NACE Career Center

EXECUTIVE CHEF FOR BAY LAUREL CATERING AND UW ATHLETICS DINING

Thank you for considering HFS UW Dining, a unit within Housing & Food Services at the University of Washington—Seattle.

At the University of Washington, diversity is integral to excellence. We value and honor diverse experiences and perspectives, strive to create welcoming and respectful learning environments, and promote access, opportunity and justice for all.

HFS provides on-campus housing to over 10,000 student residents and operates over 40 dining and café locations that serve the entire campus community. In order to successfully accomplish this, we employ over 1,200 students, classified and professional staff members who work throughout HFS, providing residential and dining services to the campus. As reflected in our mission statement—working together to enhance student life—teamwork and service to our students and customers are at the heart of our business.

To learn about our commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion at UW Housing & Food Services, you are encouraged to review our Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Statement Training.

View additional information about HFS and this position here.

PURPOSE
The Executive Chef for Bay Laurel Catering and UW Athletics Dining provides culinary leadership for Bay Laurel Catering, Conibear Shellhouse and Central Production Kitchen in planning, coordinating and executing the menus for catered events, meal services and commissary production.  This position employs a high degree of customer service skill in working with internal and external clients from serving and receiving feedback at formal tastings to service at events.  It is responsible for all aspects of production, including menu management, purchasing, recipe development, food safety and staffing.  

The position ensures that all activities adhere to business and financial goals and unit objectives set by the Assistant Director for Bay Laurel Catering and UW Athletics Dining.

RESPONSIBILITIES

Operations:
•Recommends short and long range goals for culinary staff and programs.
•Ensures proper use, maintenance and repair of kitchen equipment, placing work orders as needed for facility repair and maintenance.
•Manages culinary production in associated food service units.
•Maintains scheduling flexibility to support business operations that vary and may occur outside normal weekday work hours.
•Hosts staffed catered events, serving as the primary resource for customers.
•Plans, creates and prepares items for high level events, unit promotions and offsite catered events.
•Oversees hiring of classified and student employees in associated units.
•Purchases necessary food, equipment and products following established protocol and guidelines, seeking approval where necessary.
•Works collaboratively with partners in sales and front of house management.
•Supports culinary team in production when appropriate.
•Regularly tastes food, insuring taste and presentation meet expectations.

Menu Management:
•Facilitates design and development of new menus and standardized recipes, and establishes portion controls and food preparation standards for assigned areas.
•Conducts research and development for new products in accordance with business plans.
•Works within established CBORD/FSS processes, participating as needed in HFS department level CBORD initiatives.
•Creates and costs custom menus.
•Collaborates with sales team to keep menu current, reflect seasonality and meet needs of clients.
•Develops and presents the final menus, plating and presentation of catered foods to the client and catering sales team.
•Responds to current food trends and new products.

Financial:
•Participates in budget development and ensures that menus and recipes support the budgeted food and labor.
•Reviews financial performance and presents corrective action when indicated.
•Reports monthly on financial performance and takes corrective action on all variances.
•Presents on unit financial performance to UW Dining leadership and management.

Food & Facilities Safety Compliance:
•Develops and maintains systems for continuous review of food and workplace safety.
•Creates and maintains effective controls to ensure safety and sanitation of all food service facilities.
•Participates in responses to customer feedback and allegations of food-borne illness within established timeframe.
•Maintains Serve-Safe certification and is a highly-visible role model for unit food safety.
•Works closely with Environmental Health and Safety and campus executive chef ensuring commitment to UW and Washington State Rules and Regulations and providing responses to violations within twenty-four hours.

Leadership & Supervision:
•Promotes and sustains organizational core values including policies on diversity and workplace conduct.
•Demonstrates effective verbal and written communication and collaboration with internal and external clients.
•Holds staff meetings as necessary to establish culinary and team goals of associated units.
•Completes annual performance evaluations for assigned staff.
•Reinforces individual and team accountability for assigned tasks and established processes including CBORD/FSS.
•Utilizes delegation appropriately to complete tasks and meet deadlines.
•Recognizes and rewards culinary staff for accomplishments, both formally and informally.
•Monitors manager involvement in staff performance management by assisting with appropriate action plan deliverables, assessing individual employee culinary skills, and coaching employees and managers to effect changes in behavior.
•Leads change management efforts.

Training & Development:
•Encourages staff to create and maintain professional development plans.
•Serves as a resource for information about professional culinary training and work opportunities.
•Assists managers in identifying appropriate training for their staff.
•Collaborates with HFS Human Resources on training for Food Service staff.
•Participate in travel as needed for regional conferences and learning opportunities.

POSITION COMPLEXITIES
Due to business similarities and efficiencies the following units are managed under the same operational umbrella.

Bay Laurel Catering:
Bay Laurel Catering is a full service caterer, hosting events at multiple offsite locations throughout the University campus. High degrees of organization and coordination are needed to ensure that food leaving the kitchen meet specifications upon arrival and service.  As with any catering business, this position will work a variety of schedules to meet customer needs.  In addition, Bay Laurel is a high-touch business, requiring that the Executive Chef participate in events as a host as well as a culinary leader.  The primary office location for this position is in Willow Hall in a facility designed specifically for the activities of Bay Laurel Catering and Central Production Kitchen.  Business is variable, conducted seven days per week.  While the default schedule for this role is regular business hours, flexibility to support outside this schedule is critical, including weekends.

Central Production Kitchen:
The UW central production kitchen produces a branded line of grab-and-go products called DM To Go, which is produced and delivered daily for retail sale to HFS units throughout campus.  This unit operates on a cost neutral basis with all food and labor being covered by HFS units that sell the DM To Go line, thus resource efficiency is of crucial importance.  Central production kitchen also provides limited commissary support for other HFS units without cooking capability.

UW Athletics Dining:
Athletics dining consists of Conibear Shellhouse and Dawg Bites Café.  Conibear shellhouse is the location of the UW Athletics Training Table, which feeds athletes during the academic year.  Conibear also provides food services to individual athletic teams as requested as well as sports camps and conferences during the summer.  Dawg Bites Café is located in the UW Intramural Activities Center, providing a limited retail menu of beverages, soups sandwiches and grab-and-go items.  This position provides culinary guidance and leadership for the management teams in these areas.  Development and support of UW Dining’s relationship with UW Athletics is a key component of success in this role.     

SUPERVISION
Supervisory responsibilities include professional staff, classified union staff and hourly student employees.

Bay Laurel Catering and Central Production Kitchen:
•One chef de cuisine
•One sous chef
•Twelve full time, union employees
•Up to one hundred hourly student employees

Conibear Shellhouse and Dawg Bites Café:
•One chef de cuisine
•One assistant manager
•Six full time, union employees
•Up to thirty-five hourly student employees

REPORTS TO
Assistant Director for Bay Laurel Catering and UW Athletics Dining

MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS
Bachelor's degree in culinary arts, and/or hotel and restaurant management and/or a certification by a recognized culinary institution and three years of executive chef-level management experience in culinary operations which demonstrates culinary depth and breadth in concept development, kitchen management, menu management, food and labor cost controls, food plating and presentation, and successful direct-client contact. Must have general computer knowledge.

Equivalent education and/or experience may substitute for minimum requirements.

CONDITIONS OF EMPLOYMENT
•Possession of Washington State Food Worker Card within two weeks of employment and maintenance thereafter.
•Possession of a Washington State Driver’s License.
•Serv-Safe Certification.
•Allergan Certification.

Application Process:
The application process for UW positions may include completion of a variety of online assessments to obtain additional information that will be used in the evaluation process. These assessments may include Work Authorization, Cover Letter and/or others. Any assessments that you need to complete will appear on your screen as soon as you select “Apply to this position”. Once you begin an assessment, it must be completed at that time; if you do not complete the assessment, you will be prompted to do so the next time you access your “My Jobs” page. If you select to take it later, it will appear on your "My Jobs" page to take when you are ready. Please note that your application will not be reviewed, and you will not be considered for this position until all required assessments have been completed.