At CPK, a Taste of Employees’ Lives

For California Pizza Kitchen Inc. Chief Executive Rick Rosenfield, the two hours he spent scrubbing pans and dishes in the steamy confines of one of his chain’s restaurant kitchens was enough to bring about corporate change.

Utensils at the 168-restaurant chain now are sorted before they hit the sink area, so they’re easier for dishwashers to handle without getting jabbed.

“It’s the forks that get you,” Rosenfield said.

Rosenfield and co-CEO Larry Flax recently took turns pulling dish duty, waiting tables and making pizzas for a new unscripted series premiering next month on Discovery’s the Learning Channel, called “Now Who’s Boss?” The hourlong shows thrust CEOs from various companies into entry-level service positions at their firms for a week to give them a taste of what their employees endure.

“People like to see people at the top getting kicked around at the bottom,” Flax said.

Flax’s and Rosenfield’s faulty performances, in a show to be aired March 29, are rated against minimum corporate standards and are skewered by senior waiters, hostesses and kitchen managers.

The segments were filmed at two CPK restaurants in Manhattan Beach and Hollywood because, as Flax put it, he didn’t want to “overwhelm [one location] with incompetence.”

Flax and Rosenfield worked as attorneys before starting the Los Angeles-based gourmet pizza chain in 1985.

Prior to the show, neither had waited a table before. And their inexperience shows.

In one dishwashing scene, Rosenfield stares down at a mound of mushy food debris in a trough to the side of the sink.

“Where does this go?” he asks kitchen manager Roberto Castro, before being told to scoop it out with his hands into the trash. Then after scrubbing 500 dishes during the lunch rush, Rosenfield stares through the cloudy water at skillets left to be cleaned

“Oh my God, there’s another 10 in there at least,” he moans.

Flax’s biggest struggle comes while waiting tables. His confidence breaks down when he is given four tables to wait on at once.

First, Flax forgets to ask for identification from a youngish Japanese tourist who orders a beer. Then, he gets flustered by a group of women splitting the company’s half-salads and ordering things on the side.

Halfway through inputting the orders into the computer, Flax realizes he didn’t tell several customers that the restaurant stocks Pepsi, not Coke. So he goes back to reconfirm the orders.

At CPK the typical time between when drinks are delivered and when the food order is taken is four minutes. Flax clocks out at 16.

Still, CPK trainer Pauline Yasuda rates him a C-plus or B-minus.

“He handled it well. He didn’t really have a breakdown or anything,” she said, laughing.

Flax said the show made him proud of the chain’s service and training programs. And, he said, it would be a real “morale booster” for company employees.

“I don’t know what the national audience will be” for the show, Flax said. “But everyone who works for CPK who sees it is rolling on the floor.”