Location: Anaheim / Orange County, CA
Job Type: Full-Time
Schedule: Nights, weekends, and holidays required
Compensation: $70,000 - $71,000/year
We are an established upscale-casual restaurant in Orange County with a focus on steak, seafood, raw bar items, brunch, craft cocktails, and high-quality guest experience. We are looking for a highly experienced Sous Chef / Kitchen Manager to lead our back-of-house team and help drive consistency, quality, organization, and execution in the kitchen.
This is not an entry-level sous chef role. We are looking for someone who can operate as the day-to-day kitchen leader and take ownership of the kitchen as if they were the Executive Chef. The right candidate must be hands-on, highly organized, calm under pressure, and capable of managing both people and systems.
This role will be responsible for leading the kitchen team, improving systems, managing prep and service execution, controlling ordering and inventory, training staff, and working closely with the front-of-house management team to create a better overall restaurant operation.
Key Responsibilities
- Lead daily kitchen operations and ensure strong execution during service
- Manage prep, line setup, food quality, ticket times, cleanliness, and kitchen flow
- Create and manage BOH schedules based on business needs and labor targets
- Handle ordering, receiving, vendor communication, and product quality checks
- Maintain proper inventory controls, pars, storage, labeling, and waste tracking
- Train, coach, and hold kitchen staff accountable to standards
- Work the line and lead by example during busy services
- Ensure recipes, plating, portions, and prep standards are followed consistently
- Maintain food safety, sanitation, health department, and kitchen cleanliness standards
- Help control food cost, labor cost, waste, and overall BOH efficiency
- Communicate clearly with ownership, management, and front-of-house leadership
- Work closely with FOH manager to improve service flow, timing, guest experience, and team communication
- Assist with menu development, specials, prep planning, and operational improvements
- Help build a stronger kitchen culture based on accountability, consistency, teamwork, and professionalism
Qualifications
- Minimum 5 years of experience in a sous chef, kitchen manager, chef de cuisine, or similar leadership role
- Strong experience managing a full-service restaurant kitchen
- Steak, seafood, raw bar, brunch, or elevated casual dining experience preferred
- Strong line-cooking skills and ability to jump into any station when needed
- Experience with ordering, inventory, scheduling, labor control, and food cost management
- Strong leadership skills with the ability to train, coach, and hold people accountable
- Must be organized, reliable, professional, and calm under pressure
- Must understand food safety, sanitation, prep systems, and kitchen organization
- Must be able to communicate well with both BOH and FOH teams
- Must be available to work nights, weekends, and holidays
- ServSafe certification preferred
Ideal Candidate
The ideal candidate is a hands-on kitchen leader who does not need to be micromanaged. You understand that running a kitchen is more than cooking food — it requires organization, standards, training, communication, cost control, and leadership.
Pay: $71,000.00 per year
Work Location: In person
