3 min read
The Cigarette and the Line Cook: Why the Kitchen Is the Last Smoking Section
The restaurant kitchen is one of the last workplaces where smoking culture persists. The stress, the hours, and the tradition of the 'family meal' cigarette break sustain nicotine use among cooks. The kitchen is a refuge—and a trap.
The line cook steps out the back door of the kitchen, lights a cigarette, and for five minutes is not being yelled at about table six's salmon. **The kitchen cigarette is a break—one of the few breaks available in a profession that doesn't provide formal ones. The cigarette is a coping mechanism for the specific conditions of kitchen labor: the heat, the pressure, the hierarchy, the physical exhaustion. It's also killing the cooks who rely on it.**
