The Last Woman Standing: Jody Adams, Back on the Line at TRADE.

Jody Adams at TRADE

When Jody Adams and her partners, Eric Papachristos and Jon Mendez, reopened TRADE after an 18-month closure, it was like opening a new restaurant: a fresh renovation, a new concept and feeling and a comprehensive system in place to coordinate all aspects of the business. Adams knew her presence was needed and took a hands-on approach throughout the reopening process, but she hadn’t planned to be back on the line each night.

Since its September opening, in less than two months TRADE has gone through two executive chefs. When the second one didn’t work out, at 64, Jody decided to step in herself.

The Globe ran a story just a couple of weeks ago about an exciting new chef at TRADE—the second person hired for the role in less than two months. It seems that stepping into the role yourself was not the original plan.

I assumed with the experience they each had that they would know what needed to be done, and if they didn’t know that, they would know what questions to ask in order to be successful. It wasn’t that I wasn’t there. Particularly with the first chef, we were working together. I wasn’t there every minute in the kitchen with him, but the kitchen wasn’t open (yet). But I was available and so were my partners, so there were a lot of resources. And with the young woman, an enormously talented cook, I had never worked with her professionally in a kitchen. I didn’t know that it would be too monumental a task for her. And the young man who we had first, it was too big for him, too. That’s what he told me. I’m just kind of surprised; I don’t know how other people are running their organizations. So I don’t really want to dwell on that, why it was not a successful hire. The fact is that neither of them were successful hires and now we’re doing something else.

What I’m reminded of is that a restaurant or any organization works as well as the amount of time you invest in it. Within anything in life— whether it’s a stew, a braise, you have to make what the French call the “fond de braise.” It’s the foundation of the braise, where you caramelize the onions and the carrots, and you cook the tomato paste a little bit and you make sure that it’s seasoned properly. And then you sear the meat and you put that in. Then you reduce the wine and you build this foundation. So at the end everything’s in its layered structure. Whereas if you just took the meat, the onions, the carrots and you threw them in a pot, threw some wine in, salt and pepper and filled it with water or stock, it would not be the same. It would just be a boiled mess. And so the same is true with any organization: You have to build the foundation of the structure that everything can fit into.

So, what is your plan going forward? Are you getting things settled and then handing the reins to someone else who is in the kitchen currently?

I don’t know exactly; it’s only been two and a half weeks, so I don’t have a planned end in sight. The long term plan of course is to work with somebody so that they develop into a leader in the kitchen, in terms of systems, but also in terms of cuisine. It could take months, but we’re not going to settle until we find that person. And it could be somebody from within—that’s my preferred route. Every restaurant has systems. Every business has systems. Ours is quite comprehensive. It gives me a lot of confidence that this is a system that could be taught and once someone’s been taught, then they can depend on it and it will give them confidence. It will allow them to work efficiently and creatively and professionally.

How does it feel to be back in the hands-on, day-to-day Executive Chef role?

I hadn’t expected to do that. But the bright side of that is that I can still do it, and I actually am sort of delighted by the compelling intensity of it, how everything else sort of falls away because I don’t have brain room for anything else. The first day I walked in, I faced a totally chaotic walk-in [refrigerator]; it was topsy-turvy. We had a disorganized kitchen, and in two and a half weeks there’s order, process, we didn’t run out of anything. I just got off the phone with the general manager, we talked through the ordering. We have a private party tomorrow. I’m confident everything will run smoothly. There’s a really committed and wonderful team in the kitchen. Some of them I hired within the last two weeks. Some have been with us for a while.

Being in the restaurant, I’m enormously grateful for having found a place 40 years ago, where I could work incredibly hard physically, which is for some of us a really important thing to be able to do day to day—to move around and not sit still. To have been able to marry physical work with creative work, with the intellectual work of being an owner and chef of a restaurant of like Rialto and interacting with all of that collection of community, both in terms of my staff and my customers. To have been able to follow or explore different culinary paths—in my head, but also physically traveling around the world.

There has to be an end in sight for me. So I have high expectations for everybody who’s working with me in the kitchen and those expectations are articulated and they’re very clear. So everybody knows, and everybody’s working toward the same goal. The people that are with me are people who believe in what we’re doing. I know right now that staffing in restaurants is really problematic. We have a group of people who, knock on wood, are awesome and we are able to continue to hire as we need to.

The need to increase wages must be incredibly challenging in an industry where the margins are so notoriously tight.

Oh, sure. It’s meant that as owners there have been periods of time when we haven’t paid ourselves. Our profit margin is smaller than it was, and we need to be more efficient with our other costs. Asking “Can we produce the same volume of business with fewer people in the kitchen, so we can provide higher wages for those who are there?” That’s what we’ve done. If we doubled prices, then things would be different. And in some cases we should be doubling our prices, when you consider the cost of food. It’s not just wages that have gone up, but the cost of purchasing food has gone up significantly.

You’re a founding member of Mass Restaurants United. What is the group working on now?

We have become a real organization with 501(c)(6) and (c)(3) status. We are in the process of sort of regrouping after the initial crisis of COVID and we’ve sent out a letter of invitation for people to apply to be board members. We are working hard right now, but it isn’t quite as public. What we’re working on is building a board that will work for independent Massachusetts restaurants and restaurant professionals to have a voice at the table with elected officials. We were really successful with caps on delivery fees or temporary caps on delivery fees, cocktails to go and the patio extensions. We were extremely active in ensuring that all members of the Massachusetts delegation co-sponsored the Restaurants Act, and then the Restaurant Revitalization Fund and we will continue to work on those things, advocating for restaurants. Nancy Caswell is our acting Executive Director. Nancy’s incredible drive and hard work has gotten us to where we are. You will see the next phase probably after the new year.

There’s been a lot of speculation about what’s causing the labor shortage: demand for better working conditions; immigration policy; fear of disease. Why do you think it’s been so hard to hire and retain staff? 

Oh, all of that. I don’t have any secret insight into it. Early on it was health, safety concerns, fear of COVID. People left the industry, deciding that if they were going to work this hard, maybe they could work from home. Restaurant workers were at such high risk because you can’t work from home in restaurants. You cannot cook hamburgers in your pajamas in front of your computer. You have to go to a kitchen to do that. Childcare, too, is a big issue for people.

My partners, Eric and Jon and I, and Elissa Rae at Porto have enormous appreciation and respect for the people who worked with us at the Salonikis and Porto through the pandemic, their willingness to be flexible in terms of job descriptions. We had servers who were painting and cooks who were scrubbing kitchens. During the last year, our teams wanted to work and we had work for them to do. And it really felt like everybody was part of something bigger than themselves. So mutual respect is huge, recognizing that the people that are working for you are where your value is, increasing wages, for sure.

One person I’ve worked with for many years at Saloniki: He’s now a cook. I know how interested he is to learn—he’s from El Salvador. I have another cook who’s Mexican; these are not people who grew up in the Mediterranean yet they are really curious about the food; they want to learn. And they’re excited to be a part of what we’re doing—and shit, it’s a great place to be every day. So can I do it forever? Probably not, because I’m almost 65 years old. But I can do it for a couple of months.

I’ve got to get in there while you’re in the kitchen.

The food is really good. Greek-inspired, Mediterranean and just really yummy.

At the end of the day, there’s enormous satisfaction in just working with a team to put a beautiful plate together that’s served to a customer that walks through the door. I’m doing that now—if necessary, peeling garlic, making a sauce, breaking down a fish, doing whatever needs to be done in the kitchen and teaching, teaching, teaching, teaching, teaching relentlessly so that they don’t need me.

TRADE
540 Atlantic Avenue
Boston, MA 02210

Tuesday through Saturday
Bar: 3pm
Dining: 4pm

This story appeared as an Online Exclusive in November 2021.