Mother's Cafe Story

I applied to Mother’s Café and Garden when I first moved to Austin, at the time, I was a vegetarian, and they were Austin’s most successful and longest running vegetarian restaurant. I was cooking to support my burgeoning and inevitable music career, had been for a while, and it seemed like a good fit. For whatever reason, they didn’t hire me, so I went back to cooking Italian; pasta sure could pay the rent (at least until the music thing took off). I took a job at a cheesy little strip mall Italian joint, it only lasted a few months, then I applied to Mother’s again. They didn’t call, again, so I took another Italian job. I was getting rather good at cooking noodles. This new place was a big clean new operation; the executive chef took me under his wing and I learned a lot. But the new chef de cuisine wanted to bring in veal (I was a bit more squeamish at the time)… and, well, I applied to Mother’s again.



Mother’s, to me, was a sort of Mecca. The people who worked there looked cooler, more urban and hip. The guys in the kitchen wore bandannas, shorts and t-shirts instead of chef coats, they had visible tattoos and wacky facial hair. Loud punk rock could always be heard when the kitchen door opened. They looked like a merry band of pirates. It was like a cross between music and cooking. Also, the place was always busy, so it looked like a challenge. The food was real, and I could eat anything on the menu, not to mention learn how to cook it… The third time I applied I actually got an interview. John Silverman explained his philosophies, I explained mine. I’ll never forget that at the end of the interview he said “basically, what we’ve found is we like to hire people who are positive, who have a positive attitude…” then he looked at me, “do you think you’re one of those people?” Dead serious. I’ve used that line in a few interviews I’ve conducted over the years and have found that it is a good way to initiate a commitment to positivism with a new employee right from the start . It also helps the way the restaurant operates from the top down. If the dishwashers smile, the cooks smile, the servers smile and so do the customers. Most people go to a restaurant to have a good time and a smile is big part of that system. Mother's Cafe was always a good time.



He hired me that time. I took a pay cut, shifts I didn’t want, the work was harder and dirtier, and I was never happier in a kitchen. Busy restaurants tend to form a kind of team spirit that pulls everyone together. Those of us in the know always joke that the camaraderie is like that of soldiers who have gone through a war (although, admittedly, there is a much smaller chance of an IED or a roadside bomb). I worked at Mother’s for two years, as a night cook, a brunch cook (now that was a war story!) and finally, the dream job, as a lunch cook. In Austin, Texas, the land of music and partially employed musicians, a lunch shift is pure gold. It means that you can pay the bills, eat, and still practice with your band in the evening and play shows on the weekends. It took nearly a year of waiting to get the spot, and every single lunch cook was a musician. Spontaneous jam sessions would regularly break out in the walk-in refrigerator with pickle buckets and wire racks serving as improvised percussion instruments.



John did the hiring, but Cameron Alexander was the kitchen’s guy. He did the ordering and such and would work shifts to fill in for cooks who needed time off (for, you know, tours). The menu was fixed (and an institution unto itself), but Cameron and I started a dialogue about daily specials early on which somehow turned into a going concern. By the time I left, I regularly wrote and prepared a number of specials for Mother’s and her sister restaurant (the West Lynn Café). It was a position of creative leadership in a kitchen that had no formal leadership structure. I took the responsibility seriously (when I wasn’t thinking about my music career) and discovered, to my surprise, that I genuinely enjoyed the opportunity to be creative in my work environment.



I was going through a tough time. Music, my first love, was dissolving in my hands. Everyone I knew was a musician, and no-one was making a dime at it. Almost all of them were better than me, and I felt like I was just taking up their place in line. For that and many other reasons, my life was getting generally complicated, and in an effort to become more centered I was seeking wisdom, as many have, in books about Eastern philosophy. It was in a book about Buddhism that I came across the idea of choosing a ‘path’ or a ‘way’. It just clicked. What had music ever done for me? Had it fed me, sheltered me, kept me warm, bought me a beer? (O.K., maybe it had bought me a beer…) Music was a creative outlet, sure, and creative people need outlets (trust me, danger ensues). But cooking had not only taken better care of me, physically, but recently (thanks to Mother’s), cooking had become a creative outlet as well. In a sort of improvised Buddhist riddle, I asked myself which of these two disciplines I would choose if I had to give one up to follow one 'way', and the answer seemed clear. I loved music and still do, but simply put, cooking has been a much better friend to me. I decided to simplify my life and become a cook first and musician second.



Within a year, thanks in no small part to a letter of recommendation from Cameron, I was a Sous chef at one of America’s top vegetarian restaurants in San Francisco, California. Seems cooking also moves a lot faster than music…



Last week I received an email that Mother’s Café and Garden had burned in the night, no one was hurt, but a lot of folks who are my spiritual kin are out of jobs and having a tough time. We’ve decided to donate a portion of this week’s proceeds to help them get through it… There will also be a jar on the counter. I think it will mean a lot if they know folks all the way up in Canada are thinking about them, so please stop by and show your support. And if you’re up for it, maybe this week would be a good time to try one of our vegetarian specials; we’ll be offering a fixed price menu based on foods I learned to cook at that restaurant.