Executive Pastry Chef & Head Baker
About Bonnie & Clydes
Bonnie & Clydes is a fast-casual restaurant, café and bakery built around one simple idea: exceptional quality should be accessible every day.
We combine handcrafted coffee, fresh pastries, breakfast, sandwiches, salads, soups, and hospitality-driven service into an all-day dining experience that feels both timeless and modern. Our brand is inspired by the great cafés, bakeries, and food halls of New York and beyond, blending vintage quality with modern craft.
At Bonnie & Clydes, we believe food brings people together. We believe details matter. We believe hospitality is a skill. Most importantly, we believe that if something is worth doing, it's worth doing exceptionally well.
As we continue to grow, we are building a pastry and bakery program from the ground up. We are looking for an experienced pastry professional who wants the opportunity to create, lead, and ultimately own that program.
About the Role
The Executive Pastry Chef & Head Baker will be responsible for developing and leading the pastry and bakery program for Bonnie & Clydes and our affiliated restaurant concepts.
This is not a clipboard management position.
Initially, this is a highly hands-on production role. Before we build a large team, we need to prove what we can make, how well we can make it, what it costs to make, how efficiently it can be produced, and how the program can scale.
You will be expected to work at the bench, develop recipes, laminate dough, bake, troubleshoot production, organize systems, calculate costs, train employees, and ultimately build the department around the standards you establish.
The program will begin as a proof of concept operating from one of our existing kitchens. From there, our goal is to develop a centralized commissary bakery capable of supplying our existing restaurants and supporting continued expansion.
The initial objective is to develop a production system capable of supporting approximately four locations, with the infrastructure, recipes, systems, and team necessary to eventually support eight or more.
This is an opportunity for someone who doesn't simply want to work inside an established pastry program.
We are looking for someone who wants to build one.
What We're Looking to Build
Our goal is to develop a serious, scratch-made pastry and bakery program rooted in traditional European technique while still fitting the volume, economics, and operational realities of a growing restaurant group.
The program may include:
- Traditional French croissants
- Pain au chocolat
- Laminated Danish and breakfast pastries
- Seasonal viennoiserie
- Brioche and enriched doughs
- Italian-American pastries
- Sfogliatelle
- Lobster tails
- Cannoli and filled pastries
- Tarts and tartlets
- Cakes and specialty desserts
- Cookies, bars, and café pastries
- Restaurant desserts
- Seasonal and specialty items
- Wholesale-style production for multiple restaurant locations
We are particularly interested in someone with a strong foundation in traditional French pastry, viennoiserie, laminated doughs, and classic European baking techniques, combined with the creativity and technical ability to develop additional products as the program evolves.
Our goal is not to create a massive menu simply because we can.
Our goal is to identify products that are exceptional, commercially viable, operationally repeatable, and capable of becoming signature Bonnie & Clydes products.
Phase One: Prove the Concept
The first responsibility of this position is execution.
Before building a commissary or hiring a large pastry team, we need to prove the program.
You will work directly with ownership and culinary leadership to determine:
- What products we should produce internally.
- Which products can be executed at an exceptional level.
- Which products make sense financially.
- What equipment is required.
- What production volume is achievable.
- What labor is required.
- How products should be packaged and transported.
- What shelf life and holding standards should be.
- What should be produced centrally versus finished at individual restaurants.
During this phase, you should expect to personally produce much of the product.
We are looking for someone who enjoys that.
Phase Two: Build the Program
Once the product and economics have been proven, the role shifts toward building the systems necessary to scale production.
You will help design:
- Production schedules
- Commissary workflows
- Equipment requirements
- Staffing models
- Prep systems
- Recipe documentation
- Ordering systems
- Inventory controls
- Packaging standards
- Transportation procedures
- Quality-control systems
- Training programs
You will then recruit, train, and lead the baking and pastry team necessary to execute those systems.
Phase Three: Scale the Commissary
The long-term objective is a centralized pastry operation capable of consistently supplying multiple restaurants.
As the organization expands, the Executive Pastry Chef & Head Baker will be responsible for ensuring the pastry department scales without sacrificing quality or profitability.
That means developing a system where a croissant produced for Location #1 is fundamentally the same product served at Location #8.
The department should not become dependent on one person's memory or intuition.
Your responsibility is to turn craftsmanship into a repeatable system.
Key ResponsibilitiesPastry & Bakery Production
- Personally execute pastry and bakery production, particularly during the development and early growth stages of the program.
- Produce laminated doughs, croissants, pain au chocolat, enriched doughs, Italian-American pastries, desserts, and other bakery products.
- Maintain exceptionally high standards for flavor, texture, fermentation, lamination, proofing, baking, finishing, and presentation.
- Troubleshoot dough, fermentation, temperature, equipment, ingredient, and production issues.
- Establish consistent production standards across batches and locations.
- Maintain appropriate production levels while minimizing waste and overproduction.
Recipe Development & Standardization
Develop and document standardized recipes for every approved product.
Recipes must include:
- Ingredient specifications
- Exact weights and measurements
- Baker's percentages where appropriate
- Yield
- Portion size
- Production method
- Mixing specifications
- Fermentation requirements
- Dough temperatures
- Lamination specifications
- Proofing standards
- Baking temperatures and times
- Finishing procedures
- Storage requirements
- Shelf life
- Packaging requirements
- Allergen information
- Expected finished yield
Recipes should be detailed enough that properly trained employees can reproduce the product consistently without relying on verbal instructions.
Product Costing & Profitability
This is a core responsibility of the position.
Being an exceptional baker is not enough.
Every product must also make financial sense.
The Executive Pastry Chef & Head Baker will be expected to understand and manage:
- Ingredient cost
- Recipe cost
- Cost per finished unit
- Yield loss
- Waste
- Labor requirements
- Production time
- Packaging costs
- Transportation costs
- Wholesale/internal transfer cost
- Retail pricing
- Gross margin
- Contribution margin
You will work with leadership to establish appropriate pricing and margin targets for the program.
If an exceptional pastry costs too much to produce, takes too much labor, creates excessive waste, or cannot be scaled consistently, we need to know that before building the business around it.
You don't need to be an accountant.
You do need to understand the economics of your kitchen.
Production Planning
- Create daily and weekly production schedules based on restaurant demand.
- Forecast production requirements across multiple locations.
- Establish par levels for individual products.
- Coordinate ordering and ingredient availability.
- Balance freshness against production efficiency.
- Design production schedules around fermentation, proofing, cooling, finishing, packaging, and delivery requirements.
- Adjust production based on historical sales and anticipated demand.
Commissary Development
Help design the company's centralized bakery and pastry operation.
Responsibilities may include:
- Evaluating potential commissary spaces.
- Recommending bakery equipment.
- Designing production flow.
- Determining refrigeration and freezer requirements.
- Establishing storage systems.
- Designing ingredient receiving and organization systems.
- Developing packaging and distribution processes.
- Creating opening, production, sanitation, and closing procedures.
The goal is to build an operation that can efficiently support multiple restaurants without compromising the craftsmanship of the product.
Multi-Location Distribution & Quality Control
- Establish procedures for distributing finished and partially finished products to restaurant locations.
- Determine which products should be fully produced centrally versus finished at individual locations.
- Establish packaging, holding, thawing, proofing, reheating, and finishing procedures where applicable.
- Monitor product quality after transportation.
- Conduct regular quality-control checks across restaurant locations.
- Correct execution problems quickly when standards are not being met.
Team Building & Leadership
As production grows, you will build and directly lead the pastry and bakery team.
Responsibilities will include:
- Recruiting bakers and pastry cooks.
- Training employees in recipes and production standards.
- Creating station responsibilities.
- Establishing production expectations.
- Developing opening and closing procedures.
- Creating accountability systems.
- Scheduling production staff.
- Coaching and developing employees.
- Identifying future bakery leaders.
This remains a working leadership position.
We expect the Head Baker to understand what is happening at the bench because they are regularly working alongside the team—not simply managing production from an office.
Inventory & Purchasing
- Establish ingredient specifications and quality standards.
- Source appropriate flour, butter, chocolate, dairy, nuts, fruit, and specialty ingredients.
- Work with vendors to maintain quality and competitive pricing.
- Maintain appropriate inventory levels.
- Implement FIFO and proper product rotation.
- Conduct or oversee inventory counts.
- Monitor ingredient price changes.
- Identify opportunities to improve purchasing without sacrificing quality.
Food Safety & Sanitation
- Maintain all applicable food safety and sanitation standards.
- Establish proper labeling, dating, cooling, storage, and rotation procedures.
- Maintain a clean and highly organized production environment.
- Ensure employees follow established sanitation procedures.
- Maintain allergen awareness and appropriate cross-contact procedures.
- Ensure compliance with applicable health department requirements.
What Success Looks Like
Within the first stage of the role, we should have a defined collection of pastries that we know we can produce exceptionally well.
From there, success means building a pastry program where:
- Products are genuinely exceptional.
- Recipes are documented and repeatable.
- Every product has an established cost.
- Every product has an established margin.
- Production yields are understood.
- Waste is measured and controlled.
- Labor requirements are understood.
- Production schedules are documented.
- Stores receive consistent products.
- Restaurant teams know exactly how products should be stored, finished, and served.
- Production can increase without quality deteriorating.
- New pastry employees can be trained into the system.
- The department operates profitably.
Ultimately, success means creating a pastry program that is both culinarily excellent and commercially intelligent.
QualificationsRequired
- Significant professional pastry and/or baking experience.
- Strong technical knowledge of traditional pastry production.
- Advanced experience with laminated doughs and viennoiserie.
- Demonstrated ability to produce traditional croissants and pain au chocolat from scratch.
- Strong understanding of fermentation, dough temperature, proofing, lamination, and baking.
- Experience developing and standardizing recipes.
- Experience working in professional production kitchens.
- Strong organizational and production-planning skills.
- Understanding of food cost, recipe costing, yield, waste, and profitability.
- Ability to independently manage production.
- Ability to train and lead other pastry professionals.
- Ability to work physically demanding production shifts, including early mornings when required.
Strongly Preferred
- Formal pastry or culinary education.
- Classical French pastry training.
- Experience producing Italian or Italian-American pastries, particularly sfogliatelle and lobster tails.
- Experience managing a bakery, pastry department, or commissary operation.
- Multi-unit restaurant or wholesale bakery production experience.
- Experience opening or developing a pastry program from the ground up.
- Experience selecting bakery equipment and designing production workflows.
- Experience scaling recipes from small-batch development into commercial production.
Ideal Candidate
The ideal candidate is both a craftsperson and an operator.
You should care deeply about whether the lamination is right.
You should also care deeply about what that croissant costs.
You should be comfortable spending one part of your day troubleshooting butter temperature and another part analyzing yield, labor, waste, and production capacity.
You are:
- Technically accomplished.
- Highly self-motivated.
- Extremely organized.
- Comfortable working independently.
- Obsessed with consistency.
- Financially aware.
- Creative without being impractical.
- Comfortable building systems from nothing.
- Willing to teach.
- Willing to learn.
- Comfortable receiving feedback.
- Capable of leading from the front.
You don't need an established department around you to be successful.
You should be excited by the opportunity to build one.
What This Role Is Not
This is not a position for someone looking to inherit an established pastry department.
This is not a position where management means standing back and supervising other people.
This is not a position where beautiful pastry alone defines success.
The person who succeeds here will be able to create the product, prove the product, cost the product, document the product, teach the product, build the team, and eventually scale the product across multiple restaurants.
Growth Opportunity
This position begins with responsibility for building the Bonnie & Clydes pastry program and has the opportunity to grow into leadership over a substantial centralized bakery operation.
The expected progression is:
Proof of Concept → Multi-Location Production → Dedicated Commissary → Expanded Multi-Unit Production
As the company grows from its existing restaurant base toward additional locations, the scope of this position will grow with it.
The right individual could ultimately oversee:
- Central pastry production
- Bakery operations
- Pastry R&D
- Multi-unit quality control
- Bakery purchasing
- Production planning
- Pastry staffing and training
- Fine-dining pastry development
- New-store bakery openings
We are looking for someone who wants ownership over the program and wants to be able to look back several years from now and say:
"I built that."
Compensation & Benefits
Compensation will be based on experience, technical proficiency, leadership capability, and demonstrated ability to build and operate a profitable pastry program.
Benefits may include:
- Competitive salary
- Performance-based bonus opportunities
- Health, dental, and vision benefits
- Paid time off
- Employee discounts
- Professional development opportunities
- Significant advancement opportunities as the pastry operation expands
Equal Opportunity Employer
Bonnie & Clydes is committed to creating an inclusive workplace where all team members are treated with dignity, respect, and equal opportunity.
Note: This job description describes the general nature and responsibilities of the position and is not intended to be an exhaustive list of all duties. Responsibilities will evolve as the pastry program and organization grow.
Pay: $65,000.00 - $95,000.00 per year
Work Location: In person
