Let me tell you about one of the best all around dudes I ever got to meet.  Many of his business and personal philosophies could easily fit in the “motivation” section of the blogs, but he truly deserves his own recognition.  I was fortunate enough to go through his personally designed kitchen manger training bootcamp.  Craig Rootin’ Tootin’ Newton.  Craig once cleared out a whole bar in Athens, Ga when he whipped out his new piercing for all to see.  It was swollen and purple, but that’s a whole ‘nother story.
Craig was one of those people that to know him was to love him.  If you didn’t know him, though, you would definitely cross the street if he came walking your way. Shoot, you might even move out of town.  He had a brooding persona. Shoulders spread wide but leaning forward slightly as he walked as if he couldn’t keep up with himself.  In a time before there were tattoo shops beside every Starbucks, he was menacing with his large pieces of skin art; tribal designs, Celtic crosses, a tribute The Mighty Mighty Bosstones.  Nipples pierced, tongue pierced, of course the Prince Albert…and this was in the late 1990s.  Now socially acceptable for nannies at preschool, this had a slightly more sinister appeal years back.
Craig was spoken of as if everyone knew him.  It was like George Washington or Michael Jordan.  There was no introduction offered or needed.  I was working at a restaurant early in my career. A prep and line cook, there was talk of me getting into management.  Then I was told “Craig Newton is coming to train you.’
That name didn’t mean much to me.  But I noticed as soon as those words left the Food Supervisor’s lips, the General Manager passing along us stopped in his tracks and spun around.
“Craig Newton? Coming here?”
Before he could answer a voice sounded form the opposite direction.  One of the kitchen managers had swung his head around from the grill side.
“Yo, for real?! We’re getting Craig Newton?! Hell yeah!”
As the plan was explained to me, Craig was coming to this store to train me.  In turn I would go be his replacement from the store he came from.  Craig would stay at this store and I would ship out.  He was coming from a store that was older and more established and we were relatively new and booming.  In the middle of a big commerce area with a movie theatre right behind us, the place was always packed.  The store Craig was coming from was a 4 hour drive to the south and equally busy.  The difference is it had a tenured, solid management team and was consistent with its sales trends and product mix.  Basically any hard working idiot could help run the place.  Hello, hard working idiot reporting for duty!
My initial meeting with Craig was like meeting a weathered sea captain.  Although just a couple years my elder, he wore his experience on his face.  You could see knowledge, pain, thirst, and power in the focus he locked on to you.  This wasn’t just his work face.  This was his play face.  His pool face.  His strip club face.  His love face.  I am fortunate to have seen this all with him.
He walked into the kitchen and those that knew him ceased working to cheerfully greet him.  High fives, hugs, a couple of grabbing each other by the back of the head and touching foreheads (that is among the deepest forms of intimate kitchen respect).  The man made time stand still.  Debuting scheduled as a mid-shift, he was coming in right as the store was opening for the day.  The opening manager had performed all opening duties, am cooks were prepared and in place, deliveries had been put away.  Around 3 or so a closing manger would be coming in to oversee dinner service and do orders for the next day.  As a mid, you’re basically there to plow through the day overseeing service operations.  In a nutshell, Craig was here to run sh*t.
Craig made his way through a kitchen he had never set foot in before and knew where everything was.  Ran down the service line, circled through the prep room and stepped into the dish pit.  Eye contact with every person at every station, handshakes weren’t always offered as his gaze gripped you tightly enough.  For the few of us that were meeting him for the first time, it was as if the king of the jungle was walking past you and mercifully sparing your life.
Not yet stepping into the walk-in cooler or freezer, Craig looked at me and said “Come with me.”  No hello, by no means was I worthy of a forehead-forehead kiss, no I’m me, you’re you.  A look that said ‘you’re mine’ with a staccato demand to follow him.
We journeyed into the incredibly glamorous locker room.  A corridor to the back exit, it provided storage to the twenty or so bags of potatoes we always kept on hand.  We did baked potatoes, mashed potatoes and cut our own fries.  And you best rotate them upon deliveries of new bags because there are few things worse than the smell of rotten potatoes.There were also shelves of our linens used for table cloths and silverware rolls, kitchen towels, to go paper products and the thing that actually makes this the locker room; the chef coats.
A make shift closet area, there were two racks.  They hung virginally sterile, all white and yet to be touched by bacon grease or marinara.  One rack had everything from Small to XXXL.  These were for us to come in and put on before our shift.  The line cooks, the prep cooks, the dishwashers.  We would come in and find a chef coat closest to our size available and THEN go punch in.  The other rack, separated form the plebeian generic coats by a small thin wall, were the mangers’ chef coats.  Just as angelically white, but they had a black trim around the sleeve ends, lapels and collars.  Above the chest pockets were names and positions.  Sean Curry. Food Supervisor.  Ken Howerin. General Manager.  Chris Averett.  Kitchen Manager.  It was the holy grail of uniforms and quite literally separated the no-names from the honchos.  And among this second rack waiting for him upon his arrival hung several boasting Craig Newton. Kitchen Manager.
We entered the area and he took his civilian shirt off while facing me.  Actually addressing me for the first time, I was taking in his words but also having to absorb visually the site before me.  Covered in ink from the throat down, a couple door knockers hanging from his nipples and pants so low in the front he was offering legit pubic cleavage.
“You’re Jamie.” Not a question, mind you.
“Yep. You’re Craig.” I tried, man. It sounded no where near as cool as the way he did it.
“You think for one minute I am going to sign off on your training and have you go to Athens and embarrass me then you’re dumber than you look.”  Hallmark moment in the making.  “You will do what I say when I say it.  You will work all my shifts with me for the next two weeks.  You will either learn what is expected and be prepared to transfer or,” classic lean in, the bead of his tongue piercing clinched for a second between his teeth, “ I am going to eat you alive.”  This was f’ing awesome.
He Great Daned his way into the walk-in cooler and I puppy dogged behind him.  Inside he began his introductory interrogation.  Where are you from. How long you been doing this. What are you good at.  How good do you think you are.  How good do you want to be.  What makes you think you can go be my replacement.  Again, questions in the forms of demands., often not waiting to hear the complete answer.  All the while he is inspecting the cooler.  Day dots. Vendor stickers.  Noticing prepped items off in weight by the slightness of an ounce just by looking at it.  Predicting our daily steak sales based on steaks we’ve cut versus unbutchered sub-primal loins.  Pushing on the salmon fillets to check for freshness.
To the walk-in freezer.  Same thing, now offering his resume of sorts.  When he started working in restaurants.  When he started with this company.  How busy the Athens store is.  Checking labels on the frozen fish scraps.  How you can’t let employees run you over.  Pulling out his bio-therm and checking the temperature of a soup placed in the freezer to cool down quickly.  You have to run the kitchen firmly but gracefully.  Counting the cases of par cooked croissants.  Don’t ever demand someone to do something that you can’t or won’t do yourself.
We basically just did an entire inventory check in three minutes, all the while he told me every essential key to managing and humbly destroyed me while building me up.  The roller coaster ride of Craig Newton, ladies and gentlemen.
The training and water boarding continue to the front line as Craig performs a line check, yet again, in a kitchen he’s never been in.
“So those ham slices in the walk-in are too thick. They need to be redone,” he says this as he takes a shot of Au Jus, “man, that taste like love.”
“There’s three pans of club sets in the walk-in, Two are right but one is set up as Jack-Turkey-Ham-Cheddar and they’re all supposed to be Cheddar-Turkey-Ham-Jack.  Find out who did it and have them remake them,” spoon full of baked beans, “what is this, bond-o? Somebody trying to restore a 57 chevy with this paste? Add some hot water and BBQ sauce.”
“There’s a case of 6oz skin-on chicken breast in the freezer labeled as coming in today and it’s on top of a case that came in two days ago.  Find out who put up the truck and have them rotate it and mop out the freezer itself.” A ‘what difference does it make when it’s frozen’ look must’ve swept across my face because without me saying a word Craig barks “because it is discipline. It is doing the right thing every time. Every day.”
This was pretty much how the shift went; Craig would bark more orders at me than I could keep up with.  Before completing one he would demand another.  And he wasn’t just having me perform tasks, he was having me address the staff responsible.  He was teaching me to manage.  He was teaching me to have standards.  He was teaching me to be accountable and to hold others to that standard.  Mind you I have been a cook at this restaurant for two years with multiple “associate of the period” recognitions,  but this was all brand new to me.
Eventually the shift came to an end.  Not wanting to show weakness to Craig, I did technically come in two hours before he showed up, but per his instruction I was working with him on his shifts.  So I stayed way longer than usual and the goodbye for the day as a manager takes a lot longer than the see you later of an hourly cook.  We retreated to the locker room, I removed my shamefully plain chef coat and he his company logo personalized superman cape.
“What do you do now?” he asks.
“Go home?” I was in a way asking for permission.
“Come with me,” f—k dude, this is how we started off 11 hours ago.
We wind up less than a mile away at one of the bars our staff frequented regularly.  Craig and I sit down, he flicks open his box of camel lights and offers me one.  I graciously accept and he begins.
Rock n’roll.  Tattoos.  Girls.  Blackouts.  Sales records.  Short staffed. Health inspections.  40 Watt Club.  Alex.  His brother.  Food.  Chain of command.  Pride. Standards.  Leadership.  Tommy.  University of Georgia.  Guns.  Never 86 anything.  Don’t make excuses.  In a non sequitur barrage Craig was covering everything our company believed in and desired to be, everything necessary to be a successful manager and everything cool to do in Athens.  And there were a lot of beers and a lot of camels.
As the week progressed, Craig began to be easier to keep up with.  Either that or he had woken a pride in me that necessitated recognizing his expectations and staying ahead.  I was thriving as an employee, as a manager and as a culinary pirate.  Far from the days of being a chef, but I was churning and burning as a fully lit corporate manager.  It was challenging and it was fulfilling.
We’d work side by side. He’d spot correct me. He’d let me make decisions. He’d let me steer the ship.  He called me on my bullsh*t.  He would remind me I’m a boss, not a friend.  He’d pop quiz me at the busiest moments.  After work we would continue, side by side.  Beer for beer.  On the clock he was teaching me the essentials of managerial success.  Off the clock he was showing methods of surviving the industry.  He attacked both equally hard.
There was a day, however, within the two week training period that I just wasn’t feeling it.  Not sure the catalyst.  Maybe I didn’t sleep enough, maybe I was mad at the world, maybe I was out of weed.  Whatever the case, Craig could tell I was half-assing it and essentially phoning in my efforts.
“Dude come here.”  We head out the back door.  I steal a peek at all the cool black lined chef coats once again.
“What are you doing? What’s the problem?”  I tried quickly to come up with a reason why my performance was substandard.  Someone I could blame, someone I could throw under the bus…what made up problem away from work can I contrive quickly…has to be serious enough to evoke sympathy but not too serious that they send flowers to a funeral home.
Once again, Craig is one step ahead of me.
He delivered to me a speech that I use to this day.  To friends, employees, strangers.  In manager meetings, in pre shift huddles and sometimes simply to the man in the mirror.
“Listen, man.  If I was a ditch digger I would dig you the prettiest, most consistent and pristine ditches you had ever seen.  Every day.  To the best of my ability.  I would show up and I would pour my soul into each and every ditch I dug.  There would be no one that could dig a ditch better than me and no one that cared more about those ditches more than me.  I would be the absolute best ditch digger that I could be.  You know why? Because I chose to be a ditch digger.  No one made me.  And if I choose to do something, I am not being true to myself if I do not give it the best effort I can.  All of this, all of this?” he circled with his hand above his head, palm up, understood as ‘all this’ meant the rest of the world, “all of this can f—k off and go to hell for all I care.  But I will forever be true to ME.  And if you agree to do something and do not do it to the best of your ability…no matter what…then you’re lying to yourself.  You’re cheating yourself.  You’re not being true to yourself.  And you’re too f—king good for that.  Now grab your shovel, get your head out of your ass and go dig me some f—king ditches.”
Whenever people ask me if I saw this movie or that TV show about a restaurant, I just smile and nod.  This moment was and forever will be better than anything produced in a sterile, scripted studio.
From that day on I never put my shovel down.
The day came for me to ship off.  Things had gone as hoped; Craig approved my competence and we were to complete the flip flop.  My last day was bittersweet.  It was saying goodbye to some friends made, saying goodbye to home but it was also realizing there was growth and the trianer-trainee relationship I had experienced with Craig actually had life changing moments.  We had a mutual respect for each other and had became friends.  As luck would have it, I already had a vacation planned coming up and so did he.  The same exact week.  We planned a 9 day blow out where he’d catch a ride down to Athens to visit friends and family.  We’d destroy it and ourselves for a couple days and I’d drive him back to Charlotte where I could see my family and also wreck havoc on the city and our livers.  With a clear directive, a fresh outlook on management techniques and the optimism of having my own fancy chef coats, we bid a farewell for now.  One of the last things Craig said to me was “hook up with Alex.  He’ll take care of you.”  Well, I figured Craig ain’t lied to me yet.
I roll into Athens and hit the restaurant a day early.  Not scheduled to work, I just wanted to say hello and, of course, hook up with Alex.  Alex, as Craig had explained in one of the after shift beerfests, was a long term employee that would be sliding into Craig’s position of senior kitchen manager.  I walk in, meet Chad the co-GM, Tommy the Food Supervisor, and my eyes meet Alex.  Alex was almost exactly like Craig.  Shoulders wide as a door frame and a do not f—k with me scowl about him.  From his wrist up to mid forearm where his chef coat began, you could see intricate black and grey artistry.  Practically twins he and Craig.  Except Alex was Chinese.  And wore coke bottle thick glasses.  So he looked extremely Chinese.  I don’t think I ever saw his actual eyes to be honest.
“Hey Alex! I’m Jamie, Craig told me to ho-“
“Ok come with me.  You’ll need non slip shoes.  Coats are in the shed out back.  We will get you in the computer when Maria gets here, she does payroll,” I’m following him outside, they don’t have the fancy shmancy potato sack locker room I’m used to. “We’ll get you started on dish and maybe if a prep shift opens up we will see what you can do. Maybe.”
I’m a little confused. I’m starting in dish? I have to run all the way through training again as if I’m a brand new employee? I’m not even here to work today and dude is cracking on my shoes?
“Alex? I’m Jamie? Your new kitchen manager?”
He stops and thinks a bit. I would say he tightened his gaze on me but honestly those glasses were thicker than the tanks at the Georgia Aquarium.  Finally he laughed.  Apparently he thought I was the new dish washer.  He welcomed me, offered an olive branch of trust since Craig trained me but also offered a warning.
“The rushes we get on days of Georgia football games and basketball games are like nothing you have ever seen. Nothing.” He then silently mouths for super creepy effect one more time, “nothing.” The restaurant was indeed close enough to the campus that you could throw a rock at it.  You wouldn’t hit it by any means, but you could definitely throw a rock at it.
“Where you living?”
“I got an apartment at La Chateau”
“Hahahahaha that sucks. We call it La Sh*thole.  How long you been in the business?”
“About three years.”
“Hahahahaha that sucks.  I’ve been here, just here at this location alone for ten.”  This went on for a bit.  Alex would ask me a question, reply with hahahahaha that sucks and then tell me how his experience was better.  He did however do the cool flick the cigarette pack open and offer me one. Camel lights.  Just like Craig.
As a few days went by and I strugglingly did my best to fit in, Alex warmed up a bit.  Without question though, he always kept it very obvious who was in charge; HIM. No question at all.  Even when his lone superior in the kitchen, Tommy, the Food Supervisor, was working alongside him, he conceded all authority to Alex.  Dude was a relentless machine.  Just like Craig.  Another notable difference outside their ocular discrepancies was their catch phrases.  Where Craig would offer “eat you alive” as an outcome for a negative experience, Alex would consistently threaten to “f—k your ass.”  At first it was quite shocking to hear, after a few months it was as warm as a mother’s embrace.
Very quickly, Craig and my super awesome vacation plans came into fruition.  He rolled into town and of course we had celebrity status everywhere we went.  I remember I would always end up at La Sh*thole save one night on Alex’s couch.  In the morning I would pick Craig up at a predetermined location with a random female dropping him off.
One night before heading back to Charlotte, Craig, Alex, a few more disorderlies and I were drinking in the downtown sector. Craig announced with an almost ‘oops I just remembered’ tone he had a tattoo appointment.  That’s cool, we all agreed, that’s something we can all be entertained by.  We made our way into 3 Kings.  There were only two tattoo shops in Athens at the time, 3 Kings and Pain & Wonder.  3 Kings was a tattoo studio up a narrow flight of stairs above another nondescript business.  3 Kings was the current name but it was the third tattoo shop to occupy the space.  To avoid confusion or potentially running off any clients, when answering the phone the greeting was “Thanks for calling 3 Kings Lucky 13 Tattoo Studio,” a juxtaposition of all three names.
We all settled in the oversized leather couches and took in all the visuals.  Old tattoo portfolios on the walls.  Sailor art.  Wood carvings.  Hot rods. I love tattoo artists, man.  They are seriously some of the nicest, coolest, all accepting nonjudgemental people walking the planet and they all have super cool interests.  All the dudes I was with knew all the tattoo artists.  Craig had an appointment with Lil’D. Not to name drop but look him up on Instagram; lild_tattooer.  He’s an old school aficionado and since this encounter he was on the hit tv show Ink Master.
Now without question, without me saying a word, without me suggesting anything, Craig yells to me “hey Jamie,” doing that thing with his tongue piercing between his teeth again, “you want my appointment?”  To the uninitiated, this is a gift of unspoken magnitude.  For someone to give you their tattoo appointment is equivalent to giving up a first born child.  It is a god-like gift. It was totally unexpected and I hardly knew how to respond.  But Craig insisted.  He and I had talked previously about some tattoos I wanted and he was already way ahead me in body coverage.  I humbly and gratefully accepted.
Lil’D took a look at the few pieces I already had and sketched up a real sweet tribal half sleeve. It incorporated the style and colors of my other tattoos and did a great job of giving me a wholistic look.  The tattoo I still wear, and just as proud am I on saying I have a Lil’D original, it is extra special because Craig gave me his time in the chair.  That’s some serious mafia made man business right there.
I wasn’t in Athens for too long before I got the itch to keep moving.  Always chasing the proverbial unattainable carrot, I scooted off chasing success. I had settled into a groove at my new job a couple states away when I received an unexpected phone call from Alex.  Apparently Craig had let the burdens of life and his personal demons get the best of him and he decided not to live anymore.  It still tears me up.  Someone so strong, so mighty.  It just never made sense and it still doesn’t.  I often wonder what he’d be like today.  I am still in touch with Alex and many others from that time in my life.  I’m sure we’d still be thick as thieves.  But his passing taught me to appreciate those around you and to be kind, for you really never know what battles the people in your life are going through.
He taught me the importance of being true to yourself and the integrity of always giving your best.
Craig Newton taught me how to live.
Of course, life goes on.  Craig has a brother somewhere out there that I have met but never really got to know.  Alex has a foo dog version of his own face tattooed across his chest.  That restaurant Craig taught me how to be a badass in was demolished years ago.  The one in Athens still stands.  Lil’D is a tattoo celebrity.  And I still dig ditches.  Every day.
Then again, I am also always quick to remember the time we sent the new prep cook to ask Craig for his keys so he could get into the storage shed.  Craig, of course, was in on this prank and had attached his work keys to his penis piercing, but that’s a whole ‘nother story.