I am a line cook at a very touristy restaurant in a very big city, what can I do to make my life less terrible?

Hey guys, this is an alt account. I'm a 25 year old line cook working at a white tablecloth “upscale American” restaurant. We are in a big city, serving mostly tourists. The restaurant is company owned, and we do 300 covers a night on weekends, and around 70-80 on weekdays. We also serve a 50 head restaurant downstairs which we cook for as well. <br><br>I joined as a cook when we opened a little over a year ago. It’s been a shit show from the beginning. Understaffed and trying to do way too much. It took us a couple of months to get the systems to a point that it wasn’t crazy every night. We have now built up a great core back of house team that can run a solid kitchen and produce really great food. <br><br>The problem is we are a tourist restaurant. No one wants to go out to a fancy restaurant when they are by the ocean. No one wants to eat at the local bistro when they are going to the city. This is the case in our situation. The dining room is run very poorly. The servers are mostly college students who don’t care. All of the staff are trying to get new jobs. No one is happy. Leaves are not approved if they take out a server, so if we are busy, no one can get time off. <br><br>The management team is very disconnected. Our sous was an executive sous at a corporate restaurant who was a sous at an upscale restaurant for years. He is doing a great job now. <br><br>The general manager is very sweet and caring, but has never worked in food service. Nor has she ever worked in a dynamic environment. All she does is check in with people on the floor and in the kitchen to make sure they are doing okay. Not sure if that’s helpful. <br><br>The chef is our biggest problem. The head chef was a sous at another upscale restaurant in the city. He’s older and will retire in a few years. This is his last kitchen. He gives the bare minimum. He is not there on weekends. He is not there after 7 most nights. He will work a double once in a while but not often. The sous will work a double almost every night, and the chef will take all his days off while the sous picks up the slack and works 80 hour weeks. <br><br>This has been a problem for the entire year we’ve been open, but it’s coming to a head very quickly. The sous is about to leave because the chef does not care at all. He won’t pick up any slack. He doesn’t mind that the sous works 80 hours a week every week. He doesn’t care if the kitchen is happy or successful. We’ve brought this up a million times and nothing changes. <br><br>On top of this, we have a lot of new staff who are onboarding slowly. Our training process is fine, but it’s hard to bring new people in when we are shorthanded and slammed. This is a big problem. <br><br>I know this is very venty, I have been here since day one and I really want this restaurant to succeed and be a great restaurant. I put in so much work to get the place going. I am ready to leave, but I don’t want to see it fail. I want the sous to stay. I want the kitchen to be happy and successful, but it’s not like that. <br><br>What can I do to change this? Has anyone been in a similar situation before? I want to make some noise but I don’t want to be a squeaky wheel.<br><br>Edit - I should also mention that I am a line cook, not management, and my perspective is from that view. I have some seniority having been there from the beginning but I don’t have any real pull. I want to make a change in a way that doesn’t risk my job, but it’s impossible to ignore the situation we are in.