Vegetables, cheese and stew beef now come whole and get cut up. One whole item fills several dishes: a tomato gives four portions, an onion or a head of lettuce six, a block of cheese eight.
The cooks cut ahead into clear containers kept on a new mise en place rail beside the prep tables. A cook takes the container from the rail, brings the whole items from the fridge on a tray, cuts them one at a time on the board, scoops each pile into the container, and carries it back.
In the hour before opening the cooks fill every container. During service a cook tops one up once it's down to a third.
An order starts once its portions are on the rail. The cook carries them over on a tray, so building a burger or a salad is quicker than when every order was chopped from scratch.
The kitchen now stocks whole items for everything that gets cut, and they leave stock when they're cut, not when a guest orders.
CHEF!