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21 Chefs Share The Moments That Made Them Stop Cooking Professionally For Good
There is no denying that most jobs have some stressful parts, but the idea of being in a hot room, shouting orders and juggling multiple scorching pans just so someone’s Chilean sea bass (actually the Patagonian toothfish) comes out perfectly sounds like the sort of work that chews people up and spits them right out.
Someone asked “Chefs, what made you leave the industry?” and the folks who labor all day to cook for us took to the internet to tell their stories. So get comfortable as you scroll through, upvote your favorites and be sure to share your own thoughts and experiences in the comments down below.
Discover more in 25 Chefs Share The Moments That Made Them Stop Cooking Professionally For Good
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#1
I went to culinary school and got into the industry because I liked to cook, and I wanted to have a career that I was passionate about. I worked in BOH for a decade, and I was a chef for the last 4 years or so of that time.
When you're working in a kitchen, you're always working as fast as you can, you're understaffed, you're doing 8 different things at once, and someone is probably yelling at you about something. It's unnecessarily stressful, the pay is low, and you'll always be staying late and being called in on your days off. All but one of the places I worked in were breaking labour laws.
Before I decided to change careers, the last job I had was Chef at a fly in, fly out work camp in northern Canada. The money was good compared to my previous work. I realized one day that I was working just as hard as all of the tradespeople I was feeding, but they were still earning almost double what I was earning. I eventually got laid off (Covid), and the company didn't pay me the severance they owed me. At this point, I was done with the industry for good. I would like to retire one day and not have to eat cat food, so I researched what the highest paying trade was in my area and ended up going back to school to become an Elevator Mechanic.
Now I'm a second year apprentice making more than I could in a kitchen. It's not perfect, but I still think I should have done this a long time ago.
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#2
I was tired of making $15 per hour and having no benefits, no time off, no future after 20 years of experience.
I wanted kids someday and wanted the kid to be able to see a doctor before they were old enough to get a job themselves. Restaurants simply cannot provide that.
Covid just really drove it home how owners would VASTLY prefer their employees alll die than themselves take a slight hit on profits.
#3
My body was breaking down. Turns out I had a broken foot, thyroid cancer and an undiagnosed connective tissue disorder. Now I run sleep studies, it’s far easier on my body.
#4
Anthony Bourdain wrote one of the best books about the unglamourous side of the kitchen. I loved Kitchen Confidential. I think most people leave the industry when they realize how much they are being taken advantage of for the lowest pay possible. The passion for the business that kept me there turned out to be unsustainable. Lots of overtime. No benefits, low pay, and repetitive injuries that make you less able to do the job as you get older. Then you realize you'll never be able to retire and leaving the industry is your only choice. Frankly, I can't see this industry and the poor conditions and wages ever changing.
#5
I started as a dishwasher, and quite frankly chased the paycheck. By the end of my 11 year culinary career I was sous at a restaurant owned by a multi James Beard nominated chef. I hated it, but it was all I knew how to do.
I was very lucky to have found the opportunity and time to go back to school. And now I work a really cush job on the beach. The campus I got my degree is where I work and I dont do anything related to my degree lol but it is a *very* sweet gig.
#6
I was the head chef and already working 60 plus hour weeks, but I had a stellar crew that I hand picked, trained and everyone did their job and got along with one another. I did want less hours, and my crew wanted more hours, but I wasn’t able to give them more than 40 unless it was an emergency.
Corporate comes along and says I have to eliminate an entire position in the kitchen and cut everyone’s weekly hours by one shift. Apparently, I was supposed to eliminate 80 hours of productivity a week and make up the difference myself because I was salary.
Ha! No.
Validating side note: They took five months finding my replacement, and my replacement lasted six days and then quit.
#7
I'm working on leaving. Tired of sweating bullets all the time, constant burnout, catering to an ungrateful clientele. My specials have never ever sold well at any job or in school, and being aged artificially quickly from all the stress.
It was tolerable before, but it hasn't been worth it in years and I cant wait to quit.
#8
I was only in the industry 6-7 years, and had to walk away recently. I had a minor heart attack in 2024 on the line after working a year straight at 70+ hrs/week. I now have congestive heart failure as a result due to a weekend heart muscle. I tried to stick it out as long as I could, but I went from working as a prep cook to being a sous chef after 3 weeks of insane turnover, and all my accommodations went out the window. Plus my chef was an absolute j**k and I couldn’t stand working for him. I was burning the candle at both ends for so long and this industry does not accommodate severe chronic illness well, so now I’m looking into other career options to better my health.
#9
I worked at a newly opened restaurant and it was the "chef"/owners first resturant. I don't think he had much experience in restaurants. I'm just a cook but I have been in the business for a while so I tried to give advice which he just wouldn't take, even when the chef that came in to advise him agreed. Like just because its in a bag chicken still shouldn't be on the top rack or that if you pack the freezer with soo much s**t that it covers the vents it will break.
Final straw was when we got into an argument because he told me I clean my cutting boards, knives and other stuff too much and how expensive soap is. I'd get it if i was using the dish machine but i wasn't. A big part of the job is making sure everything is clean, fresh and to not cross contaminate. The first and only time I've been told I clean too much.
#10
My 2nd day I asked if I could do a deep clean of their kitchen (I refused to even eat there) and they said no, it’s a waste of time. Someone “showed me how to change the fryer oil” by simply dumping the old oil & refilling it. Clearly had never been scrubbed or even wiped out. The second he finished, all the brown & black sediment floated to the top. He looked at me with a huge smile & a thumbs up. I quit an hour later.
#11
After 8 years in the kitchen, at 30 years old I stepped into the IT world. I spent 2 years in customer support, then switched to QA. I loved cooking, and the kitchen shaped my character, taught me how to handle different situations, and gave me lessons I would never trade for anything. But at the same time, it took away too much joy from my own life, spending long hours, many days, in places that belong to someone else.
It makes you want to just chill after work, otherwise you feel tired all the time. Working on Christmas, bank holidays, etc. I just love too many things in life to sacrifice myself completely to one kitchen. It just wasn’t for me. There are people who are happy living this life. Good. I’m happy for them and see them as warriors. Maybe someday I’ll open my own small place.
Now I take some jobs at events with my old crew, so it’s nice to come back once a month, every time in a new place, but I wouldn’t go back full-time. At least not now. I’m happy to have weekends off, to work 6–8 hours where the value of your work is measured by impact, not how many hours you stayed or how hard you tried. So… I guess that’s why.
#12
I moved to another country to help open a restaurant with a buddy I had previously worked for who went on to gain Michelin star experience. He partnered with a celebrity chef in that country. They paid for my entire move, visa, etc.
Once the restaurant opened we were doing 12hour days, 6 days a week. I expected this until we iron out the kinks and get the ball rolling.
Four months later it's still the same grind. We've had high turnover and during service my buddy turns into Marco Pierre White, cursing, slamming pans, and just being an irate p***k. But I'm told not to take it personal, "it's just service."
Then we have a meeting about how we aren't hiring anymore staff. Oh, and we need to really watch what we're spending on groceries.
I worked the satellite kitchen with an apprentice that was located in the dining room. I had an ear piece radio that I used to communicate with the main kitchen to choreograph dishes coming out of the satellite and main kitchen going to the same tables. After the chef got in my ear cursing and screaming about the apprentice I knew I was done.
I went home that night, asked my wife if she was ready, she was. We booked tickets for the next day. I went to the airport, texted the chef that I quit, and threw my phone away.
The place closed down two months later. It's the only job I've walked away from but it was deserved.
#13
I had a newborn son and my wife divorced me for not having enough time for them among other reasons, she decided she was gay. So I had to find a job that would let me spend time with him. Miss the chaos,love my holidays and weekends.
#14
10years of cooking was fun and stressful. But with a family its just not manageable. Went to papa johns for a quick GM fix. Then to a grocery store in the meat/seafood department for a more relaxed yet food related environment. Now I do pest control😂. Make more than double in my NET income than I did my GROSS income.
#15
I got injured and found out very quickly that workers comp zero and after many years in the game, it just never really had my back. I've gone through my nest egg and now, still busted up, I have to try to start all over in some other industry that will use my labor and spit me out.
#16
Like a lot of people, you spend years (a decade in my case) over extending and over committing yourself to establishments and owners that don't return the favor, the potentiality of earning more for less effort in another industry. Or over time the body isn't the young energetic vessel it once was that could handle 10+ hour shift 6 days a week.
Mental health and hospitality - peanut butter and jelly - bangers and mash ect... you can't have one without the other. In some cases it's the key reason to leave the kitchen but for me, it's what had me shackled to it.
The anxiety and fear of leaving the industry and failing was crippling, to the point where I felt safe or comfortable staying in the same unhealthy conditions. It was like being at war with myself. The desperation and desire for more but fear of failure.
#17
Got a job doing bread/pastry for a small private college. New company taking over an old kitchen. Boss was a nepo hire former marine who put his marksmanship awards on the wall of his office right behind his head. His sous were trash, lazy office dwellers who only came into the kitchen to yell. Waited two weeks for them to order yeast, being interrogated every day in the meantime as to why there was no fresh bread. Then I came in to find a tub of INACTIVE NUTRITIONAL YEAST on my worktable with a post-it on it from my least favorite of the sous with "no more excuses! :)" written on it.
Later that day I made 120 trifles in martini glasses for a banquet. I put them on sheet pans on a rolling rack. The same sous tried to roll the rack down a steep grade and spilled every single one of them onto the floor, smashing most of the glasses in the process. They then walked right back over to me and said "clean these up and have their replacements ready in one hour."
A couple years later I was running another place and I hired one of the other cooks who overheard the tirade I unleashed on that sous, he told me I was still being discussed in the kitchen for my walkout.
#18
I wanted to have a family. My dad spent a lot of time working at nights and weekends and I didn’t want it to be that way for my eventual kids. So at 28 I started working on an engineering degree while working 40+ hrs between two places. I’d go to school and do all that Monday thru Thursday afternoon then work Thursday night and doubles Friday Saturday and Sunday. It sucked so bad. But I finished in 4 years, had my first kid 2 weeks after I graduated and now have a safe, simple upper middle class suburban life at 40. I have good benefits, get to drop off and pick up my kids from school, spend all evening with them, all weekend with them. I still miss the flow state you’d get in to during the rush or a good prep shift but I don’t miss anything else about it. Godspeed to all my people still in the weeds.
#19
Once I was lead sous and the owner tried to pay me in d***s because he didn’t have money. Second was a new job as exec chef, on the second day the owner refused to let me write up the lead line cook for dripping raw chicken on to lettuce. It was clear that guy was actually in charge of the circus and the owners didn’t care about a potential illness outbreak. I told them the place wasn’t for me and left. Oh third I was a young line cook and on my first day the exec chef threw a metal champagne bucket at a server right in the head, blood and everything.
#20
If you’re bad you can’t keep up and get fired. If you’re good then management will rely on you, overburden you, cut costs to rely on you, then you quit out of frustration.
#21
Bad chefs quit or get fired because they are bad. That’s pretty cut and dry.
Good chefs quit or get fired because when they are good the demands from the people above them get larger and harder to achieve. If they hit their labor and food cost targets the targets get lowered and if there is a sales slump those numbers don’t go back up, even temporarily, so the work load increases, quality falls, and burnout hits and they either get fed up and quit or they become “bad chefs” and get fired.
This isn’t universal of course but seems to be a common cycle in our industry that I’ve witnessed and been a part of multiple times.
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