Chef Shares How His Culinary Career Began as a Restaurant Custodian

A second chance at life was what Jeff Henderson, award-winning celebrity chef, received when he got the job of a custodian and dishwasher in Chef Robert Gadsby’s restaurant in Los Angeles, California after serving a decade in prison. Henderson shared his emotional journey from his kitchen in Las Vegas, Nevada to kickoff ISSA Show North America Virtual Experience’s first Spotlight Speaker session, ‘If You Can See It, You Can Be It.’

Henderson recalled how his motivation began when he was a child working with his grandfather who owned a custodial service cleaning laundromats in Southern California. Henderson’s grandfather taught his grandson how to work, get up early, and realize the value of a dollar. “There’s so many life lessons in cleaning, in organization, in polishing…in this type of industry,” Henderson said. “I knew before I was a chef or good enough cook that I could get a job just saying, ‘Hey, I know how to clean kitchens, floors, bathrooms…’ So, I went into these career choices as a janitor to get in until I got an opportunity to excel as a cook.”

Spotlight speaker Jeff Henderson kicked off ISSA Show North America Virtual Experience with his session, ‘If You Can See It, You Can Be It.’

Whether you’re in a restaurant or any other facility, “the place has to be cleaned,” Henderson said, especially during a pandemic. But he questioned, “How do we sustain that? How do we make sanitization, and cleaning, handwashing, sanitizing our kitchens and businesses a No. 1 priority? So, when COVID is over we continue to thrive?” The answer, Henderson believes, “is analyzing what we do.”

“We have to find a way to pivot and rewrite our blueprint. We write our business plan,” Henderson said as he shared how his restaurant businesses have adapted to the coronavirus pandemic by mandating mask-wearing, installing screen dividers, and hiring sanitation partners to “COVID-clean our kitchen. Sanitize it. So, we haven’t missed a beat at all.”