Pastry Chef

Position Profile: Pastry Chef (Café + Catering)

Reports to: Executive Chef

Daily Chew | Atlanta, GA

The Pastry Chef leads all things pastry and baked goods at Daily Chew — across our café and growing catering program. This role blends creativity and leadership, overseeing daily production, managing a small pastry team, and collaborating closely with ownership to keep our menus fresh, efficient, and inspired.

You’ll help shape what Daily Chew tastes like — from morning pastries and desserts to signature catering displays — while maintaining consistency, quality, and a calm, organized kitchen.

Key Responsibilities & Performance Deliverables1. Café & Pastry Production

• Oversee daily pastry production for café and catering, ensuring all items are prepared to brand standards for quality, taste, and presentation.
• Maintain consistency in portioning and presentation across all outlets (less than 2 quality-related guest complaints per month).
• Develop and manage production schedules to align with service needs and minimize waste.
• Maintain food waste below 10% of total pastry production.
• Develop systems to manage waste and adjust accordingly to business flow
• Ensure proper recipe documentation and scaling for consistent output between team members.
• Oversee pastry inventory and maintain accurate weekly counts to prevent shortages or overstocking.
• Monitor par levels and oversee ingredient ordering in coordination with Executive Chef
• Maintain food cost within approved budget range.
• Maintain compliance with health, safety, and sanitation standards.

2. Team Leadership

• Supervise, train, and mentor the baking and pastry production team , providing clear direction, feedback, and growth opportunities.
• Conduct monthly check-ins and quarterly evaluations for team members.
• Hire for positions as the program grows and keep labor in line with company goals
• Delegate daily production tasks to ensure efficiency and accountability.
• Foster a positive, solutions-driven kitchen culture that prioritizes communication and collaboration across café and catering teams.
• Maintain low staff turnover and high internal satisfaction scores.

3. Menu Development, Costing & Collaboration

• Collaborate with the Owners and Executive Chef to develop, test, and implement new pastries, desserts, and breads for both café and catering menus.
• Deliverable: Submit and review seasonal menu updates (minimum 4x per year).
• Create and maintain standardized recipes with accurate costing and yield calculations to ensure consistency profitability.
• Maintain pastry program profitability within target margins.
• Contribute to menu innovation in all channels of the business - cafe, catering displays, dessert buffets, and plated events that reflect the brand’s creativity and seasonal direction.
• Track ingredient costs and adjust recipes or portion sizes in collaboration with ownership to maintain financial goals.

4. Catering Production & Execution

• Plan and execute catering pastry production (breakfast pastries, dessert platters, mini sweets, etc.) according to event BEOs and timelines.
• Performance Metric: 100% on-time completion of catering orders with no missed items.
• Support event setup, packaging, and presentation standards for catering deliveries.
• Develop and document scalable catering pastry items that maintain quality throughout storage, transport and service.
• Deliverable: Maintain catering pastry product guide with photos, recipes, SOPs and portioning specs.
• Collaborate with Chef + Owners to align production capacity and event flow.
• Enhance and develop catering offerings and menu options

Qualifications

• Minimum 3–5 years professional baking/pastry experience, including supervisory or lead role.
• Demonstrated experience with both café service and catering production.
• Strong understanding of recipe development, costing, and inventory control.
• Excellent organizational and time management skills, with the ability to multitask across café and catering operations.
• Creative and collaborative mindset with a passion for seasonal, high-quality baking.
• Microsoft Suite + Google Doc Proficiency
• Communicate through Slack