Sous Chef

Sous Chef — The Hearth & Vine Bistro

Portland, OR | January 2024 – Present

• Supervised a back-of-house team of 14 line cooks and prep cooks, reducing kitchen staff turnover by 22% over an 18-month period by implementing structured training manuals and performance feedback reviews.
• Managed inventory forecasting and purchasing workflows for a $1.8M annual food and beverage budget, negotiating vendor agreements to reduce weekly waste by 15% and save $24,000 in annual ingredient costs.
• Engineered and standard-costed 18 new seasonal menu items, maintaining a food cost percentage of 27.8% (4.2% below the restaurant's target budget) while increasing beverage and pairing sales by 16%.
• Streamlined kitchen line expediting and prep station setups using Lean kitchen methods, reducing average ticket times during high-volume weekend dinner services from 22 minutes to 18 minutes.

Lead Line Cook — Canyon Creek Tavern

Seattle, WA | September 2021 – December 2023

• Directed food preparation and plate execution for the main hot line station serving 250+ covers nightly, maintaining 99.2% order accuracy and customer satisfaction scores.
• Trained 6 newly hired line cooks on prep procedures, knife skills, and portion control, decreasing kitchen onboarding ramp times by 25% and reducing food waste at the station by 10%.
• Coordinated weekly kitchen prep schedules and sanitation audits, ensuring 100% compliance with local health department regulations and securing consecutive 'A' grades on inspections.
• Assisted the Head Chef in conducting monthly physical inventory counts, resolving a 4% variance in portion control by standardizing prep recipe cards and scales.

Kitchen management, Menu planning, Recipe development, Food cost control, Vendor negotiation, Inventory management, ServSafe Manager, Staff training, Shift scheduling, Toast POS, HotSchedules, MarketMan, Culinary techniques, High-volume kitchen operations, Sanitation standards, Portion control

Kitchen Digitization and POS Migration

Role: Implementation Lead

Tools: Toast POS, HotSchedules, Excel

Led the migration of front-of-house and back-of-house systems to Toast POS and HotSchedules, reducing weekly scheduling time by 5 hours and improving labor cost tracking accuracy by 14%.

Zero-Waste Culinary Initiative

Role: Kitchen Project Lead

Tools: MarketMan, Excel

Designed a food waste reduction protocol utilizing leftover prep ingredients for daily specials, cutting total kitchen waste by 18% and generating $15,000 in additional weekly revenue.

• ServSafe Manager Certification (2020)
• Certified Sous Chef (CSC) (2023)

• Languages: English (Native), Spanish (Professional working proficiency)
• Professional Memberships: American Culinary Federation (ACF)
• Availability: 3 weeks notice