Company description

For the last 17 years, Chef Spike Gjerde has been operating Woodberry Kitchen and a restaurant group built around an approach that asks: “What is the best way to feed ourselves?” One part of the answer is to use the purchasing power of restaurants to support regenerative agriculture on small farms in the Mid-Atlantic, crucially diverting dollars from an industrialized commodity agriculture industry that causes environmental harm.

Spike has developed relationships with farmers and watermen throughout the Chesapeake Bay watershed, and each restaurant writes menus driven by the bounty available from farms in season. The approach won Spike and Woodberry Kitchen a James Beard award for Best Chef, Mid-Atlantic, still the only restaurant in Baltimore to hold that award. The team at Woodberry Kitchen opened a large-scale canning operation, a diner, a neighborhood bar, a whole-animal butchery, and three coffee shops, along with a DC-based hotel restaurant and banquet operation– all animated by a desire to maximize purchasing from local farms and meaningfully impact our local food system. While the Covid-19 Pandemic closed many of those operations, Woodberry Kitchen and Artifact Coffee continue to operate in the Hampden-Woodberry neighborhood of Baltimore. Our company is growing again, close to purchasing $1MM in food from growers annually.

Job description

As we grow, we are looking for exceptional managers to join our team of hospitality professionals focused on executing food & beverage operations with high standards. Successful managers in our company are excellent with building & coaching teams, model empathy in service, communicate well with the owner and other managers, build systems that support productive work, and maintain our spaces with a high level of organization and care.

If you have experience managing restaurants, coffee shops, and/or retail– particularly in environments with a thoughtful approach around ingredients and quality– we want to hear from you! 

There is also plenty of room for growth in our company as we continue to explore the potential of Woodberry's approach across Baltimore.

Responsibilities:

-Recruit, hire, & train team members with a focus on getting the right person in the right role, then provide ongoing coaching and development for each individual

-Manage product & menus including beverage menus, services. Ensure our menus satisfy guest demand and reflect our sourcing.

-Become versed in our sourcing and an advocate of it with guests and teams.

-Manage daily services including in-service oversight, thoughtful touches, and ensuring guests are ecstatically happy.

-Use business metrics from our financial reporting to inform your decisions around labor cost and COGS, managing to established margins and looking for ways to improve results.

-Follow company procedures and policies, along with HR guidance and local employment laws.

-Participate in weekly manager meetings, presenting fully thought out improvements for approval and updates.

Qualifications:

-Experience managing a business & teams

-Energy and presence of a leader

-Ability to communicate effectively verbally & over email

-Ability to work shifts on your feet for 8+ hours, and lift 50 pounds

-Food & beverage knowledge

 

Compensation commensurate with experience.

Compensation

this position is: salaried, varies DOE, $60,000.00 - $85,000.00

Application instructions

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Deadline

January 31, 2025