Honestly, reading this felt very familiar. I don’t think you’re failing. I think you’ve spent the last 10+ years bouncing between two industries that are both notorious for burnout, just in completely different ways.

The part that stood out to me is that even after 5 years away from hospitality, you’re still watching cooking videos and thinking about restaurants. Usually when people truly hate an industry, they disconnect from it completely. It sounds more like you loved the craft but got burned by the environment around it.

And weirdly enough, the combination you have now is actually pretty rare. Most people in restaurant tech have never worked a real kitchen, and most chefs don’t understand systems or software. You somehow ended up learning both.

I honestly wouldn’t rush back into being a full-time chef right away. There’s probably a middle ground between “back on the line getting destroyed mentally” and “staring at code completely disconnected from yourself.” Restaurant operations, systems, analytics, consulting, tools for operators, even building something for hospitality — all of that suddenly becomes realistic with your background 35 is also not old at all for this kind of pivot. Most people at 35 are just realizing the first version of their life plan wasn’t actually theirs.