At the heart of every restaurant is its hardworking employees. Bon Appétit goes behind the scenes at Caesar’s Bacchanal Buffet in Las Vegas to meet every worker responsible for running the city’s largest buffet. With a menu of 240 dishes and serving 4000 guests each day–meet the faces behind the many meals.
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LifestyleTranscript
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00:26I'm Chef Tournat here at Bacchanal Buffet.
00:28I am the person responsible for opening this buffet.
00:30So I'm here at 5 a.m. and I do exactly that, open the buffet.
00:34Chef Tournat is pretty much you're working on the cooks side by side.
00:38We're creating menus over here, taking care of all the stations,
00:41make sure everything looks good.
00:43We make the schedules over here.
00:45I take care of VIPs when they come in.
00:47We have high rollers that come through here all the time.
00:49They have their specific preferences and things they like to have.
00:52Sometimes I'll do a custom dish for them.
00:54We're in the back kitchen.
00:55This is kind of the heart of the house back here.
00:57Where the large production items take place.
00:59We do a lot of finishing here and then it moves out to the front lines
01:02where they do the final preparations on all the products out there.
01:04Large mussel roasts, the Chinese barbecue items,
01:07chow soup pork, Peking duck.
01:09All those kinds of things are all done in the satellite.
01:11We have the hot boxes that travel down across the hotel and bring them here.
01:14And then we put the final touches on it.
01:15And then it moves out to the front line where it gets the final touch
01:18and presented to our guests.
01:19It's a labyrinth.
01:20My name is Jorge Vasquez.
01:29My title is Master Cook.
01:31Master Cook is a cook who can start one recipe from scratch to the end.
01:37Like this.
01:38Like the birria.
01:39This is the main kitchen for the buffet.
01:40Downstairs in the buffet, they got no space to cook these big recipes.
01:43Here we cook like 80-90% of the production for bacchanal.
01:47Right now we're cooking 490 pounds of birria.
01:49We cook this three times a week.
01:50Basically it's like three or four items you can do it for cheap.
01:53One person.
01:55Everything gets made up here and sent down to the buffet.
01:58We normally do everything early in the morning so a lot of us get here,
02:01like I get here at four in the morning.
02:02The rest of them get here at five.
02:04So I start all the prime ribs.
02:05Normally we start off with 14 prime ribs.
02:07We normally start off with about 20 to 30 briskets.
02:10Brisket takes 14 hours.
02:12So we'll start the brisket at night and it's ready by the time I get here in the morning time.
02:17My name is Liang Shan.
02:19This is a traditional Chinese dish.
02:22It's char siu.
02:25We marinate the meat after it's been defrosted.
02:28After it's been marinated, we put it in the oven and grill it.
02:31We have barbecue, char siu, roast pork belly, roast duck, and roast pork ribs.
02:38Because the workers here are very diligent.
02:42Basically I heat all the food that goes down there.
02:45On this side, I've got porchetta cooking.
02:50On this side, we've got a whole pig cooking over here.
02:54We send all of these to the carving station, put them in the cars,
02:57send them down there to the runner.
02:59My name is Alvaro.
03:00I'm a kitchen runner for the Backyard Buffet.
03:02What you've got me doing is taking seafood down from Octavia's kitchen all the way down to the buffet.
03:16The hot box has basically all of our hot food.
03:19It gets prepared up here in Octavia's kitchen,
03:21and we use it to transport food and keep it warm to get down to the buffet.
03:27It's like a 20-minute walk.
03:29The hot box is heavy.
03:30It's easier and more efficient to bring the cart down and just take everything up like that.
03:46I'm Coraly Cabello.
03:48I'm a supervisor from the store department.
03:50Our responsibility is to clean all the plates, silverware, glasses,
03:56and make sure the chef has all the equipment cleaned for the guests.
04:01I have 45 people working right now in the back.
04:04Every person has a different role inside,
04:06and I have the people breaking down all the stuff coming from the back.
04:11Hello, my name is Yanara, and I'm a kitchen worker.
04:14My job consists of everything that has to do with the kitchen.
04:18That is, cleaning the plates, glasses, silverware,
04:23and everything that is used to take everything to the buffet.
04:41What is unique is that we try as much as possible to do small portions.
04:46That's the creation of the chef, rather than having a big family-style dish.
04:50On a day-to-day basis, for brunch, we do about anywhere from 1,000 to 1,200 covers.
04:55For evenings, we do a little bit more than that.
04:57We do anywhere from 1,200 to 1,500 guests.
04:59Front of the house is about 200 employees.
05:02Back of the house, another 200, and then another 100 from all the other departments
05:06It takes a lot of effort for this operation to come about.
05:09Chef de la Cuisine here is the number two in the kitchen.
05:12I know everything here. I know all the garnishes.
05:15I know all the recipes. Basically, you have to know everything.
05:18We have books with pictures in it, other pictures that we post on the wall.
05:22It's just a matter of getting everybody trained and doing the same thing that we're supposed to be doing.
05:26Recipe development, trendy items.
05:29We're always innovative and trying to find new things.
05:32So it's pretty amazing with the amount of food that we have to offer.
05:35And that's why our team is so big.
05:37We have 10 chefs, over 150 cooks.
05:40The volume of food that we handle is just absolutely amazing.
05:43Sometimes it's mind-boggling.
05:45Each of us occasionally look at each other and say,
05:47Do you realize what we do every single day? It's amazing.
05:50My name is Julio Castillo, and I'm the executive chef here at Bacchanal Buffet.
05:53Think about an orchestra, right?
05:55You've got the orchestra, you've got the band, you've got the musicians.
05:59Think about an orchestra, right?
06:01You've got the orchestrator that's actually keeping the music going at the same rhythm.
06:05Over here, we've got 10 different kitchens going at the same time.
06:08We're currently at the Seafood Station.
06:10Then you have the American Station, Latin Station, the Mezze Station,
06:14your Korean and Filipino Station, your Chinese Station, and your Sushi Station.
06:20And let's not forget about the Dessert Station.
06:22That's an island of its own on the middle of the buffet.
06:25The ones that are actually making the magic happen are the cooks that we have here.
06:29My name is Marvin, and I'm the taco guy.
06:32Similar to a Mongolian grill, but we use it as a taco maker here.
06:37I'm working at the Pizza Station right now.
06:39I'm a Swiss Army now, so they throw me around. I love it.
06:41You are here right now at the American Station.
06:44I have here lamb T-bone and the bone marrow.
06:48Most of the time, I just do grill, lamb, sliders.
06:51And we're actually burning old wood.
06:53What are those woods?
06:54I make sliders and the noodle birria soup.
06:58My name is Roger. I'm a cook at Buccanaw Buffet.
07:01Today, right now, I'm in the Omelet Station.
07:04We float. We can get around. I can go to the Mexican Station.
07:07I go to the American Station, the Dessert Station. We're kind of cross-trained.
07:24So my station is carving. The most popular was the prairie.
07:28There's many people that come in a lot just for all those meats over here.
07:31Right now, that one is the Mediterranean. That one I make it for the salmon.
07:36So right now, I got some hot crab legs that I've been cooking here.
07:39As you can see, all the crab legs that we have here.
07:41Look, it's very hot. I've lost count how many pounds.
07:44My name is Shirley Francis. My job title is pantry.
07:48I have been working at Caesar's for 45 years.
07:51My favorite part of this job, I've been here for a long time.
08:03My name is Ariel Lopez. I'm one of the bartenders here at Caesar's Palace.
08:06There's only one bartender at a time during our shifts.
08:08We do get very busy. We do make a lot of drinks.
08:11Anytime you order a drink at the bar, you don't see me, but I am the one in the back making your drink.
08:16People do tend to forget about us, and they don't know where the drinks come from.
08:19I do like that I get to hide a little bit and don't get nervous when people are looking at me making my drinks.
08:37I'm Gabriela Soto. I'm a line runner here.
08:40I just keep the line clean in order to make it all look pretty.
08:43And yeah, any mess you make, I got you. I'll be there.
08:46So we're actually the only purple uniform in the whole casino, so we can stand out and see.
08:52If you have any questions about the line, who it is, we're actually pretty knowledgeable.
08:57If the chefs aren't available, we can here help you out.
09:00We assist the guests. We clean the line.
09:03I've worked since they opened the buffet, but I've worked here 20-something years.
09:09At each station, usually we have like 12 tables.
09:13It's okay for us. We can take care of that.
09:15Next month, I'm going to be 24 years working on this place.
09:19My responsibility is to clean the tables so that the guests can be seated as soon as possible.
09:26Oh my goodness, yes. We go through a lot of plates at the buffet like this.
09:30It can be loads and loads throughout the buffet.
09:33It can be hard to keep up. I just say keep moving because I'm not done yet.
09:36My mom works here, and she told me about the job opportunity, and I applied.
09:40My brother here, he's a server. It's cool.
09:42We get to spend more time together. We see each other at work.
09:45Yes, I have two of my kids. Both of them work here.
09:49Well, every time I see them, I get excited.
09:51It's a lot of fun.
09:52It's a lot of fun.
09:53It's a lot of fun.
09:54It's a lot of fun.
09:55It's a lot of fun.
09:56It's a lot of fun.
09:57It's a lot of fun.
09:58It's a lot of fun.
09:59It's a lot of fun.
10:00It's a lot of fun.
10:01Well, every time I see him, I get excited.
10:03And Daniel says, you know, Mom, come on. You act like you've never seen me before.
10:07You know, every time I see him, it's just my heart melts every time.
10:10I've been working here with this company 24 years.
10:13Today, I'm here on the podium greeting people and giving to another hostess to seating people.
10:20We serve like 4,000 people a day, and I work like full-time every single day.
10:27We have about 60 to 70 employees that we have to assist.
10:31When you do something that you like, you're going to enjoy doing it.
10:34So it's not hard to do that.
10:47We're inside the pastry.
10:48We have one of my favorites, cheesecake, which we prepare every day.
10:53Everything is prepared daily.
10:55I must stock them up, keep them nice and full.
10:57And right now, Jacardo's sending me stacking up the shelves and making sure everything is right.
11:02I'm not a pastry cook, but I can be.
11:04I'm good at my job.
11:05I do everything.
11:06Today, I'm here in pastries, and tomorrow, I'll be cutting steaks and whatever else.
11:12My name is Robert Ortiz.
11:13I'm the breaker in the dessert station today.
11:16What I do is everybody's got to take a break today.
11:18So eventually, I'm going to break someone here, then I'm going to break someone there, and so on,
11:22until everybody gets a break, and then I go on break.
11:24It can be challenging because I'm not on that station all day.
11:27People do leave me in a jam sometimes, but we're not going to go quite there yet.
11:31We're all professionals here, and we have each other's back, whether they do or not.
11:35My name is Wadero Glover.
11:37I'm the last stop.
11:38I have three flavors, which are cheesecake, cappuccino, and we also have pistachio as well.
11:55You know y'all made my day.
11:58My mama ain't going to believe this.