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?”
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

We are in search of an experienced Pastry Chef/Baker to join the team at Woodberry Kitchen, working with local grains and flours along with in-season fruits from growers. This is an advanced management role with growth opportunities.

This role is production focused with an ability to batch and delegate tasks to team members, write prep lists, and keep kitchen efficiency at its best. The pastry kitchen at Woodberry supports the fine dining restaurant, the private events business, and Artifact Coffee with breads, pastries, savory production, desserts, and cakes. 

This role works closely with Chef-Owner Spike Gjerde and Culinary Director Steven Kenny, along with Sous Chefs and Managers responsible for each departments across the two locations.

Responsibilities:
-Write prep lists according to needs of the restaurant, events business, and cafe. Delegate tasks to team members ensuring productivity, quality, and working to high standards of execution.

Ensure on-time delivery for all products including cafe service readiness in the AM, events, and restaurant services.

-Communicate effectively with Sous Chefs, Managers, Event Sales Team, Owner, Culinary Director, and Business Operations Director resulting in operational efficiency.

-Produce all products according to established recipes, working with variable farm products and ensuring quality always meets standards. Be responsive to guest feedback and direction from
Culinary Director and Owner.

-Own recipe development according to seasonal adjustments provided by Culinary Director and Owner. Have mise en place ready and recipe testing according to plan, along with owning
documentation and replication of new recipes.

-Seek constant improvement in quality and efficiency.

Growth Plan:
-As we grow our company, there will be additional units that will need Baking & Pastry production management. This is a key area for growth for this role.

Qualifications:
-2+ years working in a professional pastry kitchen
-Production kitchen & restaurant kitchen experience preferred
-Technical skills including scaling recipes, mixing, prep planning, baking, bread workflow, cake assembly, and lamination
-Leadership experience preferred

Compensation commensurate with experience. Room for growth in the role as the company grows to more units and addition of broader scope of baking & pastry throughout the company.

Full time benefits including health, dental, vision, and HSA coverage.

Compensation

this position is: salaried, 50k-75k

Application instructions

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Deadline

March 31, 2025