Chef - Bakery & Kitchen Operations

About the Role

Arbor Coffee's Chef is the primary culinary leader for bakery, pastry, savory kitchen, and catering operations. The role owns food quality, production planning, kitchen staffing and training, food safety, inventory, food cost, menu development, and scalable back-of-house systems. The Chef has primary day-to-day authority over culinary production, recipes, food specifications, kitchen workflow, back-of-house inventory, kitchen training, production planning, and kitchen-specific food safety.

The role oversees culinary operations across:

• Donuts & Pastries: Scratch production
• Breads & Cakes: Breads, lamination, and custom cakes
• Breakfast & Lunch: Savory service and salads
• Catering & Events: Large orders and event production

Responsibilities

• Lead daily bakery, pastry, savory, and catering production, including prep organization, service support, sanitation, and closing procedures.
• Maintain standards for recipes, portions, taste, texture, freshness, presentation, and consistency across all food products.
• Oversee production of house-made donuts, laminated pastries, breads, cakes, breakfast items, sandwiches, salads, desserts, and seasonal products.
• Forecast and plan production for regular service, weekends, holidays, events, and catering.
• Coordinate demand and product availability with the Café Manager.
• Lead, schedule, train, coach, and develop kitchen employees while enforcing standards for performance, cleanliness, safety, and accountability.
• Manage back-of-house inventory, purchasing, receiving, storage, yields, portion control, food cost, waste, spoilage, and product availability.
• Maintain food-safety and sanitation standards and oversee safe equipment use.
• Develop and maintain recipes, prep lists, training tools, and scalable production systems.

Leadership Authority

The Chef has primary day-to-day authority over:

• Culinary production
• Recipes and food specifications
• Kitchen workflow
• Back-of-house inventory
• Kitchen training
• Production planning
• Kitchen-specific food safety

Major pricing, compensation, capital purchases, and significant personnel decisions remain subject to ownership approval.

Requirements

• Professional experience in a commercial kitchen, bakery, restaurant, hotel, catering operation, or comparable food-production environment.
• Demonstrated bakery/pastry, savory production, or combined culinary experience. High-volume experience is preferred.
• Strong kitchen leadership, employee training, production planning, organization, and accountability skills.
• Working knowledge of food cost, inventory, purchasing, yields, portioning, waste management, and food safety.
• Reliable judgment, communication skills, and attention to detail.
• Availability for early mornings, weekends, holidays, and events as required.

Preferred Experience

• Breads and laminated doughs
• Scratch donut production
• Cakes and professional decorating
• High-volume bakery production
• Catering
• Menu development
• Leadership across both bakery/pastry and savory operations

Physical & General Requirements

This is a hands-on role. The Chef must be able, with or without reasonable accommodation, to work in a commercial kitchen, stand for extended periods, safely lift up to 40 pounds, and work around hot equipment, refrigeration, sharp tools, and cleaning products. Duties may evolve as Arbor Coffee grows.

Cover Letter Requirements

A cover letter is required to be considered for this position. Please address the following questions in your cover letter:

• Describe your experience developing a bakery and café menu from the ground up. Include examples of baked items and savory dishes you have created, tested, improved, or successfully introduced.
• Explain your professional experience with coffee-shop-style baking. Discuss your skill level with products such as croissants, laminated pastries, doughnuts, bagels, breads, muffins, biscuits, and other café baked goods.
• Describe how you create and document standardized recipes. Explain how you ensure that ingredients, measurements, yields, preparation methods, baking times, temperatures, portion sizes, and finished products remain consistent across employees and production shifts.
• Give an example of a food-production problem you solved by creating or improving a Standard Operating Procedure. Describe the problem, the procedure you implemented, and the results.
• Explain how you would lead the bakery and savory food program for a new coffee shop. Discuss your priorities for menu development, food quality, production scheduling, staff training, food costs, inventory, waste control, and preparation for opening.

Applications submitted without a cover letter addressing all five questions will not be considered.