A Changed Façade

I’ve shared before that my first real job was at the Ponderosa Steak House in Lombard, Illinois. In the two years I was there, I worked up from dishwasher to “potato boy” to eventually earning the coveted position of cook. My number one task as a cook was to make sure everyone’s #1 strip steak, #2 ribeye, or Super Sirloin was cooked how they wanted it.

As an aside, one of the families from our church came in every Sunday after the morning service (I worked 1-2 Sundays per month), and the dad always ordered the same thing: #2 ribeye rare. Now, this was harder to do than one might think. In the first place, Ponderosa steaks weren’t “red meat”—at least, not the ribeyes. They were a sort of purplish brown. Yes, I know…probably due to the tenderizer. Secondly, the steak wasn’t very thick. After all, the cost of the entire dinner was $2.39 in 1975! Anyway, the first time I got Mr. Dixon’s order for a rare #2, he called me over. “Now Bryan,” he said, “30 seconds on one side. Flip it. 30 seconds on the other side. Done.” Didn’t matter how awful I thought it was…and I did think it was awful! My job: cook it how he wanted it.

Aside over.

A new Venue

Ponderosa’s training allowed me to move to a more demanding position as a cook in the Holiday Inn Oak Brook restaurant, working six days a week from 3-11. I started near the end of my junior year in high school and held the job until going away to college.

The restaurant looked typically 70s, with the orange and golds in the carpeting, heavy wood spindle chairs, vinyl-covered booths. The kitchen boasted lots of stainless steel. The dishwashing area, with numerous shelves for hanging large pots and pans, had a sizable corner all its own.

I spent most of my time in the front part of the kitchen, closest to the dining room. On a busy evening, I could have some steaks grilling under the broiler, a lobster tail and scallops baking in the oven, trout pan-frying on the stove, a Rueben grilling on the griddle, fries frying in the fryer, while I prepared a club sandwich at the sandwich station.

On the other side of the counter from my work area, the waitresses did their thing—preparing salads,  beverages, baskets with napkin-wrapped dinner rolls and cellophane-wrapped deluxe crackers, and desserts.

A wall separated the front of the kitchen from the back prep area. Here there were commercial-sized sinks, a couple large ovens, a stove top, and plenty of counter space for chopping, and rolling out dough, and, well, just making stuff. The walk-in freezer, refrigerator, and dry storage area were at the back of the prep kitchen. Oh, and there was a small “chef’s office,” too.

Yellow tile covered the bottom half of the walls throughout the kitchen; above, off-white semi-gloss paint complemented the yellow. At opposite ends of the front kitchen, electric bug zappers glowed their purple florescent hue, enticing flies away from my steaks to meet their demise between the charged wires.

Pardon the boring details, but there is a point. And after all, when you spend that many hours in one restaurant kitchen, its sights, sounds, and smells get burned into your senses just as surely as flames from steak on the broiler will singe your arm hairs.

I walked out of the Holiday Inn kitchen for the last time in late August, 1976.

For Old Times’ Sake

Forty-two years later, in September 2018, Chris needed to attend a multi-day meeting for the company she was working for at the time in its Oak Brook office. The company has a corporate account with the Holiday Inn, so we went together and made a little getaway out of it.

Needless to say, the entire place was transformed from my working days there four decades earlier. When we checked in, I mentioned to the clerk that I had worked in the restaurant when I was his age. He strained to figure out how far back in ancient history that must have been. I think he was shocked that the building could possibly have existed that long ago! Nevertheless, he appeared duly impressed and provided me with complimentary tickets to enjoy breakfast in the restaurant the next morning.

Which, of course, I gladly accepted.

Entering the restaurant the following morning, I probed for perspective, trying to envision the dining room of the mid-70s. I gave up; it was useless. The remodeling job surely involved a complete gut job and totally redesigned layout. I must say, it was quite attractive, as far as modern restaurants go.

Having finished breakfast, I shared with the waitress that I worked as a cook in the restaurant back in the day. She seemed interested—at least enough that I made what had to be to her an odd request.

“Do you think I could step back in the kitchen for a minute?” I asked.

“Ah, for old times’ sake, huh? Sure, that’d be fine,” she replied.

I’m sure the two-way door was the same one, but it could’ve been a sci-fi time-traveling device. On the other side of that door, it was 1976. There to the left, the same large dishwashing corner. The cook’s stations where I spent more than 3,000 hours of my life remained unchanged. The walls, still off-white and pastel yellow. The bug zapper terminated another victim even as I stood there.

It was surreal. It was as if the restaurant with its modern, updated décor offered a changed, beautiful façade, but the heart of the operation remained unaffected at all.

People Façades

And then I thought about people. About us.

Have you ever known someone who “turned over a new leaf” and made a 180 in his or her life? Cleaned up the mess. Dressed up. Looked up. Rebuilt burned bridges—or tried, anyway. The change impressed even you! You’re enjoying the ambiance of this newly renovated acquaintance. Then something happens. He takes you through the door of his heart, and you step back in time. The façade is just that. Looks different in a good way, but the heart of the operation remains obstinately stuck.

We recently came through “Holy Week” and ran into someone like this along the way, didn’t we.

Judas sure looked the part. Close devotee of Jesus. Trusted keeper of the money bag. Careful to avoid wasteful spending. Apparently, he even occupied a spot right next to Jesus at the Last Supper table! When Jesus announced at the Passover meal that one of his disciples would soon betray him, no one said, “It’s got to be Judas.” No one. In fact, each suspected himself as being a more likely traitor than Judas!

All eleven disciples walked with Jesus through the door of Judas’s heart in the garden where he betrayed Jesus with a kiss. His heart of greed was masked with a veneer of “waste-avoidance.” His heart of anger and disillusionment was shrouded by a cloak of feigned loyalty.

How indispensable the virtue integrity. Our manner of life must not be a construct, a carefully designed front crafted to hide who we really are. Instead, the “heart of the operation”—a heart of integrity—will craft a life that offers a telling view of the “real you.”

Such was the heart of beleaguered Job, according to God (Job 2:3) and man (2:9). Such is one who, hiding nothing, doesn’t fear God’s judgment (Psalm 7:8; 26:1). A person who shuns the mere façade walks securely, guided by principle; the “Judas-type” eventually self-destructs (Proverbs 11:3).

The genuine heart-desire of every follower of Jesus should echo the psalmist’s commitment: “I will ponder the way that is blameless.… I will walk with integrity of heart within my house.” (Psalm 101:2)

That way, whenever someone walks through the door, they’ll just step in a similar room…not back in time.