Director of Culinary/Corporate Chef

Director of Culinary / Corporate Executive Chef

A beloved, decades-old pizza brand with a multi-unit restaurant group and a national frozen retail line is hiring one culinary leader to own both businesses. You'll protect a signature recipe, build what's next and make it repeatable, from the test kitchen to the restaurant line to a co-manufacturing plant. What You'll OwnRecipes and standards. Own the gold standard for dough, sauce, cheese, bake and portioning. Document, train and audit it across restaurants and retail product. Menu development. Lead new items, LTOs and catering from idea to launch, partnering with operations and marketing. Frozen product development. Take products from bench to shelf: formulation, gold standards, plant trials and first-production sign-off with the co-manufacturer. This is a hands-on role, not managing outside resources. Quality. Run regular quality checks in restaurants and on retail product, and fix drift at the source. Food cost. Partner with purchasing and finance on recipe costing, pricing and ingredient or supplier changes. Training and food safety. Build kitchen training and certification, and support allergen, nutrition and labeling accuracy. What You Bring 8+ years in professional kitchens, including 3+ years as Executive Chef, Corporate Chef or Culinary Manager in a multi-unit restaurant company Hands-on bench-to-production experience with a co-manufacturer or plant (scale-up, specs, plant trials) Strong knowledge of dough, fermentation, baking and cheese; pizza or bakery experience is a strong plus A track record of launching menu items across multiple locations Recipe costing and food cost management ServSafe Manager certification (or ability to obtain it), plus working knowledge of HACCP, allergens and labeling Comfort training line cooks, presenting to retail buyers and talking margins with finance