Chef

About What’s the Sauce?

What’s the Sauce? is a Brooklyn-based wings and comfort food concept built around bold flavor, real ingredients, and honest food. We believe better food should be fun, flavorful, fair, and made with care — no secrets, no fillers, no shortcuts. Our menu centers on wings, sauces, and comfort food made with crafted flavor and respect for the people eating it.

We are looking for a hands-on Part-Time Kitchen Lead / Chef-Operator to help turn our recipes, prep, and service flow into a consistent, scalable kitchen operation.

Role Overview

The Kitchen Lead will be responsible for helping run prep and service for our wing operation, including chicken/cauliflower prep, sauce production, cooking, finishing, plating/packaging, kitchen organization, and quality control.
This is the first key kitchen hire for the business. The right person should be comfortable working in an early-stage food concept, taking ownership, improving systems, and helping build something from the ground up.

Responsibilities
• Lead kitchen prep before service, including wings, cauliflower, sides, sauces, garnishes, and packaging setup
• Execute wings consistently according to WTS standards for texture, cook time, sauce coverage, and presentation
• Prepare and batch sauces accurately, including flavor-forward sauces such as Adobo, Buffalo, Masala Karam, Garlic Lemon Pepper, and Soy Sesame
• Maintain consistency across recipes, portioning, cook times, and final product quality
• Help organize prep lists, service checklists, station setup, and end-of-day breakdown
• Monitor inventory, ingredient usage, waste, and par levels
• Maintain a clean, safe, organized kitchen according to NYC food safety standards
• Support smooth service during busy periods, including order timing and packaging
• Provide practical feedback on recipe scaling, holding, reheating, and service flow
• Help train future prep cooks or line cooks as the business grows

Ideal Candidate
• 2+ years of kitchen experience, ideally as a line cook, lead line cook, prep lead, sous chef, catering cook, or kitchen supervisor
• Comfortable working with wings, sauces, fried/baked proteins, or high-volume comfort food
• Strong sense of urgency, cleanliness, and organization
• Able to follow recipes accurately while also identifying ways to improve efficiency
• Comfortable in a startup-style food business where systems are still being built
• Reliable, calm under pressure, and willing to take ownership
• Food Handler’s Certificate preferred
• Experience with catering, pop-ups, ghost kitchens, or fast-casual operations is a plus

What We’re Looking For
We are not looking for a traditional executive chef who only wants to design menus. We are looking for someone who can cook, prep, lead, organize, and execute.
The best fit is someone who can help us make the operation more consistent every week — better prep, faster service, tighter recipes, cleaner systems, and a stronger final product.