Everyone is in the Relationship Business|Chef Jensen Cummings (Best Served Podcast)|DH098 - a podcast by Shawn Walchef

Chef Jensen Cummings life in the restaurant industry began before he was born.
The super chef turned multi-hyphenate has generations of kitchen prowess, management and hospitality in his blood. When it came time to turn pro in the family business it proved an instant fit for Chef Jensen Cummings (@chefjensencummings).“I started my career at seventeen,” Jensen Cummings looks back on this episode of the Digital Hospitality podcast. “I was just a punk kid who barely graduated high school and I found my people in the heat of the kitchen.”


Watch the Full Jensen Cummings Interview on YouTube: https://youtu.be/2Mb0OL_jYOo

 • Connect with Jensen Cummings on LinkedIn at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jensen-cummings-09b9894b/

• Best Served Podcast: https://www.bestservedpodcast.com/• Best Served Creative: https://www.bestservedcreative.com/

• More Digital Hospitality Podcast Interviews: https://calibbq.media/podcast-episodes/ 
Finding Success in the Restaurant Industry:Ascending and arriving after finding his tribe, the kid turned cook was on a hot streak. In a matter of time, Jensen Cummings worked his way up the ranks and became a star in his space.

“The fact that I could be great at something — because I never quite fit in anywhere else — was important,” Jensen Cummings shares. “The trajectory led me to James Beard Award winning places, I had my name in lights and lived that life for better or worse.”The ‘better or worse’ part of Jensen’s journey sheds a light on the dark parts of the service industry few want to speak on.
Unhealthy schedules. Substance abuse. Sleepiness nights. Depression.Jensen found himself in the thick of the heat right when he was in the swarm of the spotlight like so many of his role models before him.

“We went from being outcasts to being the cool kids,” Jensen looks back on himself and his peers. “We didn't quite know how to handle that. Everyone wants to talk to the chef, and it goes to our heads. I know it did for me.”

Soon enough, it became apparent to Jensen that he had to break the cycle ingrained in him by the industry he was born into as it was also the same industry that could bury him.Reaching peak popularity and turning into leadership, Jensen’s journey now running the show assumed new heights but also a more meaningful mission.

“We become the establishment,” Jensen reflects on a chef’s rise.“You die a hero or live long enough to become the villain. That plays out in my mind all the time. We are the establishment now and we have to recognize what we do with this opportunity and this responsibility today that's going to manifest the outcome for my two kids, for your two kids, for millions of people that we will never meet.”

No longer just the byproduct of previous generations but the torchbearer for future families entering the industry, Jensen is all about changing the conversation and culture around mental health and company culture in the kitchen.The man who’s had his name in the lights and once went seven years without a sick day now has his voice on Clubhouse and his Best Served Podcast as a beacon for health and help. Using his platform, Jensen isn’t perpetuating the monster of celebrating 14-hour shifts, rather he’s shifting the conversation on creating care and stability for his staff and his customers.

“We need to start recognizing that we are in the relationship business,” Jensen Cummings states on the Digital Hospitality podcast. “We need to build relationships internally and externally to have any chance. The product is just the vehicle for that. My shift on the work side is so important because we devalue ourselves. We put up this facade of this tough guy and unfortunately parts of the business actually perpetuate that monster.”Slaying the same monster that had him living the industry lows for many years, Jensen is sharing lessons, giving game and trying his best to break the norms with every conversation ...

Further episodes of Digital Hospitality: A Cali BBQ Media Podcast

Further podcasts by Shawn Walchef

Website of Shawn Walchef