Chef, Commissary Kitchen (No Nights/Weekends), NYC

Commissary Kitchen | No Nights or Weekends

The Chef position is an exciting opportunity for a talented culinary professional looking to transition to meaningful, impactful work. As part of a 712 person team in Red Rabbit's commissary kitchen, you'll prepare culturally relevant, scratch-made meals in a large, high-volume kitchen, helping bring great food to students across multiple schools each day.

The ideal candidate has strong culinary skills, takes pride in preparing great food, and makes food safety a priority in everything they do. You understand how to cook at scale without losing the flavor, texture, and care that make a dish special. You're comfortable working as part of a team, organizing your daily work, and keeping pace with a busy production kitchen.

Your care extends beyond the cooking. Every batch needs to leave the kitchen properly prepared, portioned, and packed so school teams can serve it at its best. You may not meet the students eating your food, but your attention to detail helps ensure they receive a meal made with pride and served with dignity.

This hands-on role offers stable weekday hours, no nights or weekends, and most major holidays off. If you are passionate about Food Justice and changing the lives of children through culturally familiar, scratch-made food, this may be the right role for you!

Job Functions

• Culinary Execution: You have recipes worth sharing and the skills to make them shine. Contribute your ideas to culturally relevant menus that connect students with familiar favorites and introduce them to new flavors. Use your technique and experience to cook at scale, paying close attention to seasoning, texture, and doneness so every batch meets the same standard.
• Food Safety & Sanitation: Maintain a food-safe kitchen through every stage of production and dispatch. Follow proper food handling, storage, cooking, cooling, holding, and cleaning procedures. Complete required time and temperature logs accurately, follow allergy procedures, and promptly communicate food safety concerns. Take extra care during packing and staging to protect food quality and safety through delivery.
• Meal Quality & Packing: Help elevate the meals students receive by making sure food leaves the commissary in its best possible condition. Check that each order is complete, accurately portioned, correctly labeled, and packed with care. Consider how food will hold and travel, preserving its appearance and texture so school teams can present it well. Coordinate with the team to have meals ready for scheduled dispatch.
• Teamwork & Coordination: Be an active part of a team that depends on clear communication and reliable follow-through. Coordinate preparation, cooking, and packing with your colleagues to keep production moving. Communicate shortages, timing changes, or quality concerns early, and work together to resolve challenges before meals leave the kitchen.
• Kitchen Organization & Administration: Organize your station and follow production schedules to meet daily meal requirements. Support inventory tracking, use ingredients thoughtfully, and minimize waste. Accurately record production quantities, meal counts, and required daily reports using company systems.

Required Skills & Experience

• 3+ years of professional culinary experience, including experience in a fast-paced, high-volume kitchen.
• Strong hands-on cooking skills and the ability to prepare consistent, high-quality food in large batches.
• Ability to follow and scale recipes while maintaining flavor, texture, and recipe integrity.
• Demonstrated knowledge of proper food safety and sanitation practices.
• Ability to organize preparation, cooking, and packing tasks to meet production and dispatch schedules.
• Attention to detail when checking food quality, portions, labels, and order accuracy.
• Excellent communication skills and reliable follow-through.
• Ability to work collaboratively and complete assigned tasks independently.
• Comfort using software, apps, or spreadsheets to record and report daily information.
• Required food safety certification for the assigned location, or willingness to obtain it within the required timeframe.
• Must share our passion for improving nutrition and health in schools and see our work through the lens of food justice.

Preferred Qualifications

• Prior kitchen management, supervisory, or leadership experience.
• Experience in a commissary, central production kitchen, or other operation preparing meals for multiple locations.
• Experience packing and staging food for delivery while maintaining quality and safe temperatures.
• Experience in school food service or familiarity with National School Lunch Program (NSLP) requirements.
• Culinary education or formal culinary training.
• Experience preparing food from diverse culinary traditions.
• Bilingual in English and Spanish.

Additional Information

Job Type: Full Time Typical Schedule: Monday-Friday, 6:30 AM-2:30 PM; exact hours may vary Location: LIC, NY Compensation: $30$35 per hour

Benefits

• Generous PTO (most major holidays off)
• Health, Dental, Vision Insurance
• 401k Option
• Paid Professional Development
• Education Reimbursement Opportunities
• Paid Family Leave
• Paid Parental Leave
• Short-Term Disability Insurance Coverage
• Worker's Compensation Insurance Coverage
• Free Lunch: Access to great-tasting, made-from-scratch food.

About Red Rabbit

Founded in 2005, Red Rabbit is an MWBE-certified K12 school food management company on a mission to transform school dining. We believe that serving diverse, high-quality meals to children in urban communities is about more than food, it's about dignity, representation, and opportunity.

Our professionally trained chefs work in commissaries and onsite in school cafeterias, preparing scratch-made, culturally relevant meals that reflect the heritage and lived experiences of the students we serve. We don't just deliver food...we become part of the school community.

Today, Red Rabbit prepares and serves millions of meals each year across the Greater New York region, New Jersey, Philadelphia, and Washington, DC.

If you're passionate about food, community, and making an impact every day, we'd love to meet you.

Red Rabbit is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, race, creed, color, national origin, ancestry, marital status, or sexual orientation.