When I showed up at the Birchwood kitchen door the other day to photograph Zach – April’s BWood employee of the month – he told me that he hadn’t taken everyone’s advice to shave and get all groomed. Personally, I think that doing so would have violated some kind of kitchen oath. Don’t get me wrong. . . kitchen people aren’t across-the-board scuzzy. It’s more that when you work behind the scenes, one of the benefits is that you don’t have to get yourself all nice and presentable every day the way you do when you work the front of the house. And any job is all about the perks.

Birchwood All Star Zach, wrist-deep in goodness

The other cool thing about Zach is that I’m pretty sure he wasn’t on a shift when we hung out, but he got a bunch of stuff done. And he was good about sharing his ’sweet’ knives with the counter staff.

I call this one, 'I dare you to make a move for that sandwich.'

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