Kitchen Assistant - Partial Year

RISD - Rhode Island School of Design; Burlington (VT); On-site; USD 21,000 - 26,000; Part time

Job summary

RISD’s Dining department seeks a Kitchen Assistant to support back-of-house operations, prepare ingredients, maintain cleanliness, and assist with kitchen activities across pizza, salad bars, bakery, commissary, and catering areas. This customer-facing role emphasizes portion control, service logistics, and teamwork in a fast-paced campus dining environment.

The position is part-time, temp, with essential duties in food prep, storage, and service.

Qualifications

• High school diploma or equivalent.
• Prior experience in food service is preferred.
• Knowledge of kitchen sanitation and safety guidelines necessary.
• Ability to produce desired results in a very busy kitchen environment.
• Must be able to follow recipes and instructions.
• Effective oral and written communication skills.
• Demonstrates basic math skills and the ability to follow recipes and instructions.
• Must possess good organizational skills and the ability to handle multiple tasks simultaneously.
• Exhibits strong interpersonal skills and the ability to work effectively in a team.

Responsibilities

• Assists in pre-preparation tasks and ingredient gathering.
• Sets up and maintains service areas and stations.
• Restocks kitchen stations with utensils, plates, and supplies.
• Provides professional customer service at service lines and stations.
• Adheres to health and safety procedures and FIFO inventory.
• Supports multiple dining operations as needed.
• Performs other duties as directed.

Skills

Food service experience

Kitchen sanitation

Teamwork

Communication

Basic math

Follow recipes

Education

High school diploma

Job description

Job Summary The Kitchen Assistant position is a floating production and service support role within Dining. They support back-of-house operations with ingredient preparation, maintaining cleanliness and organization of production and storage spaces, and assist with general kitchen-related activities to ensure smooth operation. This is a customer and student-facing role, frequently assigned to kitchen production, serving at service stations or buffet lines, working pizza station, salad bar, commissary and grill.

Essential Functions/Duties

• Daily Operations: Assists in pre-preparation tasks such as gathering mise en place, cleaning, and weighing/measuring and preparing ingredients.
• Prepares items for commissary and catering as assigned.
• Sets up, maintains, and breaks down service areas including bakery, pizza, salad bars, entree stations and serving lines in accordance with checklists and standardized recipes.
• Assists in the pot area and dish room, putting clean equipment away, sweeping/mopping floors, removing trash & compost from production area to designated locations.
• Shift Support: Assist receiver in unloading and putting away deliveries.
• Restocks kitchen stations with necessary utensils, plates, equipment, ingredients and cooking supplies.
• Provide professional, positive customer service when serving customers and students on service lines, playing close attention to established portion sizing and service logistics associated with assigned venue.
• Assist in bake shop, catering, commissary, or front-of-house operations, as assigned.
• Health & Safety: Adheres to all health code procedures including temperature management, personal hygiene, and food safety and sanitation.
• Maintains cleanliness of storerooms, refrigerators, freezers, and all cooking and baking areas and equipment.
• Properly use gloves, cut gloves, and other protective gear as needed.
• Ensures food and dry ingredients in refrigerators, coolers and dry storage areas are rotated according to FIFO.
• Customer Service: Assists in delivering high-quality service and food to customers, responding promptly and accurately to any inquiries or requests.
• Interact with customers in a friendly, attentive and professional manner.
• Business Process: Helps maintain order and organization in food and dry storage areas to ensure smooth kitchen operations.
• Notifies supervisor of any low stock items.
• Workplace Inclusion: Supports a positive work environment by contributing to a team-oriented atmosphere.
• Supports through actions and words a work environment where all, perspectives and circumstances are treated with respect, fairness and dignity.
• Participates in training that focuses on developing skills to build working relationships with people of all group identities, perspectives and circumstances.
• Additional Functions: May assist with deliveries.
• Provides coverage as needed across various dining operations.
• Performs other duties as directed.

Knowledge/Skills/Experience Required

• High school diploma or equivalent.
• Prior experience in food service is preferred.
• Knowledge of kitchen sanitation and safety guidelines necessary.
• Ability to produce desired results in a very busy kitchen environment.
• Must be able to follow recipes and instructions.
• Effective oral and written communication skills.
• Demonstrates basic math skills and the ability to follow recipes and instructions.
• Must possess good organizational skills and the ability to handle multiple tasks simultaneously.
• Exhibits strong interpersonal skills and the ability to work effectively in a team.

Preferred

• Valid driver's license is preferred.
• Multi lingual preferred.

Union: No Work Schedule: All dining and catering staff are considered essential personnel to the school and are therefore required to attend work even when the school is closed.

Employment Status: (Temp, Term, On-call, etc) 9 Month, Part-Time, Non-Exempt Grade: 810NE

Documents Needed to Apply: Resume (Required) Cover Letter (Strongly Preferred)

Salary Grade Structure Incomplete applications will not be considered.

The successful candidate will be required to meet our pre-employment background screening requirements.

RISD recognizes inclusion and belonging as fundamental to its learning and working community and integral to an art and design education. We welcome candidates whose experience has prepared them to contribute to this community and to our commitment to excellence.

RISD is an Equal Opportunity Employer. Employment decisions are made without regard to race, color, religion, sex, age, national origin, disability, veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, genetics, or any other protected characteristic as established by law.

For internal use only - Job Family:Dining - Culinary Rhode Island School of Design is a nonprofit college and museum founded in 1877 in Providence, RI — one of the first art and design schools in the US. Our students engage in rigorous, studio-based learning and liberal arts studies. By cultivating expansive and elastic thinking, RISD equips artists, designers and scholars to generate and challenge the ideas that shape our world. Find out much more about RISD at risd.edu/about.