Pub Blog – The Bear
Once the doors are locked and the customers have all gone home, Kate, Nick and I have been watching an episode of The Bear before retiring for the night. We each watched season 1 last year but this season we’ve watched it all together. It’s some of the best TV I’ve seen, and some of the most stressful watching experiences of my life.
For those not in the know, The Bear is a hour drama on Disney+ (Hulu in the states) following Carmy Berzatto in his desperate attempt to save his family’s failing sandwich shop – The Beef, after his brother’s death. The first season saw Carmy trying to bring some culinary standards & respect to the team while dealing with his own issues surrounding his family and the mental hangovers from working in high end kitchens in New York.
After I watched the first episode I had to turn off my laptop and cry for 20 minutes – it was too accurate. I’ve never been to Chicago and my family aren’t as discuntional as The Bear’s but… The small kitchen, where everything is falling apart and there’s not enough money, and the headache of staff and their baggage, never a minutes peace, always needing a smile on your face for customers. Every aspect of the show is set up to make the audience the most stressed they can possibly be. Fast cut shots and dialogue that moves a mile a minute, there’s no hand holding here. For anyone this would be tense watching, but when it’s the industry you work in, and in a family business too – it’s hard not to feel the crushing pressure of the show as deeply as our own.
This season see the closure of The Beef and the team start the thrilling and crazy work of opening The Bear a fine dinning restaurant using the $300,000 from ‘Uncle Jimmy’. Two whole episodes are dedicated to the Staging (kitchen interning) of Marcus and Richie at two of the best restaurants in the world, and the hellscape that is the post covid world of hospitality – mass staff shortages, crazy prices for electricity, produce and taxes, and the ever present threat that even with a Michelin Star you can’t garuntee keeping the doors open.
Now obviously there are some major difference between a country pub in a south Lincolnshire village and the The Bear. Our pressures aren’t as high as theirs – we’re not $800,000 in debt to the mob, we’re not trying to get a michelin star out of the shell of a street sandwich shop, and we’re not repeated failing a fire suppression test. On the other hand – we don’t have a mob boss for an ‘Uncle’ who can give us $800,000 to install a brand new kitchen, the staff shortages in Long Sutton don’t turn up even one candidate as skilled and disciplined as the ‘Emerald Green’ new kitchen hires, and, possibly most importantly, The Bear don’t seem to struggle attracting customers.
Though it’s touched on at the beginning of season one with the video game tournament and again in season 2 between Natalie and Richie, so far both The Beef and The Bear seem to bring customers in without so much as a facebook page. Carmy isn’t spending his days taking arty photos for instagram in the hopes that it will entice in new customers or coming up with events and special offers to bring regulars back after covid. He’s not even having to argue with randoms on facebook or Tripadvisor about why their prices aren’t as low as mcdonalds.
The Bear is a strange combination of really depressing and invigorating. Watching it makes me feel both like we can make a go of this industry, that teamwork and serious care can outwin the odds, and that the prize for winning is more work, that the fight is so much grittier than even the most intense episode.
I’m eagerly awaiting the third season, but hopefully by next summer it will be a far less accurate mirror to my own life.