Line Cook

Job Description

Job Description

Benefits:

• Health insurance
• Opportunity for advancement
• Training & development
• Vision insurance
• 401(k)
• 401(k) matching
• Dental insurance
• Employee discounts
• Tuition assistance

Line Cook — Mangiare Italian Restaurant

Pay: $19.00 – $26.00 / hour, based on the stations you are cleared to run (see Stations and Pay below)

Schedule: Full-time and part-time available. Full-time is 30 or more hours per week. Dinner service — nights, weekends, and holidays required.

Location: Mangiare Italian Restaurant — 121 N. Adams St., Downtown Green Bay, WI

Reports to: Head Chef

About Mangiare

Mangiare is a small, independent Italian restaurant in downtown Green Bay, serving dinner only. Our focus is simple: fresh, high-quality ingredients — sourced well and cooked well — with an Italian-region wine list to match. The whole kitchen crew is 5–6 people, so every cook here matters and nobody is anonymous. We are the sister restaurant to Republic Chophouse, same owners.

The Role

You run a station. Mangiare runs three stations on a typical dinner service — pasta/sauté, grill, and antipasti/pantry — and adds a body on our busiest nights. You will be assigned a primary station, trained on it properly, and expected to own it: set up, execute through service, and close it clean.

This is a small kitchen, which cuts both ways. You will learn faster here and you will be closer to the Head Chef than you would be in a big brigade. You will also be counted on, because there is no deep bench behind you.

Chain of Command

Knowing who to go to makes a kitchen run. Here is how ours works.

•          You report to the Head Chef. The Head Chef runs this kitchen — your station, your schedule, your training, your pay, and your review.

•          Your direction during service comes from the senior on the line. Whoever is senior on the line is the voice you follow on pace, priority, product, and where you work.

•          Coaching in the moment is not discipline. The senior on the line corrects technique and pace during service — that is training. Your review, your pay, and any corrective action come from the Head Chef.

•          Questions go to the kitchen, not the floor. Station, product, prep, recipe, schedule, time-off requests, and pay questions go to the Head Chef or the senior on duty. The General Manager runs the restaurant, not the kitchen, and does not take kitchen questions.

•          If you don’t get an answer, go to the Head Chef. That is not going around anyone — that is the path. What does not work here is shopping the same question around.

•          Servers and managers bring service issues to the senior on the line. Not to you mid-ticket. If someone hands you a change from the floor, send it to the senior on duty.

The Three Stations

•          Pasta / sauté — pasta cooked to order, sauces built in the pan, seafood and sautéed entrées. The most items and the most simultaneous timing in the building, and the station our menu lives on.

•          Grill/Fry — chops, steaks, chicken, and fish to temperature, plus roasted and grilled vegetables. Temperature discipline and timing with the pasta station.

•          Antipasti / pantry — antipasti, salads, cold plates, bread service, dessert plating. Where most cooks start with us, and where our plate standards are set.

Dinner only, and our volume tends to arrive in one wave. Your station is set, tasted, and checked before service, every day. The rush is short and it is intense.

Stations and Pay

Your rate reflects the stations you are trained and cleared to run, because the stations are not equally difficult.

•         Cleared on antipasti/pantry: $19.00 – $22.00 per hour.

•         Cleared on pasta/sauté or grill: $23.00 – $26.00 per hour.

You have one hourly rate. It is set when you are hired and it changes when the Head Chef clears you on a higher station — not shift to shift. Where you work on a given night is a scheduling decision, and covering a different station never lowers your pay. Cooks cleared on more stations are scheduled more. Moving up is a matter of demonstrated consistency on the station below, not time served.

•          One scale across both kitchens. This is the same pay scale we use at Republic Chophouse. A cook cleared on a top-tier station at one restaurant is paid on the same scale at the other. If you want hours at both, or want to move between them, that conversation is open and your rate travels with you.

What You’ll Do

•         Complete all prep and setup for your assigned station before service, to the recipes and quantities you are given.

•         Cook to recipe, to spec, and to temperature — every time, whether it is the first ticket or the last.

•         Hold standard portion sizes. Portions are weighed or scaled, not eyeballed. Portion discipline is the single biggest thing a line cook controls in our food cost.

•         Check quality and freshness of your product, rotate stock, and label and date everything. Fresh ingredients are the whole point of our menu — we do not cook around tired product.

•         Regulate and verify temperatures on ovens, grills, and holding equipment.

•         Report waste to the senior on the line the same day it happens, with the item and the weight. We would rather know.

•         Communicate clearly and out loud through service — call your times, call your problems early.

•         Close your station at end of shift: garbage out, utensils and surfaces cleaned, product returned, stored, and labeled.

•         Keep your area safe and sanitary and follow all food-handling practices.

•         Respond to guest feedback with urgency and without defensiveness.

•         Learn a second station. In a kitchen this size, cross-training is not optional and we will train you deliberately, not by throwing you into it on a Saturday.

Butchery and Scratch Prep

We portion proteins in house and make what we can from scratch. Butchery is a senior skill held by the Head Chef. Line cooks are not asked to break down whole product untrained — if you want to learn it, say so. We intend to train cooks on it on purpose, and that skill is compensated.

What We’re Looking For

•         Previous experience as a line cook in a full-service, scratch kitchen preferred. Strong antipasti/pantry candidates with less experience will be considered and trained.

•         Italian or Mediterranean experience is a plus, but caring about ingredients matters more than a résumé.

•         Comfort cooking pasta to order and proteins to temperature, or a genuine willingness to be trained on both.

•         Consistency over flash. We are looking for cooks whose food is the same on a slow Tuesday as on a full Saturday.

•         Clear communication on the line, and the ability to take direction and correction in the middle of a rush.

•         Shows up on time, in uniform, ready to work. Punches in and out accurately.

•         ServSafe or Food Handler's certification, or willing to obtain it — we pay for it.

•         Available nights, weekends, and holidays.

•         Able to lift 30+ lbs and stand for 9+ hours in a hot kitchen.

What We Offer

•          Pay: $19.00 – $26.00 per hour — one rate, set by the stations you are cleared on, with a clear path to a raise by getting cleared on more.

•         401(k) with match: Eligible after 90 days. We match 3% when you contribute 6% or more.

•          Health insurance: Available to all full-time employees, meaning 30 or more hours per week — 50/50 premium split (employer/employee) for hourly staff, individual or family, HSA available.

•          Training on us: ServSafe or Food Handler's certification, and CPR — all paid.

•          Tuition reimbursement: Up to $500/semester for hospitality, culinary, or business courses.

•         25% employee dining discount — across Mangiare and Republic Chophouse.

•          Room to move. Two restaurants, one owner group, one pay scale. Hours at a steakhouse and an Italian kitchen, and your rate carries between them.

•          Real training and a real chef. A small kitchen with a hands-on chef, a short menu executed properly, and real cross-training instead of being parked on one station.