Founding School Chef

Overview

Strive Charter School is seeking a Founding School Chef to design and lead a modern, scratch-based school food program from the ground up. This is not a restaurant job and not a warming-kitchen role. It is a systems-oriented cooking position for someone excited by constraints, batch cooking, and thoughtful process design — and who believes children deserve real food prepared with care.

The Kitchen You’ll Be Working In

Our kitchen is intentionally designed around modern, all-electric equipment
, not gas or open flame. You will cook primarily with:

• combi ovens (steam / convection / mixed)
• convection ovens
• steamers
• electric kettles and braisers
• limited induction
• batch cooking, hot holding, and retherm systems

If your culinary identity depends on a sauté station, this role will feel frustrating.

If you’re curious about what can be done without one
, you’ll have unusual freedom here.

You will design and operate the food program for a new elementary school, including:

• creating breakfast and lunch menus that are scratch-based, nutritionally sound, and genuinely appealing to children
• engineering cooking processes, not just recipes — including batch sizing, timing, holding, and reheating
• prototyping and refining dishes before launch
• building calm, repeatable workflows that work every day
• training and supervising kitchen staff with an emphasis on clarity and dignity
• collaborating with school leadership on schedule, service flow, and culture

This role values consistency and care over theatrics
.

You will help invent a replicable model of modern school cooking that is humane for staff, realistic for institutions, and genuinely nourishing for children. You’ll work sane hours aligned with a school calendar, with real influence over how food fits into the life of a school.

You may come from institutional cooking, commissary kitchens, food startups, or another environment where process matters. Formal pedigree matters less than how you think.

• enjoys working within real constraints
• is curious about equipment and workflow
• respects children as diners
• does not equate “real cooking” with fire
• prefers calm systems to adrenaline
• takes pride in food that is quietly, reliably good

• you need a gas range to feel like a chef
• you dislike batch cooking
• you see school food as a step down
• you want nightly menu improvisation
• you’re uninterested in designing systems others can run

We respect those paths — this just isn’t that job.