Assistant Manager - Kitchen

Job Summary:

As the Kitchen Manager at Chick-fil-A Vicksburg, you are an integral part of our leadership team, responsible for upholding the highest standards in food quality, operational excellence, and team development. Your primary mission is to collaborate with the Customer Experience Director to ensure an exceptional customer experience and financial stewardship. You will lead, train, and mentor a team of dedicated kitchen staff, trainers, and leaders to achieve our goals of providing world-class food service.

Key Responsibilities:

1. Team Leadership: Develop a collaborative and high-performing team of kitchen leaders, trainers, and team members. Coach, mentor, and provide ongoing training to kitchen trainers, nurturing their growth and development. Clarify roles, responsibilities, and expectations to foster a cohesive and motivated team.
2. Operational Excellence: Lead and organize kitchen operations, working in tandem with other managers to meet the restaurant's needs. Implement Lean processes and continuous improvement initiatives to enhance operational efficiency. Ensure compliance with Chick-fil-A's quality requirements and maintain the highest food production standards.
3. Financial Stewardship: Collaborate with the finance team to meet ambitious goals for low food and paper costs. Monitor inventory, ordering, and supplier relationships to minimize waste and optimize cost control. Identify opportunities for cost-saving measures while maintaining food quality.
4. Customer Experience: Uphold Chick-fil-A's commitment to an exceptional customer experience by consistently delivering top-quality food. Monitor food production processes to ensure timely and accurate service. Address any kitchen-related customer concerns with urgency and professionalism.
5. Food Safety and Quality: Implement rigorous food safety protocols to meet and exceed regulatory requirements. Continuously improve food quality by overseeing cooking techniques, recipes, and ingredient quality. Maintain diversity among team members, fostering an inclusive and supportive workplace.
6. Performance Evaluation and Rewards: Evaluate and reward team members and leaders based on performance, recognizing excellence and providing constructive feedback as needed. Set performance targets and create development plans to support career growth.

Qualifications:

• Bachelor's degree in hospitality management, culinary arts, or a related field (preferred).
• Proven experience in a kitchen leadership role, with a track record of achieving quality and operational excellence.
• Strong leadership and team-building skills.
• Excellent communication and interpersonal abilities.
• Knowledge of food safety regulations and best practices.
• Experience in cost control and inventory management.
• Commitment to Chick-fil-A's values and dedication to delivering an exceptional customer experience.
• Managers daily serve in restaurant general operations to serve guests and the team. There are no positions that are remote or 100% administrative.
• Shifts vary across all business hours. (5:30AM till 11:30PM)

Responsibilities:

Daily

• Leads the kitchen team, with assistance from the Operations and Training Director, in the training and coaching of exceptional production leaders, team members and the production certified trainers.
• Champions the highest Food Safety and Food Quality possible throughout the organization. Ensure assigned team members meet Chick-fil-A food safety and quality standards through procedures and requirements all day every day.
• Monitor Deliveries, Registers, Inventories, and Prep (all food preparation and production) to minimize Food and Paper Costs.
• Communicate with all production team members/leaders our focus areas and priority.
• Lead in the normal operation of the business to serve guests.
• Ensure area checklists, LEAN produce and portion trackers completed daily to standard.

Weekly

• Allocate at least two hours per week to planning and reporting.
• Review Kanban Levels, Pre-Prep Levels, Thaw Cabinet Allocation and Inventory Activity report for trends and adjust training/procedures to minimize Food and Paper Costs. 
• Monitors the Daily SAFE and eRQAs programs. Provides trend reports to the Leadership Team and spot reports for major hospitality and service-related issues.
• Develops action items and completes actions to address issues and strengthen competitive advantages.
• Keep kitchen always “Tour-Ready” in cleanliness and organization
• A key contributor and champion of our Lean and Continuous Improvement culture. Make One Small Improvements on the things that bug us.

Monthly/Quarterly/As needed

• Set and achieve daily/weekly/monthly goals to improve processes, quality and food safety.
• Track development of junior leaders and team members to higher levels of leadership. 
• Complete one eFSA quarterly and one mock ROE every six weeks.
• Assists in the on-going development, support, and performance evaluation of exceptional team leaders, training and members. Reinforcing critical components of Employee Handbook. Ensure training plans are set for each team member correctly. Timely completes 30/60/90/365 evaluations for each team member
• Make updates to checklists.
• Communicate improvement ideas to Operator/Operations Director/Training Manager
• Assist in updating compelling and accurate job descriptions for all kitchen positions or roles
• Create, modify, implement and manage the restaurant kitchen plan, including: Standardization and continuous improvement of all Kitchen Standard Work roles and systems, Training plans for new and current team members, Sales and Capacity forecasting and production systems adjustments