Culinary Operations Manager

Description

Are you a systems-minded hospitality leader who thrives at the intersection of data, people, and execution? Do you love building structures, creating clarity, and turning complexity into simple, repeatable processes? Do you find energy in supporting great food by ensuring the operational foundation behind it is strong, disciplined, and scalable?

The Culinary Operations Manager owns purchasing, inventory, systems, and cost controls for the culinary department. This role serves as the operational glue between culinary vision and daily execution freeing the Executive Chef to focus on food, people, and creativity while ensuring the business runs with clarity, confidence, and discipline.

When done well, this role creates calm in complexity, protects margins, strengthens accountability, and allows innovation to scale responsibly. This person is a confident leader in ambiguity. They are comfortable sitting in uncertainty, making informed imperfect decisions, and leading change with confidence and backbone.

Our ideal Culinary Operations Manager is:

A systems thinker: You can zoom out to see the full picture and zoom in to ensure details are right. You synthesize information, check your work, and understand how small decisions impact the whole.

A clear communicator: You distill complex ideas into clear direction for all levels of the organization. You speak up, bring structure to conversations, and bring others along for the ride.

A collaborative connector: You like people. You enjoy cross-functional work, know when to be assertive, and hold others accountable even when they don’t report directly to you.

A curious builder: You enjoy researching products, systems, and trends. You bring creative excitement to operational work and see systems as tools that enable people to do their best work.

The Culinary Operations Manager is a development-minded leadership role for someone excited to grow alongside us, building, refining, and strengthening systems that support consistency, financial integrity, and long-term scalability across all brands and venues.

You are hospitality minded, and use it as a filter in decision-making, balancing financial discipline with care for team members, our clients, & partners. You thrive in an environment where the core values Do what it takes, love what you do, have fun doing it, leave it better and All for one and one for all are operationalized every day.

Qualifications

Responsibilities

The Primary job of the Culinary Operations Manager includes but is not limited to:

Leadership & Accountability

Lead, manage, and hold accountable purchasing team members and related culinary operations functions

Establish clear ownership, expectations, and performance standards across purchasing, inventory, and systems

Serve as a strategic thought partner to Culinary Leadership, Finance, and Operations

Lead change with clarity, structure, and follow-through

Inventory Management

Own the end-to-end inventory control system company-wide

Establish and enforce standard inventory procedures

Audit inventory variance, shrink, waste, and spoilage; identify root causes and corrective actions in partnership with Finance

Partner with the Executive Chef to align par levels with production volume and seasonality

Purchasing & Vendor Management

Own and manage key vendor partnerships, including contract negotiation, pricing terms, renewals, and performance management

Ensure purchasing decisions align with industry benchmarks, company financial goals, and company values

Research and introduce innovative products aligned with culinary vision, trends, and client demand

Maintain accurate, current cost data for all purchased goods

Systems & Data Management

Own Caterease system strategy and execution, including roadmap planning and data integrity

Own recipe costing accuracy, pricing updates, and pricing integrity across all menus

Build and maintain a centralized, accurate, and scalable recipe database that supports training, auditing, and growth

Own and manage the Culinary SharePoint site, ensuring it remains current, organized, and useful

Costs, Controls & Production Planning

Monitor and manage food cost %, COGS, and margin performance with a defined review cadence

Own variance analysis, waste and shrink trends, and lead corrective actions to protect margins

Own production systems and operational efficiencies to support accuracy, scalability, and cost control

Partner with the Executive Chef on busy-day planning, bulk production forecasting, and execution

Own the custom menu costing process, including margin validation, approvals, and clear communication across teams

Extensive experience and understanding of database structure, management and design

Successful creation and management of inventory systems leveraging food specific software

Demonstrated successful ownership of change management initiatives resulting in measurable adoption and business impact

Minimum of 3 years of experience in food and/or hospitality industries

Experience managing and developing a team of three or more team members

Proficiency in Microsoft Office Suite (Excel, Word, Outlook, PowerPoint)

Experience managing vendor relationships from contracting through delivery and ongoing optimization

Demonstrated knowledge of P&L statements with the ability to make data-driven decisions to drive profitability

Comfort interpreting food cost %, COGS, and margin reports and translating them into operational action

PREFERRED

Bachelor’s degree or equivalent

Experience with Caterease software

Experience researching, sourcing, and tracking industry trends

What You'll Get:

Paid Time Off & Nine Paid holidays

Paid volunteer day per year, allowing you to give back to your community

Catering Discount

Medical, Dental, & Vision Insurance Available

Life & Disability Insurance

Paid parental & adoption leave

401 (K) savings plan with company match

Why Choose Us?

Together & Company and associated brands are woman owned businesses with the belief that a culture of inclusivity makes us better. We value our teammates for their unique perspectives and experiences, and we know that our diversity is what fuels our strength and innovation as individuals and a team.

If you are looking for just a job this is not your best option. If you want to belong to a team of people who care about what they do, and each other...who want to be better, learn more, help others do the same and create some of the best whole-hearted hospitality experiences in Central Ohio...then welcome to the team.

Together & Company is an EEO employer - M/F/Vets/Disabled