Stress is sometimes a prominent ingredient when it comes to work in restaurants. The Anti-Stigma Coalition of Western New York is now working with local eateries to help offer mental health resources after the restaurant industry took massive blows before and through the pandemic. 

"My first days in the kitchen were spent with my mother, who we all know and love as Nanny, a young boy making sauce and meatballs back in the day," said Osteria 166 owner Nick Pitillo, who is well-versed from cooking to running several successful restaurants. "I learned a great deal about the restaurant business in the Olive Garden, specifically the logistics and understanding the pressure."

"It's stressful," he said. "And this is not a business for the faint of heart. However, it's also very rewarding."

That's where what you might have seen depicted comes in: movies and television certainly show the drama of it all, but it's fairly accurate in some cases.

"I think 'The Bear' was probably in the finest rendition I've seen of really being actually what goes on in the kitchen," Pitillo noted. "Right down to the plastic quart containers that they drink their sodas out of, which can't have glass on the line because you smash a glass on the line, it ruins the entire service."

The key to a good restaurant is being able to function so the customer doesn't see you sweat, but that means the only thing fueling those beads should be the stove.

"The Anti-Stigma Coalition from Western New York has really been a big help in putting that together," he added. "So, you know, the dialogue started then and then it became obviously more imperative that we needed to address it as an industry moving forward."

Mental health is a major priority these days. Pitillo and fellow restaurant owners have been everywhere from front of house to back on the line and have been putting together resources.

"The reality is, there is still a stigma and we're working to eliminate it, but people are afraid to say they want help or they want to talk to somebody or they need help. This is not just the restaurant industry, this is society in 2024. And it's a scary place to be," he said.

"It's like having a bad chicken wing in Buffalo. No. Don't do it. You're going to have lousy chicken wings. Don't do it. If you're gonna have a lousy bolognese, don't bother," he added. 

The biggest priority he has is the standard of life for his staff.

"[It] really becomes composure and working together as a team, really, to keep everybody together. That's probably the biggest challenge that we have in this industry," said Pitillo. "It's a microcosm of life, right? You've got to deal with things and you've got to depend on others to be successful."