09/07/2026
The People Who Make a Kitchen Run Aren’t Always the Ones Holding the Knife
Today is Labor Day.
It’s 4:30 in the morning as I write this.
Last night, we catered one of the most beautiful weddings of our season at the New River Gorge. The setting was breathtaking, the evening was beautiful, and by the time we pulled back into Buckhannon and got everything put away, it was midnight.
In about thirty minutes, I’ll pull myself together, head downstairs and “get the biscuits ready.”
That’s what I always call it.
Get the biscuits ready.
As if that somehow covers everything that happens next.
Today we have three events to prepare for, and somewhere in the middle of all of that we’ll put together the lunch special for the hungry masses who flock into town looking for something good to eat.
And on Labor Day, of all days, I find myself thinking about the word labor.
Because people usually see the pretty part of what we do.
They see the wedding under the lights.
They see the buffet once every pan is perfectly placed.
They see the flowers, the food, the cake, the table settings.
They see a biscuit hot from the oven.
They see a lunch special land on the table.
They see the finished plate.
What they don’t always see are the hundreds of little things, and the dozens of hands, that made that plate possible.
They don’t see the dishwasher standing over the sink while everybody else is heading home.
The baker who started long before sunrise.
The prep cook who spent hours peeling, chopping, slicing and portioning.
The farmers who planted something months ago that finally made its way onto a plate last night.
The people packing cambros, counting pans, loading trucks and checking the list for the fifth time because forgetting one tiny thing can become a very big thing when you’re an hour from home.
The servers who notice the water glasses are getting low before anyone asks.
The person who runs back to the truck.
The person who folds the napkins.
The person who sweeps the floor.
The person who takes out the trash.
The person who grabs the other end of something heavy without being asked.
The person who looks across the kitchen, sees somebody getting buried and simply says,
“I’ve got it.”
Those may be three of the most beautiful words in the hospitality business.
“I’ve got it.”
After all these years, I’ve learned that kitchens are not really held together by chefs.
They’re held together by people.
By dishwashers.
Bakers.
Farmers.
Prep cooks.
Servers.
Drivers.
Packers.
Runners.
People washing lettuce and peeling potatoes.
People carrying boxes.
People making coffee.
People doing a hundred jobs nobody will ever photograph.
People quietly fixing problems before most anyone even knows there was a problem.
And sometimes I think those are the people who deserve the photograph.
Because beautiful weddings don’t just happen.
Neither do beautiful meals.
Somebody carried that beauty in a box.
Somebody grew it in the dirt.
Somebody washed it.
Somebody chopped it.
Somebody baked it.
Somebody loaded it onto a truck.
Somebody drove it down the road.
Somebody served it with a smile even though their feet were killing them.
And somebody stayed behind afterward and cleaned up the mess.
Then sometimes those same people go home at midnight, sleep a few hours, and get up to do it all over again.
There’s something strangely appropriate about that on Labor Day.
This morning, before the first biscuit goes into the oven, before the first catering pan gets packed and before the first hungry person walks through the door, I just want to say thank you to the people who make Fish Hawk Acres work.
The people out front.
The people in the back.
The people whose names our customers know.
And especially the people whose names they may never know.
The older I get, the more certain I am that the best things we create are rarely the work of one person.
They are the accumulation of hundreds of small acts of labor, care and attention from people who decided that their little piece of the job mattered.
And when everybody does their little piece well, somehow it becomes something beautiful.
Like last night.
Now...
I suppose I’d better go get those biscuits ready.
Happy Labor Day from all of us at Fish Hawk Acres.
