Join the Team Behind Champions – Performance Executive Chef, University of Washington Athletics Dining Program

UW Dining is seeking an innovative and passionate Performance Executive Chef to lead the culinary direction of its Athletic Dining Program. This is a unique opportunity to impact the performance, recovery, and overall well-being of Husky student-athletes through world-class nutrition and cutting-edge culinary excellence. As a key member of our team, you’ll bring your culinary creativity, leadership, and nutritional knowledge to the forefront of collegiate athletics.

If you thrive in a fast-paced, collaborative environment and are inspired by the challenge of fueling elite performance, we want to hear from you.

Apply for staff jobs here: https://www.washington.edu/jobs/

This position is req. number 245158

POSITION PURPOSE

The Athletics Performance Executive Chef works for Housing and Food Services (HFS) and is responsible for managing the day-to-day operations of dining services for UW Intercollegiate Athletics (ICA). Providing nutrition to power performance, this executive level chef position has responsibility for ensuring menus and programming meet the needs of UW Athletes and teams through creation of nutritionally optimal meals for athletes and coaches. This will be achieved through effective leadership of the dining facility team and planning in coordination with ICA dietitians.

RESPONSIBILITIES

Leadership:

• Develops and maintains positive and professional relationships with student athletes.

• Provides outstanding customer service and ensures specialty diets and other nutritional needs are met.

• Develops and maintains positive and professional relationships with guests, department colleagues, and stakeholders.

• Develops and maintains positive and professional relationships with culinary and front-line service staff through two-way communication, timely feedback, collaboration and consistent visibility in the kitchen and work unit.

• Leads and participates in weekly culinary planning and/or production meetings, tastings, training, etc.

• Monitors performance in unit safety, customer service and food safety.

• Identifies and utilizes multiple avenues for soliciting feedback and responding to complaints, questions, and special requests.

• Consults appropriately with HFS Human Resources to ensure that UW, HFS and bargaining unit policies, guidelines are followed in administering progressive, corrective action principles and union contracts are followed in addressing employee performance problems.

• Provides effective verbal presentation skills that show preparation, research and delivery scaled for small, large, and diverse groups.

Operations and Customer Service:

• Develops and collaborates on short- and long-range goals for unit programming.

• Works as a partner with ICA dietetic staff in development of programming and menus.

• Directs staff on dining operation policies and procedures.

• Maintains consistent and responsive communication with ICA stakeholders, athletic teams, and UW Dining administration.

• Maintains proper controls over resources, including inventory and labor.

• Manages inventory from ordering to utilization, including purchasing, receipt, storage, payment processing, production, and service.

• Monitors attendance and adjusts staffing to meet daily production needs.

•Establishes and ensures that inventory par levels are maintained to minimize waste; manage the documentation and disposal of waste.

• Ensures that food prep and storage areas are in clean and orderly condition and meet health department standards.

• Identifies and corrects unsafe conditions, such as poor equipment or work habits that might lead to an accident.

• Utilizes the Online Accident Reporting System (OARS) for every work accident and injury, notifying appropriate authorities and personnel.

• Works with ICA dietitians and athletic teams in planning special events.

Fiscal Management:

• Monitors performance of products, services, and programs, and collaborates with vendors to make adjustments as necessary.

• Contributes to the unit’s business plan and budget in collaboration with UW Dining leadership.

• Monitors and reviews reports, including financial statements, production records, staffing schedules and inquiries from the HFS Financial team.

• Actively reviews business and financial data and proactively implements cost controls.

• Investigates probable causes for budget variances or discrepancies and makes appropriate adjustments.

• Ensures that there are appropriate controls on resources, including separation of controls between purchasing, receiving and counting inventory.

Culinary Focus and Results:

• Develops recipes, sources, creates, and executes high-performance menus for all athlete, and coach meals, with a focus on local, nutrient-dense, high-quality foods to optimize health, performance, and recovery.

• Trains staff in food preparation, production, and display.

• Designs and implements quality control measures to insure consistent taste, presentation, and food safety.

• Ensures that displays and presentations of food are attractive, including appropriate labels and signage.

• Monitors performance indicators for production, quality and service and intervenes when necessary to ensure goals are met.

• Develops and implements new concepts and products that align with customer needs, as well as the promotion of ICA activities and events.

• Keeps up with dining trends and communicates innovative ideas to the leadership team.

Supervision:

• Interviews and selects staff and ensures that staff are on-boarded to the work unit and attend required HFS and UW-required training.

• Supervises the work completed by direct reports, ensuring appropriate productivity, quality, customer service and adherence to UW and departmental policies and procedures.

• Provides guidance to direct reports on requirements and/or opportunities for learning and professional development.

• Engages, when necessary, in performance management of employees within the organization.

• Prepares and conducts ongoing and timely performance appraisals for all employees, providing proper performance-based feedback.

CBORD:

• Under the general direction of the Campus Executive Chef, support the recipe input and validation process for CBORD FSS. This may include drafting recipes following established format and process, answering clarifying questions for Dining Systems team, and performing or facilitating production testing for accuracy.

• Perform periodic reviews of system data and reports related to recipe costing and production methods to inform decisions related to menu, recipe and pricing changes. Work with Dining Systems team to make updates to system data.

• Review current system data and reports to inform decisions on vendor and product selection.

• Run and/or review system reports to analyze KPIs related to recipe costing, menu mix, and operational compliance with recipe specifications and/or established purchasing practices.

• Participate with ICA Dieticians in providing nutrition information for Notemeal.

IMPACT TO THE UNIVERSITY

The athletics dining program provides a high-quality dining experience to University of Washington student-athletes and teams, supporting academic and athletic performance.

WORKING CONDITIONS

This position is expected to maintain regular hours (8am-5pm M-F) during the work week to maximize availability for HFS meetings and to conduct daily business. Additional hours are required to provide a presence and coverage for meal services and events that may occur evenings and weekends.

REPORTS TO

Assistant Director

MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS

• Bachelor’s degree in hospitality and/or a certification by a recognized culinary institution, plus a minimum of Five (5) years of executive chef-level management experience in culinary operations.

Equivalent education/experience will substitute for all minimum qualifications except where there are legal requirements such as license/certification/registration.

ADDITIONAL QUALIFICATIONS

Experience and references must demonstrate:

• Comprehensive understanding of menu item specifics, including but not limited to dietary restrictions, food allergies and tolerances, ingredients, preparation processes, holding and serving temperatures, and HAACP guidelines.

• Leadership experience working within a high-volume seated restaurant, hotel, contract food services, university dining venue, or athletic dining facility.

• Effective execution of cook to order menu items in a restaurant setting.

• Effective expediting on the kitchen and service sides of a restaurant.

• Depth and breadth in concept development, kitchen management, food and labor cost controls, and plating and presentation.

• Effective training and leadership of staff.

• Effective interpersonal, organizational, analytical, communication and problem-solving skills.

• Effective supervision of staff, including training, giving constructive feedback and address performance through progressive, corrective action.

• Proficiency with Microsoft Office, including Word, Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint and Project.

DESIRED QUALIFICATIONS

• Success working in a contemporary college/university dining environment.

• A minimum of three (3) years of experience in a culinary management role within an athletic nutrition setting (ex. professional sports team, collegiate athletic department, or Olympic team setting).