Catering to a Captive Clientele : Ex-Chefs Keep Tulsa Inmates Well Fed

Once they catered to the affluent, the well-dressed, the important.

Today they cater to the thieves, the rapists, the con artists.

George Grigsby and Barry Parker have traded the uncertainty of candle-lit dinners with crystal goblets for the stability of iron bars and plastic forks.

Grigsby is food services supervisor of the Tulsa City County Jail system. Parker, one of three full-time civilian cooks, supervises the Tulsa County Jail kitchen.

It is a working environment unlike any in their past, but each insists that standards and “customer” satisfaction are as good as those of some restaurants where they have worked--perhaps better.

A Career in Food

Grigsby, 62, is a career food man. He has owned restaurants from coast to coast and worked at the Tropicana in Las Vegas, Brennan’s in New Orleans, the Sans Souci Hotel in Miami. He was executive chef at the Hilton Inn in Tulsa when he quit to join the county.

Parker, 35, started at 14 in a Mexican restaurant in New Orleans. His resume 21 years later reads like a guide to five-star dining. He has hung his chef’s hat in many fine Tulsa restaurants. Now, he is in a setting where the customer may not always be right, but will always be back.

Grigsby and Parker say they joined the drab world of corrections for the same reason: security.

“There are no benefits in a restaurant,” Grigsby said. “Here, they do offer all the benefits. I took a pay cut when I came here, but in the six years I’ve been here I’ve gained by having the benefits.”

Likes the Challenges

Parker, married with two children, added: “It came as a response to a need. I needed a change. I wanted a steady income and a place where I could work that would challenge me personally, as well as allow me to contribute.

“This does--every day, every minute. I’ve got to be thinking all the time about what’s going on.”

What’s going on is about 1,650 meals a day produced in Grigsby’s three kitchens--at the Tulsa County Jail, the Tulsa City Jail and the Adult Detention Center.

The menus reflect nothing of the popular--but false--perception of jail food. A sampling of Grigsby’s found these selections:

Dinner: Veal Parmesan, spaghetti, buttered carrots, chicken fried steak, mashed potatoes and gravy, baked fish, buttered new potatoes, Salisbury steak.

“They eat pretty well around here,” Parker said.

And they eat economically. The average daily cost of a prisoner’s food is $1.63. Many of the ingredients are inexpensive and the jails save by buying in bulk.

Best-Fed Prisoners

“We feed better than any institution statewide,” Grigsby said, “and we’ve been told by federal inmates that we feed better than the federal penitentiaries.”

Grigsby plans the menus, and local and state dietitians check them. “The last dietitian who came in had nothing to say about the menu,” Grigsby said. “The menu was fine--except she said we were feeding (prisoners) too much.”

That will not change. “Once you start something, you can’t cut back,” Grigsby said. “If you do that, you might create a minor riot. You get these people unhappy over their food and they start throwing it at you.

As Parker said of the food: “It’s kind of the one pleasure a person can have here.”

There have been no complaints for more than a year, and there have been compliments. Grigsby said it is not uncommon to receive a note of appreciation.

Peanut Butter and Jelly

There is, however, no accounting for tastes. After one recent lunch menu offered a peanut butter-and-jelly sandwich, “then everybody wanted them served three or four times a week,” Grigsby said.

Grigsby has a staff of about 35 inmates working in his kitchens. Most of the primary cooks and bakers are products of the state prison system referred by the Department of Corrections community service work programs.