The Brigade System: a conversation w/ Telly Justice & Mike Sheats

Telly Justice and Mike Sheats worked together at Five & Ten in Athens Ga., where Justice worked her way up to chef de cuisine and Sheats was an AM chef. Once they started their own projects, the chefs knew that the strict brigade system, codified by Georges-Auguste Escoffier more than a hundred years ago, wouldn’t be the right fit for their businesses. “In the kitchens that Mike and I came up in, there was not much room for challenging anything,” said Justice. For both Justice and Sheats, the rigidity of the structure left no room for mistakes and little room for being themselves. 

Telly is now chef/co-owner of HAGS, a small tasting menu restaurant in New York City “by Queer people for all people,” and Mike, with his wife Shyretha, runs The Plate Sale, a pop-up inspired by community events like plate sales, barbecues, and fish fries in his hometown of Athens. 

This conversation was recorded as a chef-to-chef conversation for the Plate Magazine print edition. You can read an edited version of this conversation in their magazine here. But a less edited version of the conversation is here. 

Guests: 

Telly Justice

HAGS  | HAGS Instagram

Press: 

• When ‘Sir’ and ‘Ma’am’ Miss the Mark: Restaurants Rethink Gender’s Role in Service
• HAGS Will Be Queer First, and a Restaurant Second
• A First Look at HAGS, New York’s Revolutionary New Queer Fine Dining

Mike Sheats

The Plate Sale  |  The Crowdfunding Campaign  |  Instagram  |  Email 

Press: 

• Honoring the History of the Plate Sale
• An inside look at The Plate Sale
• Meet Shyretha and Michael Sheats: Founders of The Plate Sale

Resources:

• Understanding Anti-Intellectualism in the U.S. by Studio ATAO
• Anti-Intellectualism int he Restaurant Industry: Why an equitable future requires overhauling the brigade system
• An Investigation in Culinary Life and Professional Identity in Practice during Internship 
• Escoffier Kitchen Brigade System Then and Now
• “OUI, CHEF!” A Sociohistorical Analysis of Organizational Culture in the American Fine Dining Kitchen Brigade and its Effects on Health from 1903 to 2019
• Why is anti-intellectualism so popular in kitchens?