Catering Sous Chef - St. Petersburg, FL

Catering Sous Chef

As a Catering Sous Chef, you will ensure client and customer satisfaction by providing both culinary leadership and administrative support for the catering operation. You will assist the Catering Executive Chef in developing new menus, recipes, purchasing strategies, inventory management, event planning, and operational reporting. This role requires a professional with strong culinary expertise, organizational skills, and the ability to effectively manage both kitchen execution and administrative functions in a fast-paced corporate dining environment.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities:

• Provides frontline culinary resources and support.
• Assists with food cost control, menu planning, purchasing, and ensures food quality standards are followed.
• Assists with planning and creating menus.
• Produces and executes catering events.
• Coordinates catering event logistics, production schedules, and operational timelines.
• Maintains accurate administrative records, including inventory, receiving logs, production reports, and recipe documentation.
• Assists with ordering, invoice reconciliation, inventory management, and vendor communications.
• Supports scheduling, staffing coordination, and labor management activities.
• Utilizes Microsoft Office applications and catering management systems to track operational metrics and support reporting.
• Rolls out new culinary programs in conjunction with marketing and culinary teams.
• Assists with managing cost controls, budgets, and account expenditures.
• Ensures compliance with company policies, food safety regulations, and operational procedures.
• Performs other duties as assigned.

Qualifications:

• 3 to 5 years of culinary management experience.
• Experience in restaurants, hotels, corporate dining, education, military, healthcare, and/or related food service operations.
• Hands-on chef experience is required.
• Extensive catering experience is preferred.
• Strong administrative, organizational, and time management skills.
• Experience with inventory management, purchasing, production planning, and operational reporting.
• High-volume batch cooking and complex food service operations experience is preferred.
• Comprehensive knowledge of food and catering trends with a focus on quality, production, sanitation, food cost controls, and presentation.
• Demonstrated ability to analyze food costs, labor costs, and operational data.
• ServSafe Certification is preferred.
• Proficiency in Microsoft Office products, including Excel, Word, Outlook, and Teams.
• Experience in using catering, inventory, or food-service management software is preferred.
• Associate's degree in culinary arts is preferred.

Canteen maintains a drug-free workplace. Associates at Canteen are offered many fantastic benefits including medical, dental, vision, life insurance, disability insurance, retirement plan, paid time off, holiday time off, associate shopping program, health and wellness programs, discount marketplace, identity theft protection, pet insurance, commuter benefits, employee assistance program, flexible spending accounts, paid parental leave, and personal leave.