Yeah I mean we do our best (or at least I do) but there's just going to be a lot of food waste no matter what here since it's a college dining hall with buffet style serving that's also all you can eat. So we never know how many people are coming or what they're gonna eat exactly and it's not good enough to just prep X/X/X pounds of the main entrees and if one runs out, tough, we're supposed to replenish it or at least replace it with something. And with some of these dishes i.e. meatloaf, lasagna, braised beef strips etc., it's just not happening during service

well that's what i would say but no i've seen these people quickly fry some shitty sysco beef strips and serve it as a braised dish and it's like gee i wonder why these are tough and bland and just shit

anyway yeah. I dunno maybe I'm an asshole but I think this is entirely fine as long as we're doing our best to overprepare by just a little, and then serve that the following days as leftovers (we'll usually have the main line with two entrees, a starch, two vegetables, and a vegan entree, and then space over on the other side for maybe another 4 dishes if needed, unless it's being used for nachos and stuff)

but I get shit from the sous chef for "always making too much" (like, if you're reading this, dawg, you know i'm doing my best, I basically make enough food to feed 40 people, I'd be happy to make enough to feed 20 if I can tell people "mmmm sorryyyyyy, no more black bean burritos, ran out...." but instead since they take almost an hour and a half to reheat in the steamer like no I'm going to make enough for 45 people, keep 30 hot and probably serve the other 15 the next day. I'm not over prepping I literally almost always have the entirety of all my dishes eaten by the end of the following day when I put them out as leftovers) so like I dunno maybe I am just a bad chef who encourages food waste

either way, the stuff that's out on the line when we close just gets dumped in the trash and there's always plenty