Chef

Athenian Grill - North Locust Hill; Knoxville (TN); On-site; USD 70,000 - 100,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Salary 70k–100k

Growth opportunity

Direct ownership

Employee meals

Job summary

Athenian Hospitality Group in Knoxville, TN is seeking an experienced Chef to lead our kitchen in a hands-on, results-driven role. You will own the back of house, guide the team, manage food cost, and ensure top-tier quality and consistency across every plate.

You will develop seasonal menus, monitor inventory, train cooks, and uphold safety standards, while collaborating closely with ownership. This full-time, salaried position offers growth and direct impact on the restaurant's success.

Qualifications

• Proven experience as a Chef, Executive Chef, Sous Chef, or Kitchen Manager in a high-volume kitchen
• Strong command of food cost, inventory, ordering, and labor management
• Demonstrated ability to hire, train, and retain kitchen staff
• ServSafe certification (or ability to obtain)
• Ability to work nights, weekends, and holidays as business requires
• Scratch cooking background preferred; Mediterranean/Greek cuisine experience is a plus but not required

Responsibilities

• Lead the kitchen during service, expediting and maintaining high standards
• Ensure quality and consistency of every plate with written recipes and plating standards
• Develop seasonal menu ideas with cost and yield analysis
• Manage costs with inventory, ordering, waste tracking, and vendor relationships
• Hire, train, and develop the kitchen team for long-term performance
• Enforce health, safety, and sanitation standards

Skills

Kitchen leadership

Food cost control

Inventory management

Staff training

Attention to safety

Education

ServSafe certification

Job description

Chef
Athenian Hospitality Group — Knoxville, TN
Full-Time, Salaried | $70,000–$100,000/year

Athenian Hospitality Group is hiring an experienced Chef to lead our Knoxville kitchen. This is a hands-on leadership role with full ownership of the back of house — the food, the team, and the numbers.

Kitchen Leadership

You run the kitchen. That means setting the pace during service, expediting when it gets deep, and making the call when something goes sideways — a callout, a walk-in that fails overnight, a rush that arrives forty-five minutes early. Your crew takes its temperature from you, so composure under volume isn't a bonus here, it's the core of the job. When you're off, the kitchen should still run to your standard, because you built it that way.

Food Quality & Consistency

Every plate leaving the pass is yours. You set specs for portion, seasoning, temperature, and presentation, and you check them — not just on slow nights. Consistency is what turns a good meal into a returning guest, and it comes from written recipes, clear plate builds, and a chef who tastes throughout the shift instead of assuming.

Menu Development

You bring ideas and you cost them before they hit the board. That means seasonal specials, smarter cross-utilization so one product feeds three dishes, and prep methods that hold quality without adding hours. A good chef can look at a dish and tell you the food cost, the yield, and how it will hold up on a Saturday at peak.

Cost & Inventory Control

Ordering to par, receiving and checking every delivery, running inventory on schedule, and tracking waste daily. You manage food cost and labor against sales and can explain any movement in either — which product, which shift, which decision. Vendor relationships are part of this: you know your prices and you notice when they change.

Team Building & Training

You hire, train, schedule, and develop cooks. The measure of a chef isn't the food they can produce alone — it's the cooks they build who can produce it without them. That means teaching technique and the reason behind it, correcting in the moment without blowing up the line, and giving people a path forward so they stay.

Safety & Sanitation

Health code standards, temperature logs, dating and labeling, allergen protocol, and a clean, organized kitchen — every shift, not the morning of an inspection. Coolers organized, stations broken down properly, and a team that follows the standard because you've made it normal.

Requirements

• Proven experience as a Chef, Executive Chef, Sous Chef, or Kitchen Manager in a high-volume kitchen
• Strong command of food cost, inventory, ordering, and labor management
• Demonstrated ability to hire, train, and retain kitchen staff
• ServSafe certification (or ability to obtain)
• Ability to work nights, weekends, and holidays as business requires
• Scratch cooking background preferred; Mediterranean/Greek cuisine experience is a plus but not required

What We Offer

• $70,000–$100,000 annually, based on experience
• Growth opportunity with an expanding company
• Direct working relationship with ownership
• Employee meals

Athenian Hospitality Group is an equal opportunity employer.