Culinary Director

Title:

Culinary Director, Land and Sea Dept.

Land and Sea Dept.

Reports To:

Land and Sea Dept., Ownership

Position Objective:

The Culinary Director position is responsible for all facets of LSD’s culinary business. This includes budgeting (food and labor), catering, financial oversight, food production, inventory system controls, menu development, staffing and vendor relations.

The primary goal is to create, execute and maintain dynamic menus that invigorate our concepts, driving both excitement and sales. The role also ensures that our properties have the information, staffing and tools they need to perform their jobs, as well as to ensure that departmental and interpersonal communications are clear, concise, and without friction, building upon a culture where people are our most valued asset.

Responsibilities:

Financials

- Assist with quarterly menu price comps across concept peer sets.

- Ensure proper input at the store level of all invoicing

- Manage both COGS and Labor to annual P&L budget, with monthly and quarterly reviews

- Monitor COGS, Labor and Sales results on a daily, weekly, monthly and quarterly basis

- Work with the accounting team to ensure the P&L accurately reflects the business

Menus

- Coordinate placement and pricing for food with distributors, partners and vendors

- Oversee costing, portions, pricing and quality

- Oversee creation of all food menus, including catering, delivery, event and in-house

- Oversee food menu listings on the various LSD platforms

- Oversee menu copy and descriptions

- Oversee menu tastings with ownership, management and staff teams

- Review P-Mix reports to ensure proper ordering

Oversight of Food Consistency and Quality

- Ensure quality and consistency standards are met at all locations

- Holding site chefs accountable in maintaining our standards

- Maintain consistency for all off and onsite events

- Maintain order and prep guides

- Maintain quality control of all recipes, across all locations.

Oversight of Properties

- Observe all City of Chicago food safety guidelines, including ensuring teams are carrying City of Chicago Department of Health certifications

- Properly maintain all equipment, alerting ownership with any maintenance or site needs or requests.

- Work with site chefs in maintaining a clean work environment throughout the shift, including clean floors, equipment and work surfaces, and holding site chefs accountable as necessary

Oversight of Staff and Management

- Assist site chefs with disciplinary action and maintain the necessary record documentation

- Assist site chefs with hiring and staffing

- Assist site chefs with operations, scheduling and training

- Ensure that BOH professional standards – attitude, appearance, etcetera – are always met

- Ensure that all training materials are up to date

- Fill in on site as necessary

- Foster good working relationships with all employees on site, across both BOH and FOH

- Maintain employee records for Health Department – pest control, ServSafe, etcetera

- Provide food menu items spiels to management for staff training purposes

- Provide menu recipes to kitchen leadership, with guidance on all aspects of execution