Culinary Field Specialist

Upper Crust Food Service•Baton Rouge, LA

4d•Hybrid

About The Position

Upper Crust puts chefs in houses, and we're only as good as the last meal that came out of one of our kitchens. The Culinary Field Specialist is the person who makes sure that meal is a good one, house after house, across a whole subregion. You've cooked. You've run a line, maybe run a kitchen. You know the difference between a chef having an off day and a kitchen that's actually in trouble, and you know how to tell them apart fast. This job has you in the kitchens most of the week, not behind a desk. You're tasting food, watching prep, jumping on the line if someone's in the weeds, and talking a chef through a rough stretch like someone who's been there. There's real coordination work underneath all of that schedules, staffing, and vendors but it's there to make the cooking easier, not to replace it. If you want to run your own subregion as an Area Manager someday, this is how people earn that job here: kitchen by kitchen, not spreadsheet by spreadsheet.

Requirements

Real time in a kitchen, a line cook, sous chef, kitchen manager, chef. Ideally with some experience leading others or working across more than one site.
A palate you trust and an eye that catches what's off before someone has to tell you.
Patience to teach and the backbone to hold a standard, sometimes in the same conversation.
Enough organizational instinct to run a schedule and fix a broken sauce in the same afternoon.
A level head when a kitchen needs help right now, not next week.
The range to talk technique with a chef at 6 AM and give a partner a calm update at 10 AM.
A willingness to be on the road within your subregion. This job lives in the kitchens, not in an inbox.
A real interest in building a career in culinary field leadership, not just passing through.

Responsibilities

Get into the houses in your subregion regularly and taste the food, watch the line, see how prep is actually going, not just whether a checklist got signed.
Talk to chefs like a chef would. Coach technique, menu execution, and consistency because you've earned the right to, not because it's your job title.
When something's off on the food safety or quality side, catch it early and help fix it right there instead of writing it up for later.
Be the person a chef actually wants to call when a menu bombs, an ingredient falls through, or a kitchen is running thin and helps them work through it.
When something bigger needs the Area Manager's attention, bring it to them with the context and a fix already in mind.
Solve problems with your chefs, not around them.
Keep schedules across your houses covered so every kitchen has the hands it needs to cook well, every single shift.
Be the first call when a shift falls apart whether a no-show, a call-out, an emergency and make sure a short-staffed day doesn't turn into a lower-quality meal.
Keep a real bench of relief staff you can actually count on, not just a list.
Stay on top of vendors so chefs are cooking with what they ordered, when they need it.
When a new house comes online, get the kitchen itself ready. Equipment, setup, staffing all needed so it opens cooking at Upper Crust standard from day one.
Be the day-to-day contact for on-site partners when something comes up.
Handle the coordination-level stuff yourself; loop in the Area Manager for anything relationship- or contract-related.
Show partners the same care in how you show up that they see on the plate.