All Hands On Deck

By Christopher Tagle

On a dock in the bay sits a restaurant where people come to dine, enjoy libations at the bar, and chat.
But so much is taken for granted. The food is ordered, and as if through a feat of prestidigitation, it appears at the table within minutes.

Behind the crew at the Marina Deck on Dorchester Street stands its captain, Dennis Kalchthaler. With his steady hand, he charts the course for his crew and steers them through both calm evenings and turbulent ones.

"Friday after the Fourth of July," says Dennis, "we had our biggest crowd ever recorded in 40 years." His Marina Deck served 904 dinners that evening and seated 1,200 people.

"And there was no more than a 15-minute wait," says his First Mate and assistant manager, Sara Horn.

"Not one dish went back [to the kitchen]," crows Dennis.
Since he trains the crew on the "HMS Marina Deck" at every position, there is never a shortage of experience.

"That's how we are able to do so many dinners in one night," Dennis adds.

The work involved in putting out quality food at a 300-seat restaurant is complicated, and I got to sit behind the scenes at the Marina Deck as they geared up for the day. Dennis does it all, and that may just be an understatement.

"I'm making cream of crab soup," he says as I enter the kitchen to greet him. "Close your eyes while I make it," he adds, fearful of losing his treasured recipe.

The kitchen is bustling with activity. Kitchen manager Charles Blake is cooking spare ribs, a few girls in the prep refrigerator are readying the margarita scallops on the menu, and a Sysco truck driver is vying for Dennis' attention, too, as he has just finished unloading his truck.
Dennis stops stirring his soup to look at the Sysco order.

"I memorize everything as it's unloaded," he says as he checks off a 350-item list, one by one. "Let's see if we got it all."

Since everything is accounted for, he signs off on the bill of lading and starts stacking boxes on shelves. "I have to rotate everything," he explains as he hoists a box onto a rack in a walk-in cooler. "Especially perishables."

The kitchen is immaculate. Not a box is out of place, and everything is easy to locate. As Dennis stacks boxes, he explains, "We go through 15 to 20 cases of fries three times a week. That's mostly because they are served with our lunch." In summers, fries and baked potatoes number in the thousands of cases.

After stowing the rest of the order, Dennis speeds out of the walk-in, points to a frier in a box and says, "I have to put that together later today." It's more of a mental note to himself than anything else, then he adds, "If I get to it..."

"I had a [pedometer] on one day to see how far I walked in a day. It was 13.6 miles."

Dennis walks through the labyrinth of a kitchen with a purpose.

"We have to work hard together," he says as he stops to check on the cream of crab soup. The aroma has my stomach reminding me that it's lunchtime.

The first batch of soup is finished, and I taste it. It's excellent. I thought about double-dipping my spoon, but discretion got the better of me and I had to be content with the one taste.

Dennis rushes off to wash a container, so I check on the girls in the prep cooler. Cousins Denise and Loren Barazza are busy at work with more seafood.

"She's making crab cakes. I'm making stuffed shrimp," Loren says. "This is actually the best part of the day for us. It's fun."

Meanwhile, out in the dining room, Sherry Rote is behind the bar. "Hello," she greets a couple as she automatically places two coasters and two menus in front of them.

It's close to 1 p.m., and the restaurant is filling up fast. A family of four that walks in the back door is quickly greeted by the hostess and shown to their seats by a window.

"Window seats are the favorites," says Sara. "Food seems to taste better by windows."

A man walks into the bar and asks Sherry for two cups of cream of crab soup to go. "We were in for happy hour last night," he explains, "and just HAD to come back and get more of this soup!"

The order suddenly reminds Dennis that he has to check on his second batch of soup back in the kitchen, so he rushes off to do just that. On his way, however, he is stopped by a patron who asks him, "Do you know if there is any caffeine in birch beer?"

"I get a thousand questions like that a day," Dennis says. Incidentally, there is no caffeine in birch beer. "At least it's not listed in the ingredients."

The work is not the only thing taken for granted in a restaurant. Bills, bills and more bills stacked on top of each other add up to a pretty penny. Dennis shares some of the numbers he works with at his restaurant.

"We keep $30,000 to $40,000 of stock on hand," he begins. "Payroll comes to $30,000 or $40,000, and that's bi-weekly. Electricity costs $5,000 a month, gas to run all the equipment is about $1,500 a month, and insurance costs me about $40,000 a a year."

Tack onto that license fees, accounting fees, quarterly taxes and rent on a building that Dennis "plans on purchasing soon," and you're talking about major overhead.

Dennis' mother-in-law, Christine Whittenberg, now helps at the office with bookkeeping, which frees Dennis up a bit. "Now I can get home at 2 or 3 in the morning instead of 4 or 5." (Christine, later in the day, echoes those exact sentiments.)

From the office, Dennis hustles back down to the kitchen. He pauses at the table and looks at his shirt tail, which is halfway out. "Since I'm always running around, it just comes untucked. There are a couple of regulars who come in here and bet on whether my shirt is in or out," he laughs, then tucks in the shirt.

"Much better!" exclaims a prep cook in the kitchen.
Everyone is busy. Everyone is working hard, in the kitchen and on the dining room floor. But that doesn't mean the staff at the Marina Deck doesn't know how to have fun.

"We make up games to help pass the day. For example, I don't like cussing. One day we played a game where every time someone cussed, they had to stand in the corner for two minutes. Kitchen staff, wait staff... it's fun because everyone slips up now and then.

"We like to joke around and have fun. Even in the middle of our rushes, we take a 30-second timeout and I'll pass out popsicles for everyone."

As with any business, problems will surface. But Dennis is quick to point out that of all the requests he gets from patrons to "see management," only 30 percent of those people have an actual complaint.

"A lot of mistakes are human," Dennis says wisely. "I just believe in fixing the problem any way possible."

The other 70 percent want to compliment him on a job well done.

Amber McDonald and Dennis are talking over the schedule. Dennis points out that everyone wants to work six days a week, but "if we happen to be overstaffed, and I ask who wants to go home, they all volunteer to leave."

The baker comes in at 3 p.m. to bake the famous breads that are served with each meal - rye bread, coconut and blueberry muffins and raisin bread are all prepared right in the Marina Deck kitchen.

And as with all the other positions on Dennis' crew, everyone knows how to bake them.

"Food runners, expediters, breads, salads, prep cooks... everyone knows how to do everything."

Posted on a display case at the entrance to the Marina Deck is a letter from a woman who lives in Nebraska. It is glowing with compliments for both the food and the staff.

"If [the staffers] are not part of the team, then I don't need them," Dennis says.

In addition to his crew, Dennis has outside help as well. He immediately credits Lankford/Sysco with helping keep him alive.

"They will deliver anything I need six days out of the week," he says. "If I am in a pinch, they'll come. And they do a great job getting in and out in a hurry."

With the crew Dennis has in place, and with the outside help of Sysco, his mother-in-law and his patrons, Dennis is navigating through the restaurant circuit like an accomplished skipper.

Reprinted from the July 18, 2002, issue of Oceana Magazine.