24/06/2021
LINECOOKS
Line cooks are the mighty force that keeps a restaurant running. Their skill set, passion for great food, and dedication to the team are what makes things work in any hot, sweaty, stressful restaurant kitchen. We’d be screwed without them. We kind of are.
As the restaurant industry faces a serious labor shortage, hiring for back-of-house roles has never been harder. Today, the promise of even a 25 cent increase in pay from another restaurant could be enough to lose a great line cook to the competition.
What Makes a Great Line Cook?
A great line cook is responsible, passionate, and reliable. They can handle pressure and, in fact, thrive on it. The busier, hotter, and more demanding service gets, the more they step up their game.
At a basic level, you need a line cook you can count on to show up. If a cook shows up late or misses prep, someone else will need to cover their work, delaying the entire kitchen’s flow. Reliability is one of the toughest challenges in retaining great kitchen staff right now, and it’s often related to pay, benefits, and working conditions. Read more on that in our retention section.
Line cooks need to be organized and clean. When the tickets start coming in, they need to be able to focus on the food without worrying about chopping up their mise en place. The last thing you want a line cook to be doing during the rush is scrambling around to get clean dishes.
And more than anything, it’s a win if you can find a line cook who cares deeply about the experience they’re creating for people through food. This type of drive will motivate anyone to get through a demanding shift.
Depending on your ability to ramp up and train your staff, you might be okay hiring a line cook with less of a skill set who’s more of a behavioral fit for the team. If you’re short on staff and need to fill a seat ASAP, you’ll need a line cook with excellent knife skills or experience working multiple fryers. But if you’ve got the ability to provide skills training, you can focus on hiring for long-term fit over existing skills. To figure this out, talk to your current kitchen team. Ask them about the gaps on the line right now, the skills needed to fill them, and which skills they’d rather train for.
Line cook skills.
Skills you might advertise in a line cook job description include the ability to: Keep a professional attitude under pressure
Work in a fast-paced environment while keeping to deadlines and with precision
Be consistent in preparation, cooking, and presentation skills
Displays soft skills, such as listening, empathy, and self-awareness
Show speciality skills related to their station