Restaurant Operations Specialist

Northwestern Mutual•Milwaukee, WI

10d•Onsite

About The Position

Responsible for implementing and maintaining data and related restaurant technology projects to support restaurant vision. Utilize hospitality knowledge and experience in food research and development, food marketing, training, customer engagement initiatives e.g., test kitchens, vendor collaboration with GFS (culinary trainings) and marketing & communication/brand efforts. Assist team leaders and management in workflows, production capabilities, food safety practices, financials, and customer experience efforts.

Requirements

2 Year Degree with a concentration in Culinary Arts or Food Science/Food Technology/closely related scientific discipline or Minimum 5 years’ experience in culinary product development & menu strategy.
Experience preferred: Restaurant marketing, research and development, and food and beverage systems.
Provide technical support to ensure effective and efficient production flow.
Support assigned projects that include the use of food management software information, including but not limited to inventory projects, signage, DC (Digital Commons) Slack and marketing efforts.
Ability to work collaboratively with internal and external stakeholders, leaders to align strategy and ensure excellence in execution.
Stay current with dining trends and customer expectations.
Excellent people skills for building healthy relations with external vendors, internal stakeholders, and NM customers.
Excellent ability to manage multiple tasks, changing focus as needed.
Proven ability to navigate pressure scenarios in fast paced food service environment.
Experience in creating food calendars, survey tools, branded signage/videos (for restaurant digital kiosks), ppts, food costs/financial graphs & charts etc.
Initiative-taker, with minimal supervision
Attention to Detail: Focuses on specific details to spot and correct errors in advance of them being found and surpass quality expectations. Performs work with thorough proofreading for presentation, content, accuracy, and overall quality.
Customer Service Mindset: Anticipates customer needs and applies understanding of customer needs or perspectives to solve problems and drive outcomes as the basis for decision making. Leverages knowledge of trends affecting customer to help them make informed decisions.
Teamwork: Engages in others' behaviors to generate strong team cohesion and orientation. Facilitates open dialogue within and across teams to create trust and understanding. Shares collective successes and opportunities to improve as a group.

Responsibilities

Support data of ingredients and recipes while supporting the process of research and developing menu items that can meet established requirements.
Partner with culinary teams throughout innovation process, including concept/ideation, product development, in marketing testing before approving and entering system.
Working knowledge of current food service platform (Cbord) related to food cost, inventory management cost allocation, etc., to provide reporting to restaurant leadership and data for others to make decisions in their daily work.
Accountable for supporting financial targets, menu design, recipe development, forecasting and product specification.
Partner with CEE comms team to create educational & marketing materials for our customers that are aligned with the enterprise brand guidelines.
Function as an escalation point for all Cbord questions/inquiries concerns that may arise.
Function as the lead Cbord trainer across the team level.
Partner closely with restaurant leadership & stakeholders (business ops team) to review financial data, and food vendor information.
Function as the project lead for the restaurant sustainability program and data collection.
Coordinate with restaurant management and the senior director of sustainability to identify challenges, needs, and opportunities strengthening our food waste program and sustainable efforts.
Coordinate, plan and document restaurant meetings and internal activities.
Responsible for gathering data from variety of sources, analyzing, and interpreting complex problems and utilizing effective decision-making skills to deliver sound business solutions.
Proactively communicate restaurant success stories, insights, survey feedback, and test kitchen results, to help strengthen restaurant program (brand).
Function as the restaurant subject matter expert on all marketing and communication efforts.