Porter's Fried Chicken is building a modern fried chicken brand with the goal of delivering exceptional food, consistency, and hospitality while creating systems that can scale as the company grows.
We are seeking an experienced R&D Executive Chef / Culinary Director to take ownership of the culinary side of the brand. This person will work directly with the founder to develop and maintain the food standards, kitchen systems, team, and future menu of Porter s Fried Chicken.
The ideal candidate is not simply looking to run a kitchen. We are looking for someone who wants to help build a restaurant brand from the ground up and take pride in creating food and operational standards that can eventually be replicated across multiple locations.
Key Responsibilities
Culinary Leadership & Food Quality
- Take ownership of the taste, quality, texture, crunch, presentation, and consistency of all food served.
- Refine recipes, cooking methods, preparation procedures, and holding standards to achieve a consistently high-quality product.
- Establish clear culinary standards so that products can be executed consistently regardless of who is working in the kitchen.
- Maintain strict standards for freshness, food safety, cleanliness, portioning, and presentation.
- Identify opportunities to improve recipes and processes without compromising product quality.
Kitchen Operations
- Oversee day-to-day kitchen operations and ensure the kitchen operates efficiently and professionally.
- Develop prep procedures, recipes, portion standards, production schedules, opening/closing procedures, and kitchen systems.
- Work with ownership to determine appropriate equipment, kitchen organization, and workflow.
- Monitor inventory, waste, yields, purchasing, and product usage.
- Maintain a clean, organized, safe, and inspection-ready kitchen.
Food Cost & Profitability
- Manage food cost while maintaining the quality standards of the Porter s brand.
- Establish accurate recipe costing, portion controls, yields, and waste controls.
- Work directly with ownership to evaluate ingredient costs, suppliers, pricing, and product profitability.
- Identify opportunities to improve margins through better purchasing, preparation, portioning, and kitchen efficiency.
Hiring, Training & Team Development
- Work alongside ownership to recruit, interview, hire, and build the opening kitchen team.
- Train kitchen employees on recipes, cooking procedures, food safety, cleanliness, speed, and quality standards.
- Develop training materials and systems that can eventually be used to train teams at future locations.
- Build a kitchen culture centered around accountability, consistency, teamwork, cleanliness, and pride in the food.
Research & Development
- Lead culinary R&D and future menu development for Porter s Fried Chicken.
- Develop, test, cost, and operationalize new menu items and limited-time promotions.
- Help create products that are not only great tasting, but also practical to execute consistently in a fast-paced restaurant environment.
- Work with ownership on new product launches approximately every 3 6 months.
- Review product sales, food cost, customer response, and operational performance with ownership to determine whether products should be improved, continued, or discontinued.
- Balance creativity with simplicity, scalability, speed of service, and profitability.
Opening Menu & Future Growth
Porter s will initially launch with a focused menu centered around fried chicken and a select group of sides. Our philosophy is to start focused, execute exceptionally well, and expand strategically.
As the brand grows, the R&D Executive Chef will play an important role in developing new products, promotions, and menu categories while ensuring every addition meets our standards for quality, profitability, and operational simplicity.
Who We're Looking For
We are looking for someone who:
- Has strong culinary leadership and kitchen management experience.
- Understands fried chicken, breading/battering systems, frying, seasoning, holding, and high-volume production.
- Has experience with recipe development and menu R&D.
- Understands food cost, inventory, waste, yields, labor efficiency, and restaurant profitability.
- Can build systems and standards rather than relying solely on personal cooking ability.
- Is comfortable hiring, training, managing, and holding a kitchen team accountable.
- Understands how to create food that can be reproduced consistently every day.
- Is highly organized, detail-oriented, hands-on, and quality-driven.
- Can work collaboratively with an entrepreneurial founder and contribute ideas while understanding the business objectives of the brand.
- Is excited about the opportunity to help build a concept with long-term growth potential.
The Opportunity
This is an opportunity to become an important part of Porter s Fried Chicken at an early stage and have a meaningful influence on the food, kitchen culture, operating systems, and future menu of the company.
Our goal is to build Porter s with the professionalism, consistency, and operational discipline expected from a major restaurant brand while maintaining the product quality and attention to detail of a chef-driven concept.
We are looking for someone who wants to take genuine ownership of the culinary side of the business and help us build something that can grow well beyond a single restaurant.