The NYC Area Chef is a key member of the Operations Management team, providing ongoing culinary innovation and strategic development of the culinary teams in SLA Cafes. Reporting to the Regional Manager of Operations, this position will provide culinary innovation and strategic direction to support client needs and customer satisfaction. This role will have overall accountability for setting culinary standards and team training, ensuring compliance, achieving profitability, and demonstrating our business values.

This position is responsible for defining, refining and executing SLA Management Northeast culinary programs, strategy and food philosophy to ultimately drive top line growth while maintaining and improving profit margins. This role will drive new innovative culinary programs for SLA and will stay current (and ahead of) any new trends in the industry.

Essential Functions and Key Tasks:

• Responsible for developing long-term culinary innovation strategy and culinary standards that balances consumer expectations with corporate financial goals.
• Serve as the primary culinary subject matter expert within SLA.
• Communicate, train and educate team members on the latest trends within the industry.
• Generate revenue by building top line driven initiatives, while understanding the importance of middle and bottom-line tactics.
• Provides overall guidance, inspiration, direction & training for all culinary team members

• Liaison with other cross-sector initiatives.
  • Manager data from Purchasing Department for Culinary Team
  • Weekly Meetings/Calls with Regional Manager
  • Product reviews
  • Product specifications
  • Attend purchasing and compliance related meetings as required

.

• Builds strategic alliances and partnerships within the organization to collaboratively execute business strategies
• Liaison with the Regional Marketing team
  • Development or Regional promos
    • Recipes from vendors
    • Review/approve final order guide

.

• Partners with Area and Regional Manager’s to develop and implement culinary policies, procedures, and standards to achieve company goals
• Maintain ongoing knowledge of each sector’s key culinary needs and take appropriate actions
• Work with Regional Manager to analyze monthly broad line inventory control and food costs and takes immediate actions on budget variances
• Develops team members through appropriate training, coaching and mentoring to ensure strong culinary expertise and performance
• Area Support with Culinary Team Management
  • Orientation support
  • Sales presentation support
  • R&D Team
  • Catering- Developing standards and consistent events throughout region
  • Develop training materials, classes and learning surrounding all new recipe items and promotions.

• Ability to successfully navigate within varying degrees of ambiguity in a fast-paced environment
• MCS recipe analyzing

• Manage ingredient selection process
• Manage floating culinary team members

.

Responsible for helping SLA Management achieve financial goals and objectives to increase operating performance.

Position Requirements:

• The successful candidate will have a BS Food Science, Nutrition, Culinary Arts, Hotel/Restaurant Management or 10 years of applicable experience.
• Minimum of 10 years progressive experience in the food service industry, preferable with tenure in both restaurants/casual dining environments and K-12 contract food service management companies.
• Experience designing, developing and maintaining standardized recipes for various clients, with a working knowledge and experience applying health and nutritional concepts to the menus.
• High level culinary/kitchen management experience in a multi-unit environment in high volume, complex food service operations
• Strong executive presence

.

• Minimum 5+ years related experience at Executive Chef level in Contract Food Management or Premium Restaurants.
• Demonstrated success at delivering high quality positive, sustained results
• Ability to manage over a large and geographically diverse market area
• Superb interpersonal and communication skills (written/verbal) and interpersonal savvy
• Experience in managing multiple projects simultaneously
• Organizational agility with strong negotiation skills

Job Type: Full Time
Typical Hours: Monday-Friday 6:00 am – 3:00 pm (Nights and weekends possible with catering events)
Location: NYC Area