Restaurants are unlikely to have a machine that easily seals cans, despite what Bears star Jeremy Allen White was told.
The final scene of the first season of The Bear, an eight-episode comedy about being a smoking dude who also inherited a defunct but much-loved restaurant from his late brother, ended with the ecstasy of the entire kitchen staff opening dozens of cans of San Merican tomatoes. The sealed jars contained wads of cling-wrapped cash totaling over $300,000, a decrepit fail-safe system created by Mikey (the owner Carmi’s late brother) to ensure the restaurant’s financial health when Carmi took over. I found it funny that when they found the money, Kami immediately closed the beloved but imperfect restaurant and renamed it to be closer to his dream restaurant.
But this conclusion leaves more questions than answers – so wait, are they still paying off the huge $300 loan that Mickey took out from his mobster uncle Cicero? How did the ketchup get on the back wall ceiling? Why do restaurants need a 1:1 ratio of can openers to kitchen staff? Beef just… closed? But what about regulars? — but no more puzzling than this one: how did brother Kami keep all the money sealed in all those jars?
In an interview with actor Jeremy Allen White (who plays Cammy), Vulture writer Roxanne Haddadi asked a question. “The scene I’ve always wondered about was, ‘How does Mikey reseal the jar?’” White’s response successfully hides the plot hole: “There’s a machine in the restaurant that does that,” he tells Hadadi. “I asked the same question.” Well, I asked my neighbor who is a chef the same question: “Do restaurants have machines to reseal open cans?” I asked. His response: “As far as I know.” Interesting.
I searched the web for an industrial can sealer and found House of Cans, a company that sells everything related to containers. “Whether it’s cans, barrels, barrels, jugs, cans, bottles or boxes – we have the complete line,” the website says. In the “Container Related Products” subcategory, House of Cans sells “Open Top Can Wrappers”. I figured – in theory – that if you could use this tool to seal a jar, it should be able to reseal the jar after you threw $300,000 into it. That’s what Mikey must have done – used his industrial canning machine from the Canning House to reseal the San Merican tomatoes. But when I called the Can House, the telephone representative said that metal cans cannot be resealed once opened. I asked twice. the answer is negative.
Well, but maybe there is a way. Another friend who was a chef suggested that if the jar somehow opened with perfect accuracy, it might be possible to close it with a new lid. “But what’s inside will be exposed to oxygen,” which makes the chance of the tomato spoiling very high. (Imagine if they opened all those jars and found not only money, but mold. Yash!) Roger Kissling, Iron Heart Canning’s vice president of sales and account management, is unlikely to approve resealing jars. In an email, Kissling wrote that while the company specializes in beverage cans, “I can tell you that once a can is opened, it cannot be resealed because the can is glued together by folding and squeezing the metal of the lid and body.” To open them, writes Kisling, “the metal had to be cut open, making resealing impossible.”
Resealing was not possible, leaving two theories as to how all the money ended up in all these jars: First, Mikey canned the tomatoes himself and labeled them “San Merican”. That means he should definitely have one of those industrial canneries that are sold by companies like House of Cans, as well as some kind of label printer and a very stable arm with wraps. Seems like hard work for a man with a dirty restaurant.
Or Mikey was laundering money through KBL, a shady company he said he was paying off the restaurant’s ledger. The KBL printed on the bottom of the jar could be where the company put money in the jar before sealing it, where it added tomatoes, sealed the jar, then sealed it and sent it back to the restaurant. It doesn’t really matter if the company is a canning company or a tomato grower or neither. At least it looks like a family business: as one Reddit user noted, Cami’s father was wearing a KBL jacket in an old photo with their uncle Cicero. Can KBL launder money on behalf of C. Berzatto?
Post time: Dec-05-2022