Monday, October 5, 2009

Wick's+Mental Retardation= Fantastical Times!

http://www.wickspizza.com/
The enclosed site is one many Louisville natives have seen, it is for Wick's Pizza Parlor and Pub. What you will find here is a restaurant decked out in purple and teal. Your server (and any other employee you may come in contact with) is wearing tye-dye and jeans. It's a very laid back, groovy kind of place. That is how it feels to be a customer.

Seeing as for most the time I lived in Louisville, I wasn't just a customer, I was also an employee. I was a kitchen rat who Brian, General Manager, trusted the kitchen with. When I first started we were a fully staffed functional restaurant. You had Brian as G.M., there was Nicholas (or as I referred to him Sir Nicholas De Mimsy Porpinton [Harry Potter referance]) as A.G.M., Jewels as the K.M. and D'Wayne and Tyler as Bar Managers. Within the first six months we lost Jewels, that's alright we can still function. Then we lost some employees, not that big of a deal either, turnovers in restarants are high anyways. But we gained this awesome employee named Benjamin. He's off kilter but we instantly became good friends, his reasons were more for personal pleasure but after a while that wore off. I've made 2 guys quit another couple hate me and quite a few friends. By the time Patrick started pulling double duty at his store and mine, we had a great night crew. There was Benjamin, Adam, Simon, Phil, and I hate to admit it but Derek. Eventually Derek 'left' and Patrick filled his space. We still had a great working crew, and that was only the group that worked well on a Friday/Saturday night!

Adam ran ovens, Derek rolled the dough, Simon and Phil topped, I was Sandwich catch and Ben cut the pizzas. We were kick ass.

There are so many things I could tell you about that has gone on in that kitchen, yet so little space, so I will pick out the few best moments.





The first picture is Phil (from here on out I will refer to this man as DntFeedPhil) and the second is Benjamin. I show these pictures so you get the idea of the size of these guys. They are both very tall (as opposed to my 5'4") and they both have a little more to love. I love these guys!
Now, on my 20th birthday I had to work, and I really didn't care that I did but these two and Tyler made it worth while. Benjamin and DntFeedPhil gave me the 'Big Man' hug sandwich, and Tyler ran out to Kroger for a cake and and a balloon. It really wasn't much but it was perfect.

Great times, Great times.

Wick's rolls their own dough, its not pre-made at all. Well, one Sunday night, the kitchen was empty except for me (they were all out front), and we ran out of paper in our printer. So, I decided to change it but in the process I hit the front of the dough roller, which made it tilt forward. Well normally you just tap it back and it'll settle itself, not this time. It fell to the floor catching my arm at the same time and crumpled the entire top of it up. All I could think was, "Oh, shit! Brian is going to kill me." The look on my face was most likely priceless. I finally realized I was bleeding, so as I ran to the back sink, I yelled for Beth (who was the on duty G.M. that night) and she came running back. All I could here as she insisted I go to the hospital was laughing, the boys were laughing. I did not end up going to the hospital that night but Beth did call Brian and told him what happened. Goosecreek just happened to have another dough roller on hand so a couple of the boys went and got it. Brian told Beth that I was to top for the rest of the night as punishment (I hated topping) but Patrick didn't think it was punishment enough and purposely every couple of pies hit me with the hand roller. I walked into work the next day bruised from finger to shoulder blade and collerbone, and now I will let you laugh a minute. ok, done now unto the next story.

The first morning I met Patrick. It was a Sunday at 10 am, I am not a morning person and when I am up earlier than I should be I get loopy. I had to mix and portion dough that morning because the manager that was filling in was not a very good manager. So, 10 am I walked in the back door still in my p.j.s, clocked in and through all of the ingredients in the mixer. After I turned it on I gave a sleepy look around to see who was working that morning. There was Simon and Adam setting up the line, Jesse (the 'manager') filling up his drink for the 3 time that morning, and this guy that I had no idea who he was, using the slicer. I checked the schedule, he wasnt on it, so I did what comes naturally to me and tried to strike up a conversation by saying 'while my dough is mixing you wanna have a cigarette with me?'. I got a mumbled 'not right now' (eventually he did go out and smoke with me). While Simon and Adam helped me portion out the first 2 batches, Simon realized this guy was slicing by hand on an automatic slicer, he had already finished the ham and cheese and only had turkey left to do. Simon turned to him and said 'Dude, it's an automatic slicer' and then proceeded to show him how to work it. The third and last batch I had to do, this guy (Patrick, If you haven't figured it out yet), helped me roll them, but we could not count. I was loopy still and he was either half drunk or hungover (to this day we are still not sure).

One more and then I've got to go. I will write another one about Wick's soon.

I was not there for this incident but I heard all about it. Adam was working ovens like usual and I guess Derek was being his usual inside of work self aka an asshole and sais something to Adam about a missing pizza. Well, Adam turned and yanked open the first oven and then slammed it shut and said 'not here'. Then continued with the other three, in this amusing fashion. Now what is so awesome about this one is that Derek and I were usually the ones who went at it and that Adam is not easily irritated. When I heard this story I just looked up at Ben and Patrick with a look of amazement and laughed. There was really nothing elseI could do.

Alright so I am out for the night! More Wick's fun-ness to come soon!
Later.

4 comments:

  1. Love the story, but unfortunately all I can think about is authentic, awesome pizza now.

    Mmmmmmmmmmmm, pizza.


    ~Jenn (Ex Hot Girl)

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  2. Hey, I had pizza for lunch!

    I love stories like that. It seems that most minimum wage paying jobs are 'funner'. I work in retail and we have a lot of good laughs. Laughter is the best medicine :)

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  3. I'm a Louisville girl, and love me some Wicks. I frequented the Goose Creek and Middletown locations in my earlier twenties... ahh, memories!

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  4. I woeked at the Middletown store and the boyfriend works at the Goosecreek store, so it's part of our lives, and the food is amazing!

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