Every Job at the Largest Buffet in Las Vegas

[light atmospheric music]

[moves to upbeat music]

[music winds down]

I am chef tournant here at Bacchanal Buffet.

I am the person responsible for opening this buffet,

so I'm here at 5:00 AM and I do exactly that,

open the buffet.

Chef tournant is pretty much you're working

on the cooks side by side.

We're creating menus over here,

taking care of all the stations,

make sure everything looks good.

We make the schedules over here.

I take care of VIPs when they come in.

We have high rollers that come through here all the time.

They have their specific preferences

and things they like to have.

Sometimes I'll do a custom dish for them.

We're in the back kitchen.

This is kind of the heart of the house back here.

This is where large production items take place.

We do a lot of finishing here

and then it moves out to the front lines

where they do the final preparations

on all the products out there.

Large mussel rows, the Chinese barbecue items,

char siu pork, Peking duck.

Those kinds of things are all done in the satellite.

We have the hot boxes that travel down

across the hotel and bring them here,

and then we put the final touches on it

and then it moves out to the front line

where it gets the final touch and presented to our guests.

It's a labyrinth.

[laid-back music]

My name is Jorge Vazquez, my title a master cook.

Master cook is a cook who can start one recipe

from scratch to the end like this, like the birria.

This is the main kitchen for the buffet.

Downstairs in the buffet,

they got no space to cook these big recipes.

Here, we cook like 80, 90% of the production for Bacchanal.

Right now we cooking 490 pounds of birria.

We cook this three times a week.

Basically it's like three or four items

you can do it for cheap, one person.

Everything gets made up here and sent down to the buffet.

We normally do everything early in the morning,

so a lot of us get here, like I get here

at four in the morning, the rest of 'em get here at five.

So I start all the prime ribs.

Normally we start off with 14 prime ribs.

We normally start off with about 20 to 30 briskets.

Brisket takes 14 hours, so we'll start the brisket

at night and it's ready by the time

I get here in the morning time,

[speaks in foreign language]

[speaks in foreign language]

[speaks in foreign language]

Basically I heat all the food that goes down there.

I go from this side.

I got porchettas cooking.

On this side, we got a whole pig cooking over here.

And we send all of these to the carving station,

put 'em in the cars, send them down there to the runner.

My name is Alvaro,

I'm a kitchen runner for Bacchanal Buffet.

What you got me doing is taking seafood down

from Octavius kitchen all the way down to the buffet.

[laid-back music]

Hot box has basically all of our hot food.

It gets prepared up here in the Octavius kitchen

and we use it to transport food

and keep it warm to get down to the buffet.

It's like a 20 minute walk.

The hot box, it's heavy.

It's just easier, more efficient to bring the cart down

and just take everything up like that.

[laid-back music continues]

[plates clattering]

[indistinct chattering]

I am Coralys Cabello, I'm a supervisor

from the steward department.

We responsibilities is clean all the plates, silverware,

glasses and make sure the chefs

have all the equipment clean for the guests.

I have 45 people working right now in the back.

Every person have a different role inside

and I have the people breaking down

all the stuff coming from the Bacchanal.

[plates clattering]

[speaks in foreign language]

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[soft laid-back music]

What is unique is that we try

as much as possible to do small portions.

That's the creation of the chef,

rather than having a big family-style dish.

On a day-to-day basis for brunch,

we do about anywhere from 1,000 to 1,200 covers.

For evenings, we do a little bit more than that.

We do anywhere from 1,200 to 1,500 guests.

Front of the house is about 200 employees,

back of the house, another 200, and then another 100

from all the other departments that help us.

It takes a lot of effort for this operation to come about.

Chef de cuisine here is the number two in the kitchen.

I know everything here.

I know all the garnishes, I know all the recipes.

Basically you have to know everything.

We have books with pictures in it,

other pictures that we post on the walls.

It's just a matter of getting everybody trained

and doing the same thing that we're supposed to be doing.

Recipe development, trendy items.

We're always innovative and trying

to find new and exciting things.

So it's pretty amazing with the amount of food

that we have to offer, and that's why our team is so big.

We have 10 chefs, over 150 cooks.

The volume of food that we handle

is just absolutely amazing.

Sometimes it's mind-boggling.

Each of us occasionally look at each other and say,

Do you realize what we do every single day?

It's amazing.

My name is Julio Castillo

and I'm the Executive Chef here at Bacchanal Buffet.

Think about an orchestra, right?

You got the orchestrator that's actually

keeping the music going at the same rhythm.

Over here we got 10 different kitchens

going at the same time.

We're currently at the seafood station.

Then you have the American station,

Latin station, the metze station,

your Korean and Filipino station,

your Chinese station, and your sushi station,

and let's not forget about the dessert station

that's an island on its own on the middle of the buffet.

The ones that are actually making the magic happen

is the cooks that we have here, you know?

My name is Marvin and I'm the taco guy,

the birria taco guy.

Similar to a Mongolian grill,

but we use it as a taco maker here.

Well, I'm working pizza station right now.

I'm a Swiss army knife so they throw me around, I love it.

[Victor] You are here right now with American stations.

I have here lamb T-bone and the bone marrow.

Most of the time I just do grill,

lamb, sliders and we're actually burning oak wood.

One of the best woods.

[Sandra] I make slider and [indistinct] birria soup.

My name is Roger. I'm a cook at Bacchanal Buffet.

Today, right now, I'm in the omelet station.

We float, we can get around.

I can go to the Mexican station,

I go to the American station, the dessert station.

We're kind of cross-trained.

[Marta speaks in foreign language]

[Marta speaks in foreign language]

So my station is carving

The most popular was the prairie rib.

Very busy people that come

and they'll ask just for all meats over here.

[Araceli] Right now, that one is the Mediterranean.

That one I'm making for the salmon.

So right now I got some hot crab legs

that I've been cooking here.

As you can see all the crab legs

that we have here, look, it's very hot.

I've lost count how many pounds.

My name is Shirley Funchess.

My job title is pantry.

I have been working at Caesars for 45 years.

My favorite part of this job,

I've been here for a long time.

[light atmospheric music]

My name is Ariel Lopez.

I'm one of the bartenders here at Caesars Palace.

There's only one bartender at a time during our shifts.

We do get very busy, we do make a lot of drinks.

Anytime you order a drink at the bar, you don't see me,

but I am the one in the back making your drink.

People do tend to forget about us

and they don't know where the drinks come from,

but I do like that I get to hide a little bit

and don't get nervous when people are looking

at me making my drinks.

[light atmospheric music continues]

I am Gabriela Soto, I'm a line runner here

and I just keep the line clean, in order,

make it all look pretty.

And yeah, any mess you make, I got you, I'll be there.

So we're actually the only purple uniform

in the whole like, casino, so we can stand out.

See, if you have any questions about like the line,

what like, food it is, we're actually pretty knowledgeable.

If like, the chefs aren't available,

we can here help you out.

We assist the guests, we clean the line.

I worked since they opened the buffet,

but I've worked here 20-something years.

[pensive music]

We have each station, usually we have like, 12 tables.

It's okay for us, we can take care of that.

Next month, I'm gonna be 24 years working on this place.

My responsibilities is to clean the tables

so that the guests can be seated as soon as possible.

Oh my goodness, yes.

We go through a lot of plates with a buffet like this.

It can be loads and loads throughout the night.

Some people just take a bite and then put it aside

and we go 20 plates for just one person because of that.

It can be hard to keep up.

I just say keep moving 'cause I'm not done yet.

My mom works here and she told me

about the job opportunity and I applied.

My brother here, he's a server.

It's cool, we get to spend more time together.

We see each other at work.

Yes, I have two of my kids, both of them work here.

Well, every time I see him I get excited

and Daniel say, You know, mom, come on.

You act like you've never seen me before.

You know, every time I see him,

it's just my heart melts every time.

I've been working here with this company 24 years.

Today I'm here on the podium greeting people

and giving to the another hostess to seating people.

We serve like, 4,000 people a day

and I work like, full-time every single day.

We have about 60 to 70 employees that we have to assist.

When you do something that you like,

you're gonna enjoy doing it.

So it's not hard to do that.

[light upbeat music]

We're inside the pastry.

We have one of my favorites, cheesecake,

which we prepare every day.

Everything is prepared daily.

I must stock 'em up, keep 'em nice and full,

and right now y'all caught us in me

stacking up the shelves and making sure everything is right.

I'm not a pastry cook, but I can be.

I'm good at my job, I do everything.

Today, I'm here in pastries and tomorrow

I'll be cutting steaks and whatever else.

My name is Robert Ortiz.

I'm the breaker in the dessert station today.

What I do is everybody's gotta take a break today,

so eventually I'm gonna break someone here,

then I'm gonna break someone there and so on

until everybody got a break and then I go on break it.

It can be challenging

because I'm not on that station all days.

People do leave me in a jam sometimes,

but we're not gonna go quite there yet.

We're all professionals here

and we have each other's back, whether they do or not.

My name is Wodero Glover, I'm the last stop.

I have three favorite flavors, which are cheesecake,

cappuccino, and we also have pistachio as well.

[light atmospheric music]

[moves to upbeat music]

You know y'all made my day?

My mama ain't gonna believe this.

[music fades]