Lead Chef - School Kitchen

This opportunity is with a high-volume school food service operation located in Dallas, TX, serving approximately 500 lunches daily and up to 800 meals during special events at one or more school locations. The organization focuses on providing nutritious, safe, and appealing meals to students, playing a key role in supporting their health and educational success through quality food services. The service operates during the school year with a full-time schedule and offers a salary range of $52,000 to $55,000 for the active school-year period, with summer months being unpaid. Scheduled school holidays during the active school year are paid, and occasional additional time may be necessary for special events, inventory management, training, meetings, and production planning.

The role of Lead Chef is a critical and hands-on leadership position responsible for overseeing all aspects of culinary production for the school food service. This role demands strong culinary expertise combined with leadership abilities to ensure consistent food quality, presentation, and efficient kitchen operations. The Lead Chef will directly engage in food preparation, cooking, and batch production while managing a team of cooks and food service personnel. The position also involves building prep lists and production timelines daily, overseeing recipe standardization and testing, managing inventory and food costs, enforcing food safety and sanitation protocols, and supporting meal preparation for a secondary school location. Success in this role means reliably delivering fresh, safe, and attractive meals on schedule while maintaining an organized and productive kitchen environment.

The kitchen environment is fast-paced and requires standing for extended periods and safely lifting items up to 50 pounds. The Lead Chef must have reliable transportation as meals prepared for an additional location require precise portioning, packaging, labeling, staging, and temperature control to maintain safety during transit. The ideal candidate will bring professional hands-on culinary experience from a high-volume restaurant, catering, hotel, institutional dining, or similar production context. Leadership experience in culinary operations is vital, including the ability to train kitchen staff and maintain quality under pressure. Knowledge of cooking techniques, batch production, safety protocols, inventory control, portioning, and waste reduction is essential. Preferred skills include prior leadership roles such as Lead Chef, Sous Chef, or Head Chef, and holding or willingness to obtain Food Manager or Food Handler certification. Additionally, strong organizational skills, reliability, punctuality, and calmness during busy service times are highly valued to ensure smooth kitchen operations and superior meal delivery.