divide. But they didn't need to know that. They only needed to see the straightened hair, well spoken, fake braces wearing girl in glasses sporting a skirt that wasn't too short where the neighbors would talk.
Usually I sat down with new clients, have them introduce me to their kids (trust me it helps) in order to make a clear cut line with them that I am in their parent's employ and I am not there to be their bestfriend and will definitely tell on them if they act up or break something. That's not to say I won't play silly games with them, feed them, laugh, tell bed time stories, and age appropriate jokes. But I am nobody's rug.
That's what I usually do, but there wasn't such luxury this time. Molly called me on the phone and she sounded desperate for me to come out. I had concert tickets and told her that they were non-refundable and she suggested that if I could make it in 30 minutes then she'd pay me twice the amount for the tickets and 1.5x my usual rate. I got there in 29 minutes. It would have been sooner but I needed to air myself out if you know what I mean.
Anyways, Molly barely had time to look at my face, let alone get any of my credentials as she was rushing out. Working mom it looked like. Business, by the looks of the pencil skirt and the bag that doubled as a folder. It always amazes me how much trust some people put in others to watch their kids. What if I was a serial killer? Or a deranged lunatic? What if I killed the babysitter on my way here and now I'm in a house, alone, with all her children.
I'm not. But I mean, what if, right?
She didn't seem to think about any of these things, leaving me to mumble goodbyes as she pulled out of the driveway, barely audible as the turbos wound up and she shouted something out the window to the likes of, "It's all on the iPad".
Yeah, no more yellow lined paper stuck with the realtor's magnet on the fridge anymore. It's all digital now.
I closed the door and figured that I better check up on the kids before I did a rundown. God this house was beautiful. I climbed the stairs two at a time and rounded the hall. To be fair, calling it a hall was so basic of me. It was more like a wing. West wing madam. The wing could have fit my living room. I click my heels when I heard a snort come from behind me. I came to face a shaggy dog that was well groomed. The collar was black with an underline of blue. Tiffany's undoubtedly. "Hey," I reached a hand and scratched the mop of top. "Let's go find the kids," I tell the dog as if it could understand me.
There were a series of rooms, most of them closed, but it didn't take me a second guess which one was occupied. The second door on the left, I could hear a kid shouting obscenities about someone being trash. I knocked on that door first.
"Come in," he shouted still loud but slightly less angry.
I opened the door and saw a stereotypical gamer's room. Posters, action figures, a rocking gaming chair on the floor in front of a huge flat screen, and a boy about 9 or 10. He had on his headphones and was sipping a Dr. Pepper.
"Don't they know trash day is on Thursdays?"
He cocked his head and laughed, "If you're looking for my mom I think she's downstairs."
"I'm actually looking for you." And let me tell you something. The audacity of this younger generation. The way he looked at me. Almost made me feel as bad as how I felt when he shrugged his shoulders after he had a good look. "Excuse me," I walk in front of him and blocked the screen. "I'm your new babysitter."
He shrugged. "Cool."
"What's your name?"
"You can read all about it somewhere else."
"What?"
"It's all on the iPad," he told me.
"What's your name," I repeated.
He rolls his eyes and looks at me as if I had asked him a stupid question.
I don't budge.
He whined, "Bobbie. Now come on, the next rounds about to start." he pulled his headphones over his ears. I grabbed the remote to get his attention. "What. Hey come on."
"It's nice to meet you Bobbie. Your mom's going to be away for a few hours and I'll be here until she gets back. Dinner is at 6:00 and I will make snacks at 4:30."
"No cap," he motioned at the tv, "Now can I get back to my game.
"Sure I tell him." Pocketing the remote.
"Hey!"
"Bye," I tell him as I close the door behind me.
So I'm back out in the hallway. And I open a few more doors. Some were locked. Before I get into one that's rather plain. There's a picture hanging up behind the bed, a tv, some lamps and shade. On the bed sits an identical, about 9 or 10, twins it seems. Probably why Bobbie was tired of being asked which one he was.
This one was staring at the blank screen. No video games. And quiet. Now I've babysat my share of kids before, and have seen all sorts. Quiet kids are my favorite. They don't mind board games, or listening. Most often times they only need to be left alone. I don't do too much talking in case they get tired of hearing my voice. And I give them a lot of space. "Hey, sorry about that. I didn't think anyone was in here."
He turned to me slowly, "Hi. Are you the new sitter?"
I nodded, "Yup. And I'm guessing that you're Max. I'll be watching you guys while your mom is away."
"She's probably going to work."
"Yeah, looked like it." I see the iPad in his hands. "Hey. I was looking for that."
"She's always at work." He hands it over. "It's dead. And mom took the charger."
I tried not to sigh. This was not how I wanted things to go. "Well, ok. If you need anything. Let me know. Or else I can come get you at 4:30 for snacks and dinner at 6."
He nodded, "Thanks," and goes back to staring at the screen.
I smile but he doesn't see, so I leave, closing the door softly behind me.
I make my way downstairs, wandering into the kitchen and start taking stock of what's there. Which was practically everything. This kitchen was so chic that I half expected Gordon Ramsay to pop out and tell me that the banana bread I made didn't have a clue if he staked the curved yellow fruit down the middle (it's a bad question mark joke. Listen. I never said I was funny).
Once I made sure that there was food, or ingredients to make food. There wasn't much else to do. The house was spotless. The kids were fine. And even the dog seemed well behaved. So I plopped on the couch, took out my fake braces, and watched tv until about 4:10 before I started slicing apples and celery to go with some peanut butter.
I fed the dog some peanut butter and licked my fingers (not with the hand I fed the dog with), before heading upstairs. Bobbie took the plate no problem but I couldn't find Max for the life of me. I wandered the rooms as the dog followed, still trying to lick my hand. "Max, I've got snacks." I knocked on what seemed like the umpteenth door before I get to a rather solid oak one that seemed custom.
Inside was the biggest home library I had ever seen. And I once dog sat for a pretentious professor from the college nearby. I mean, there was a portrait of said academic holding his dog in 18th century art style hanging over the mantle place of the deep wood cabinets filled with books. And yet this library made the other one look like a neighborhood book exchange birdbox.
"Holy..."
"Cow."
I whirled around to find Max standing in the doorway.
"You shouldn't wander into Father's study."
"I was just looking for you," holding up the plate. He made a face. "What? You don't like PB&C?" I took a stick and crunched on the celery.
"I'm not hungry."
I shrug. "Take it anyway. In case you get hungry."
He grabs the plate from me without much struggle so I decide to leave him be. I went back downstairs and crashed in front of the tv.
When I woke up. It was dark. My mouth was dry and all of the lights were off. The screen saver flashed the logo in blinks, lighting up the room only momentarily. For a second I forgot where I was and felt my heart thumping in my chest. My alarm didn't go off but I don't know why I woke up. Then I heard it again. The sound that must have jerked me awake. A crash. It came from upstairs. I grab my phone and glance down at the numbers. It was 8:10. I had slept through dinner. Shit. Shit. Shit. Here I was trying to make a good first impression and I missed out on dinner.
I wipe what drool was on my face and took to the stairs. Bobbie was probably so immersed in his game that he probably didn't even know he was hungry. Max on the other hand. "Max?" I call out down the hall. All of the doors are shut. I can hear something panting behind me. I turn to see the dog again. Its head is down and there's barely any light touching its face. "Hey come here," I called but it retreated in the opposite direction.
Then I shit me not. I heard a creaking come from behind me. It was the only noise in the house. I couldn't even hear Bobbie yelling in his room. I turn slowly and see one of the doors down the hall is now slightly ajar. It's dark in here. It was dark everywhere. I pressed my hands against the wall searching for a light switch. "Bobbie," I call out. There's no answer. "Hey, sorry about the delay in dinner. I'm going to get to it now."
Why was this place so big? And why could I see the door?
"Bobbie. Max?" I hear the dog tapping its paws behind me. Someone on the other side of the house by now. "Hey, where are you guys?" I peer at the single door that's open and realized why it was so prominent. The hall was dark, but what was inside was even darker. Instead of going toward it, I try the first knob my blind fingers came across. Process of elimination I told myself. It was locked. I tried the next one. Also locked. I finally get to Bobbie's door and I knock. "Bobbie." There's no answer. I press my head against the door and listen. But I don't hear a single sound.
"Where are all the light switches in this place!"
The door that was open before slightly opens again. Creaking, *tic tic tic tic*, with each ungreased turn of the hinge. "Shit. Hey, stop playing around."
There's laughing coming from behind me. It sounded like a little kids. Too young to be either of the boys. Followed by smaller footsteps. It sounded like they were barefoot. "Hey, this isn't funny. I'm going to tell your mother when she gets home." I take out my phone and turn on the flashlight. "When is she coming home?" It was almost 8:30, when I realized that we never set a time.
I hear footsteps again, they were odd. Almost like falling. Like a toddler learning how to run for the first time but the hollow ground sounded as if the person was much heavier. I shine my flashlight over the hall. "Shit." The dog was sitting on all fours in the corner. It was facing the wall. I couldn't even see his face. Every hair on its body completely still.
"Hey," I called out. "Come here." I clicked my tongue. "Come here." The dog didn't move. I couldn't even see it breathing.
Bang! It sounded like thunder behind me. As if someone dropped something on the floor. As if something fell off a shelf or was pushed. I jumped around and shone my light down the west wing. I didn't know if I should have been more or less afraid now that the door was closed. "Bobbie? Max?"
God. I did not want to try the door. And I stood there for a minute before realizing how stupid I must have looked. These were some rich kids playing a joke on you Camilia. I know it. The thought of their smug little faces made me stomp out of my frozen state. I took a couple of strides over and grabbed the handle.
"Fuck!" The thing was hot. "What the hell! You guys could have hurt me," I yelled. I banged on the door. "Open up. You two are in so much trouble." I banged on the door again. "Open the door. Right now!" I could hear something on the other side. It sounded like shuffling. Heavy furniture perhaps. "You guys better not be messing things up in there. I'm not going to clean it. I mean it."
I banged on the door. "I can hear you in there! Now come on!" I put my hands on my hips and tapped my foot. "I'm waiting. Your little jokes over now." I banged on the door again.
That's when the door knocked back.
It wouldn't have scared me. I don't think. Except for the fact that I was surprised. And alone in the hall. Without any of the lights on. In a strange house. And before I could say anything else. Another door behind me knocked from the inside. "Shit. Both of you are in on this?" I grabbed the handle to the other door. It was also locked. I banged on it. "Come out right now. Max?"
But then a third door started knocked from down the hall. I felt my throat clump as I tried to swallow. "You guys weren't supposed to have anyone over." The knocking didn't stop. It kept echoing down the hall. "I'm not getting paid for three kids you know?"
Tat-tat-tat-tat. Tat-tat-tat.
I took a single step. And then all of the doors in the hallway suddenly started banging.
I almost tripped as I ran toward the stairs. The doors were thundering on so hard I thought they would crack their hinges. I skipped the stairs, the sounds chasing me as I tried to not fall and break my neck. When I got to the front landing I hear someone say my name.
"Camilia. Are you okay?"
I'm trying not to choke on a lung here as I shot my eyes toward the kitchen. The kids are sitting on the barstools lining the counter. There are two plates in front of them. As if they didn't hear the drumline upstairs.
"Is it dinner time yet," one of them asks quietly.
"Max?"
He smiles.
"Kids. I think there's someone in the house." I rush over to grab each of their hands. Bobbie's wrists are limp but it was Max's hands that shocked me. They were ice cold. I tried to let go but my fingers wouldn't uncurl.
He turns my hand over and says, "There's no one else in this house except us. I promise."
"No," I wasn't about to listen to the kid even if it was his house. "Something is wrong. We have to go. Now." I pick up Bobbie and he doesn't seem to want to move. "Come on Bobbie. Let's go." He looks over at Max who shrugs and get out of his seat.
Bobbie follows as I drag them toward the front door.
"Camilia," Max says.
"What?" He looked scared. Which made me turn toward what he was staring out. At the front door was a tall figure. I couldn't see its face through the glass. It was a stark figure of a man.
"Do you think it's your dad?"
Max shakes his head. I feel him pulling against my arm.
I call out to the man, "Hey! Who is it?" The man doesn't budge. "I'm calling the police." I turn to Bobbie, "Get the phone." He doesn't move. "Hey!" I'm trying to sound as angry as possible. "Get the fuck out of here!" I grabbed a roll of painter's tape from the side table and hurl it across the hall, hitting the glass squarely in the face where the man's head stood blocking the exit. He doesn't even twitch as the glass shakes.
"Come on," I grab their hands and rush to the back. I don't get 10 steps before I feel a scream crawl up my throat making me cough. The man was standing at the sliding door. "Fuck!" I drag the two of them with me towards the kitchen. It's a big place so there had to be a way out to the garage. We push through one of the doors and end up in the laundry room. The next door gets us out into a 3 car garage. My hands find the glowing green opener against the wall and I hear the opener fold seamlessly towards the ceiling.
It started with his feet. Then his ankles. His shins. Then his legs. Light poured in from behind him from the streetlamp. I watched as the door went to his waist before I hit the button for the garage to close, before rushing back inside. We make it into the kitchen to where I still see the tall man standing at the sliding door. A part of me wants to hide in the laundry room but I didn't want to be sandwiched in the middle of the house. So I pull the boys back up the stairs, back to where the doors banged themselves. Taking out my phone as we ascended, and called 911.
"This is the police operator speaking."
"HELLO", I hope they could hear me, "There are several men trying to get inside!"
"Men? Are you in any danger?"
"No! But they have us surrounded!"
"Why don't you go outside?"
My tongue suddenly felt numb in my mouth. Like I didn't know what to do with it. "W-what?"
"It's stranger in the house."
The line went dead as we hit the hallway.
I only took my eyes off of them for a second before Bobbie. Or Max. Runs down the hall. The one or the other already slipping through a door ahead. I look back down the stairs and see that the man is still standing in front of the doorway. I look back up and see the other boy also going through the same door. I take a single step and the doors start pounding on either side. I shut my eyes and turn around. Afraid to go. Almost deciding that these weren't my kids. That I should run away. I take a step backwards mouthing that I was sorry. But I was too scared to go! "Max! Bobbie!" My back foot sticks to the floor. I don't want to look down but the next step sticks too. I point my phone to the ground and see a trail of blood. And just behind me. It's the dog. Split right down the middle, its spine shiny and white, still facing the wall. I could see its organs still pulsing.
I couldn't go back downstairs. I couldn't go the other way. I couldn't leave them here. I couldn't be alone.
I ran after them. The thundering of the doors following me as frames fell to the floor. A vase rolled off a table in the hall. It came crashing at my feet. I run my shoulder through the door, except it wasn't locked. Which caused me to go crashing, sprawling to the floor. Running into the desk in the middle of the room.
The study.
Many of the books were off the shelves. The carpet was torn. There were curtains on fire. It was the first time a saw a window as they burned.
"Camilia!"
I hear one of their voices shouting at me.
"Camilia!" It came again. "Help!"
I get to my feet and start working my hands along the desk. I didn't have to search far. The bookcase directly behind the chair had been swung open. "Camilia!" I wipe the blood from my eyebrow where it had split and step into the tunnel behind the secret passage.
The tunnel started off tall and wide, but as I kept walking in. It got smaller and smaller. I started having to hunch. Several times I decided to turn back. But their voices would echo through, calling for me. Asking for help. "I'm coming!"
"I can't hold on! Camilia! Please!"
The twins cry for help bounced off the walls. I was finally on my hands and knees when I finally see two holes on either side. I'm afraid to look but then one of their voices came through clear as day. "Camilia." It was right in my ear now. I turned to see the boy naked and huddling, hugging his knees at the back of his hole.
"Camilia! Help! I don't want to play this game anymore!"
"Bobbie?"
"Help me!"
I look into the hole, the walls are pressing on my back and there's dust going into my lungs. I can barely turn my shoulder. "Crawl out!"
"I can't!"
"Crawl out! I'm right here." I take out my hand, "Come on!"
"Camilia!" Came a voice from the other side.
I turn my head and see Max in the other hole.
"No!" Bobbie shouts at me. "No!"
"Hold on," I tell him. "I'm going to get both of you out of here."
"No," Bobbie cries. "It's all his fault. He's the one that did it. He's the one that wants to get out!"
"Bobbie, what are you talking about."
"He's the one that put something in your drink so you'd fall asleep!"
"He's lying!" Max's voice rang through. "It's him! I saw him. Always in father's study! Reading those books! Trying out those things he reads. Those curses. Those spells. It's why the shadow men are after him! Camilia! You have to believe me."
I can hear Bobbie crying, "Why are you lying! I don't want to play anymore," he screeches. "I don't want to play!" He sobs. "You said you'd go away if I told you that I didn't want to play anymore."
I don't know what made me do it. It sure wasn't the nauseating squealing tantrum of the boy which made me reach for him first. Maybe it was because I wanted him to shut up. I don't know but I plunged my arm up to my shoulder in to grab his collar.
Instantly I screamed and saw tiny spiders, short thing legs with round white backs crawl over my arms. I shook my arm in the hole, trying to smother them against the walls. That only caused these long brown flat slugs to fall. I saw one land on my hand. It had three distinct tendon-like lines running across its back and was about a half inch long. I pulled my arm out of the hole as I felt it pierce its flat head into the back of my hand. I dropped my phone and heard it crack as the light splintered in the small, suffocating tunnel. But I didn't care as I looked at my hand and saw it burrowing its tiny spearhead below my skin. I grabbed at the wiggling tail still exposed and tried pulling it out.
It was like trying to pull our barbed wire. The spines on its body were facing me. So with each pull they dug deeper inside. I could see blood pooling under my skin, it was starting to turn purple as I tugged on its tail even harder. Until it gave. Popped right off and lay twitching in my hand. The head missing.
I couldn't take it anymore. Really. I had tried my best. I shake my head. "Bobbie. Bobbie. I'm sorry." But it didn't matter. When I looked over at Bobbie. He was covered in it. All of it. Even the spiders.
My jeans started shifting as I tried to wiggle myself out of there. But I hear Max's cry again. "Camilia! Please!"
"No," I whimpered. Shaking. I couldn't reach my hand in there again. But his voice was so scared. More scared than the pain I felt.
I shot my arm inside. Bracing. Waiting for the pain. But there was none. Instead my hands grasped around his collar and I felt his cold clammy skin, and yanked him from the hole. He came without much struggle. His face covered in the soot of it all. "Camilia," he cried. "You picked me. You did it."
I didn't have the heart to tell him that I almost didn't.
"Come on," I cried. "We. Have. To go."
The two of us wiggled our way out of there, crawling on our hands and knees, and running when we could. We finally make it back into the study. And the fire is roaring now. One of the books fall from the shelves and when it hit the fire I swear it started screaming. There was so much smoke that I couldn't see. And the door was covered by the flames.
I pointed to the window, the curtains on the floor in ashes. I kick the window. It didn't budge. I coughed. I kicked it again. The glass shook. I kicked it again and my foot went through. Pieces of the glass still hung in the frame, I use the tips of my fingers and pull them back. They fall to the floor cracking until there was a hole big enough for me to get through.
I plunge my head out and take my first breath of fresh air. The moon was full and the sky was clear. I could hear sirens coming off in the distance. When both of my feet were on the roof. I reach my hand back and grab Max from the burning house. Together we run across the clay tiles and climb down the arched tree. The red fire truck comes screeching to a stop as several firemen help us down.
One of them pushes a breathing mask on me, and wraps me up. The neighbors are outside, and the police arrive. I see a familiar car come roaring down the street, screaming to a halt as Molly runs out. Her face is flustered and she's shouting. Pushing through the cops until she reaches me next to the ambulance.
"What happened," she literally screamed at me.
"I'm so sorry," I tell her. "There were these men." I take another breath. "I couldn't do anything! B-but I saved Max! I saved him!"
She looked at the house. It was blazing now in the cool night. "Oh my god. Is Bobbie still in there?" Molly starts to cry. "My baby!"
"Max. But Max." I cough. "Max is okay!"
And she turns to me. I wasn't expecting her to be grateful. But there's anger on her face. "You didn't save my son. But you saved our dog?"
I shake my head. "No. Max. Your other son." I looked around but he was nowhere to be found.
​
s

Chef Gordon Ramsay welcomed his 6th place finishers and said that he had seen flashes of brilliance from these Chefs in their season but also some very frustrating moments which is why they finished in 6th place. However, he said he was started with a clean slate for all 19 of his returning Chefs and said he wanted them to learn from all their mistakes. Giovanni said he was pumped to come back for his 3rd time in Hells Kitchen and Nikki was wondering what was happening with the teams with 11 men and 8 women. Ramsay quickly answered this by sending Andrew and Santos over to the red team and Santos said this was going to be interesting being on the womens team this year. The teams all finished their signature dishes but Maribel was unsure if her steak was undercooked or not and Dannie said that Maribel’s dish should be left out due to clumsy presentation and undercooked beef but Maribel said she thought Andrew’s truffled veal was worse as she could smell the truffles but Andrew insisted it was a great dish so the red team agreed to keep it. Maribel was livid but Sabrina told her to stop complaining and accept the decision.
First up was Brad who Ramsay welcomed back after a long 17 years and said he hoped to see the best Brad this time round. Brad got the blue team off to a great start with 4 out of 5 while Kanae was excited to come back after feeling she was robbed last time but scored 3 to leave the red team trailing after the 1st dishes. Big Andrew from Season 16 was up next and scored 3/5 while Keisha tied up for the red team by scoring 4. Ed was next up and scored an impressive 4 to take the lead for the men as Elizabeth scored 3 and the mens lead increased with Van scoring 4 while Tara scored 3. Zach however, served dry chicken and scored a rancid 1 point and the red team took the lead with Santos scored 4 while Giovanni and Dannie both scored 3 to leave the scores at 19:20 with 3 dishes left. Josh was next up and said he’d been dreaming of this day since his humiliation in Season 17 and Ramsay was delighted he came back as Josh scored a perfect 5 for his dish which saw Josh giggle like a madman and Sabrina’s dish scored 2 to put the blue team in a 2 point lead. Antonio though served overcooked lobster to only score 2 and Nikki came back with the 2nd perfect 5 to give the red team a 27:26 lead going into the last dishes. Last up for the blue jackets was Season 4’s Matt who annoyed everyone by saying how much he missed Chef Ramsay and what an honour it was to cook for him again but Ramsay was impressed with Matt’s dish which scored 4 out of 5. Andrew needed 4 to win and despite claiming that Ramsay would love his dish, Ramsay spat it out and said it was drenched in truffle oil and the veal was way overcooked. The blue team won 30:28 and Josh said this was the greatest day of his life to win the challenge for the blue team and Van said it was GAME TIME this year round.
The red team were devastated and Maribel said she already felt like an outcast due to being left out without consideration and Nikki told her she had to keep her head up for the next challenge. Andrew meanwhile was sulking about his dish saying it wasn’t that bad and Keisha agreed with Dannie that Andrew was a huge weak link. The blue team came back the next day from their night out and Ramsay said that before the 1st service it was time for an early challenge with each Chef serving a halibut dish for Ramsay with the top 3 dishes from each team being considered for punishment passes while the bottom 3 were at risk of ELIMINATION. Andrew said this was the challenge he needed and it would not be him going home and Josh said it would be the ultimate fall from Grace to go from leading the team to victory to then being eliminated. All the Chefs were confident about the dishes they presented but Christina was instantly quick to point out that Maribel had served raw halibut while Keisha’s was burnt. Ramsay asked Sous Chefs Christina and Jocky what the best dishes were and Christina announced that Dannie, Nikki and Santos had the best 3 dishes on the red team with Santos saying this was the start he needed to prove himself as a player while Jocky announced Van, Giovanni and Ed as having the best 3 dishes on the blue team with Ed saying halibut had some bad memories for him in Hells Kitchen so this was a good day. Ramsay praised all 6 dishes but said that Dannie and Ed had the best 2 dishes so they would both be getting punishment passes this season. Ed said hell yeah and said this could come in handy later in the season and Dannie said she was going to avoid drinking some nasty concoction this season. Ramsay then asked for the weakest 3 dishes on each team and Christina announced Maribel, Keisha and Andrew as having the worst 3 dishes while Jocky announced Antonio, Matt and Big Andrew(Drew) as having the weakest dishes on the blue team. Drew was horrified at this and said he thought his dish was alot better than being in the bottom 3 and Matt said this was the worst feeling in the world to potentially be leaving this early.
Ramsay told the turkeys to step up and after slating all 6 dishes, Andrew had the worst dish with only Matt’s dish left to judge. Matt was extremely confident with his halibut sashimi but Ramsay was livid that Matt had 40 minutes and didn’t cook anything telling him this was giving him flashbacks to his exotic tartare. Despite Matt’s confidence, Ramsay was disgusted by the dish and ended up throwing it up into a bin due to the bizarre combination of ingredients and furiously told a confused MATT to get out and leave Hells Kitchen immediately! Once Ramsay recovered he told Andrew he was extremely lucky that Matt’s dish was that awful and told him to go to the blue team to even up the teams before dinner service.
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