Though there has been a lot of discussion in recent months about tipping, the minimum wage, and staff shortages in the restaurant industry, diners rarely get an inside look into who their servers, bussers, bartenders are. This is the third installment in the author’s multi-part series introducing some of New York’s most dedicated restaurant workers; the first was published on Gothamist in April 2015, and the second can be found here.
Sometimes, dreams don’t work out exactly how you close your eyes and see them. Sometimes, they turn out cooler than you planned. Kevin Lind, who is waiting for me at an empty table at the back of one of the world’s best restaurants, knows all about that.
“I wanted to be the editor-in-chief of the New Yorker,” Lind says, while alternating sips of water and coffee out of plastic quart containers. “I wanted to be David Remnick.”
The 29-year-old —with his knit tie and polished clip, sharp features, reddish hair, and degree in English and Philosophy from St. Andrews (the third-oldest British university, after Oxford and Cambridge)—probably could have been. But life doesn’t deal in “could haves” or “should haves,” as 20-somethings who graduated during the Great Recession of 2008 well know. That stock market crash is part of how Lind came to be a manager at Eleven Madison Park, where he’ll be at the helm of one of the most coveted (and most expensive) restaurant Thanksgiving meals in America tomorrow.
Eleven Madison Park, or EMP to those in the know, has significantly more stars than the Australian flag: four from the New York Times, five from the Forbes Travel Guide, three from the esteemed Michelin Guide, and a nod from the San Pellegrino list of the world’s 50 best restaurants, to be precise (they sit comfortably at #5, behind ). Guests reserve months in advance to eat 11 to 14 courses customized to their palates, preferences, whims, and dietary restrictions; magazines write about their service team’s serious Googling habits, trying to crack how they make their guests feel so damn loved; their turkey and trimmings (which last year included foie gras terrine and lobster) will set you back $195—cheaper than the usual $225/head meal.
Kevin Lind, one of three managers at Eleven Madison Park. Photo by Sarah Jacobs.
You may be familiar with the names Daniel Humm and Will Guidara, the chef and restaurateur behind this pantheon of New York dining as well as the NoMad, its younger, hipper cousin a few blocks north. But I didn’t go to EMP to talk to either of them, or to dig into their
"There are few people I know who are so good at striking the balance between taking life and work incredibly seriously, but not taking themselves too seriously,” he says of Lind, high praise from one of New York's foremost hospitality trailblazers.
Lind, like so many others, got into the restaurant industry out of desperation: after a post-grad summer in Stockholm with his then-girlfriend, he arrived back in New York to face the dismal job market of 2008. Lind calls it a “turkey shoot.” After miserable stints as a paralegal and marketer, he got laid off and found himself looking for work.
“The last thing I wanted to do was find another desk job. It didn’t fit anything about my life or my interests,” he says.
Luckily, a friend of his was working at another Michelin-starred restaurant called Ai Fiori, and got Lind a job at the NoMad when she joined the new restaurant's team. He worked his way up to captain there, but had to start back at the bottom when he transferred to Eleven Madison Park, just like everyone else. Each of the EMP/NoMad staff starts in the same position, doing polishing and other “mise en place” as a kitchen server—the lowest rung on the dining room floor.
The mise-en-place at EMP's bar. Photo by Sarah Jacobs.
“A lot of us came from positions that were a lot different then the restaurant industry. You have to learn the whole system. You basically have to be broken,” he tells me. “It’s about managing your own expectations more than the reality of the situation. For a lot of people, waiting tables is perceived as something lesser. I don’t agree with that notion, but to have to start over as a kitchen server is humbling.”
In his role as captain, Lind managed four other floor staff; he now manages the entire dining room team of 50, directly overseeing 25. In both roles, he has been responsible for responding to every wild whim or subtle suggestion from every customer that passes through the restaurant's doors. He’s done everything from serve a disgruntled older gentleman an off-menu chocolate milkshake because he overheard him grumble that he wanted one, to making sure that Ferran Adria’s pop-up dinner there met the dietary issues of a woman who had just come off of chemotherapy. He’s had staff members run ten blocks to get a cheese pizza for a guest that was gushing about their favorite New York joint; each diner at the table got a slice midway through their 15 courses.
“It’s not outside of our control to be able to offer people what they want, and when people tell you their desires, there’s so much joy in being able to provide that," he says. "Even if it’s the most difficult, crazy thing in the world—nothing shocks me anymore. Some people get frustrated by that stuff, but for me it’s just another opportunity to go above and beyond to make someone’s night.”
Lind grew up being well taken care of in restaurants. His grandparent grew up in the Bronx, but later moved to Long Island’s North Shore, and when he wasn’t sitting down to dinner with his immediate family he was eating out with them. His 13th birthday at Michelin-starred Peter Luger Steakhouse stands out as personal highlight. When his grandparents died, two of the captains at their favorite restaurant, Cafe
He also attended boarding school at The Gunnery in Connecticut, where he learned the nuances of eating etiquette.
“We’d have three meals a day that were planned in the dining hall, and multiple days a week you’d have sit-down formal lunches with your advising group,” he says. “Until I started working in food service, I hadn’t realized that my whole life, there was this great emphasis on dinner.”
Though Lind’s life may sound posh (excuse the Britishness), he’s had his share of struggle. He lost his father at a young age, and his mother worked as a broadcast engineer before meeting her partner, a woman Lind calls his godmother. As he puts it: “I grew up a fat white kid in a project in Queens with two moms who got bussed to a private school in Long Island.”
His godmother worked in food service as a waitress at Madison Square Garden and Shea Stadium’s premium clubs, though he never gave too much thought to what she did for work: He and his brother were busy pushing themselves to compete academically. Growing up, he wanted to go to an Ivy League, but his grades fell just short.
“Now, I think of what I do as a craft, and like every craft you have to exercise and practice in order to get any good at it,” Lind says. “But it wasn’t craft I was interested in growing up.”
Even during our interview, Lind had his service game down pat: refilling my water glass and the wine our photographer was shooting; running upstairs for an extra suit jacket once he realized his had a tiny tear in the shoulder; offering bites from the kitchen. Yet despite the fact that Lind makes both a comfortable living and beyond-memorable experiences for people, he still gets looked down upon by a lot of people when he tells them he works in the hospitality industry; even some of his closest friends thumb their noses at his line of work.
A peek behind the curtains: EMP before service. Photo by Sarah Jacobs.
“I have friends that don’t get that this is a three Michelin-starred restaurant, and it’s considered one of the best restaurants in the world. They work for third-tier corporations doing minimal things, and yet I’m the one who should be embarrassed about what I do?” he says.
David Chang of momofuku has a similar sentiment, and he vented it to the New Yorker back in 2008. “I’m so sick and tired of how awesome it is to work at Google or f*****g
For Lind, pushing for greatness is part of his everyday, despite the long hours and unconventional schedule. He's often in by noon and there until the early morning hours the following day; he’ll have his two Thanksgiving meals with his restaurant family, including one after service around 2 a.m. that he describes as “bacchanal.”
“Thanksgiving is a very important day for us at EMP in so many ways,” Lind, whose girlfriend and parents will wait to have turkey with him on Sunday, says of the holiday. Not only is it right around Guidara’s birthday (he turns 36 today, the 25th) but it embodies so much of what the restaurant strives for: creating memorable and shared experiences around food.
That striving, and the philosophy his employers put behind it, is also part of why Lind isn’t looking for another 9-to-5. He’s also officially relinquished his David Remnick goals in favor of the restaurant life.
“This is going to sound ridiculous, but I studied philosophy in college, and there’s a number of different ways you can approach moral philosophy in particular,” Lind says. “For me, intention-based derivatives are super-important. The intention of this company is in the right place. The reason why we’ll send someone up 10 blocks to get a slice of pizza? It’s to make their night; it’s not to make a splash. And if it’s your goal to do things for the right reasons—and in the hospitality industry that gets very blurry—well, that’s super-exciting.”
All photos by Sarah Jacobs.
