Food Service Kitchen Manager

Join SSA Group at the North Carolina Zoo as a Kitchen Manager 🍽️ and help shape the guest experience through strong leadership and operational excellence. You’ll oversee kitchen operations, support and develop BOH teams, and ensure every service reflects SSA’s commitment to quality, safety, and hospitality ⭐✅

Kitchen Manager

Food Service Operations Manager(s) and Executive Chef

For more than 50 years, SSA has partnered with cultural attractions to design the hospitality experience journey, freeing our partners to remain mission-focused. We bring together admissions, culinary, and retail with innovation and human connection to shape a seamless guest journey. Our focus is on people, innovation, and operational intelligence as a means to create special moments with lasting impact. We call it 452 Hospitality, the foundation of how we serve our partners and their communities.

• Live out 452 Hospitality by delivering warm, welcoming, and memorable experiences for every guest and client.
• Ensure restaurant is adequately prepped and staffed (BOH) for daily operation.
• Oversees location kitchen duties, ensuring quick service, food service, safety and quality, availability, merchandising, and guest service standards are all met and exceeded.
• Oversight of safety logs, including food temperatures, rotation, and waste.
• Ensures proper uniform, hygiene, handwashing, and glove use with staff.
• Responsible for supporting SSAfety training with knife handling skills, ensuring all direct reports display proper use of knife and slicers.
• Creates daily prep and items lists, delegating to employees as necessary.
• Actively helps to support operations and fill holes as necessary to ensure smooth service.
• Maintains a checklist of routine or daily cleaning tasks and ongoing projects or menu planning.
• Assigns associates to duties, coaching through projects daily tasks and guest interaction.
• Actively and efficiently responds to guest and client feedback, with report to the operations manager to ensure that any potential complaints are mitigate against further occurrence.
• Oversees personnel duties, including but not limited to:
• Training new employees and issuing performance reviews.
• Actively managing and issuing progressive documentation to coach and counsel the employee on performance with oversight from operations manager.
• Reports employee attendance and any hour discrepancies to the payroll department. Oversees break and rest break management for BOH employees.
• Inspects equipment and performs routine maintenance and cleaning as necessary.
• Assists team to ensure all tasks are completed in a timely manner through helping complete daily tasks as necessary.
• Communicates up to the Regional Executive Chef and Food Service Operations Manager in regard to any issues seen with daily service or quality.
• Works directly with restaurant supervisor(s) to ensure respective locations are operating to standard.
• Remains knowledgeable of and supervises in accordance with all applicable local, state and federal laws.
• Perform other tasks as deemed necessary.
• Maintain a clean, safe and organized work environment.
• Uphold and demonstrate a complete understanding of company policies and procedures.

• Strong interpersonal and communication skills, including the ability to articulate to our General Manager and personnel.
• Proven leadership skills with an understanding of the importance of team building/development, while fostering partnerships with other branch managers.
• Exceptional problem solving/decision making skills combined with the ability to be organized.
• Demonstrates multi-tasking, detail, analytical, planning and leadership skills.
• Demonstrates the ability to remain flexible in a fast-paced environment.
• Ideal candidate is a team player, personable, professional, upbeat and energetic, takes initiative, uses tact and diplomacy.
• Computer knowledge and skill level for basic office functions.
• Physical ability to stand for extended periods and to move and handle boxes (10-35lbs) as necessary to operation, which entails lifting, and perform all functions as set forth above.
• Ability to work varied hours/days, including…