Executive Chef - Senior Living

Lead the Kitchen. Inspire Your Team. Create an Exceptional Dining Experience.

At Heritage Senior Living, dining is more than a meal—it’s an important part of our residents’ daily experience.

We are seeking an experienced, hands-on Executive Chef who is passionate about great food, exceptional service, and leading a successful culinary team. This is an opportunity for a culinary professional who enjoys combining creativity in the kitchen with strong operational leadership while making a meaningful difference in the lives of older adults.

Reporting to the Executive Director, the Executive Chef oversees all aspects of resident dining services, including culinary operations, menu execution, food quality, staffing, training, sanitation, inventory, budgeting, and regulatory compliance.

What You’ll Do

As Executive Chef, you’ll lead the culinary department while remaining actively involved in day-to-day kitchen operations.

Culinary Leadership & Resident Experience

• Lead the preparation and service of high-quality, appealing meals for our residents.
• Oversee food preparation, production, presentation, portioning, and service.
• Ensure meals are prepared according to established recipes, menus, nutritional standards, and resident dietary needs.
• Maintain Heritage Senior Living’s established menu cycle and nutritional program.
• Bring creativity to the dining experience by staying current with culinary techniques, presentation ideas, and industry trends.
• Conduct daily dining room table touches to connect with residents, gather feedback, and ensure satisfaction.
• Partner with other departments to support celebrations, activities, special events, and other community experiences.

Team Leadership

• Hire, train, coach, supervise, and develop culinary team members.
• Provide clear direction and accountability to kitchen employees and culinary leadership.
• Educate team members on food preparation, service standards, ingredients, allergies, therapeutic diets, sanitation, and safe food-handling practices.
• Manage employee performance and address performance or disciplinary concerns when necessary.
• Create a positive, professional, and service-focused kitchen environment.
• Maintain appropriate staffing levels while effectively managing labor and payroll expenses.

Food Safety & Compliance

• Maintain the highest standards for food safety, sanitation, and infection control.
• Ensure compliance with applicable Heritage Senior Living policies and local, state, and federal requirements.
• Follow HACCP, ServSafe, FIFO, day-dot labeling, food temperature, and safe food-handling practices.
• Monitor food temperatures throughout preparation, production, holding, and service.
• Ensure special diets and physician-ordered dietary requirements are followed appropriately.
• Maintain required food, equipment, sanitation, cleaning, in-service, OSHA, and compliance logs.
• Ensure kitchen and food-service areas remain clean, organized, sanitary, and inspection-ready.
• Maintain required emergency food supplies.

Operations & Financial Management

• Purchase food, beverages, and supplies through approved vendors and established ordering processes.
• Manage inventory levels, product rotation, and purchasing using historical data and forecasting.
• Monitor food costs, portions, waste, and other expenses to maintain established per-person-per-day (PPD) budgets.
• Manage labor costs and staffing within established budgets.
• Maintain accurate department records and complete required monthly reports.
• Monitor kitchen equipment and coordinate maintenance and repairs when necessary.
• Oversee dinnerware, linens, seating, and other dining supplies to ensure they are maintained appropriately.
• Participate in food committee/panel meetings, including scheduling, facilitating discussions, and maintaining meeting minutes.

Community Leadership

• Serve as an active member of the community leadership team.
• Participate in leadership and care coordination meetings as needed.
• Collaborate with nursing, life enrichment, administration, and other departments to support resident needs.
• Respond to resident feedback and continuously look for opportunities to improve the dining experience.

What We’re Looking For

We’re looking for a culinary leader who can balance great food with great leadership.

The ideal Executive Chef is organized, dependable, creative, financially responsible, and comfortable leading from the kitchen—not just from an office. You should enjoy developing employees, solving problems, interacting with residents, and creating a dining program your team can be proud of.

Qualifications include:

• High school diploma or GED.
• At least three years of kitchen management experience or two years of experience in the production of an institutional food-service program.
• Current ServSafe certification or equivalent food manager certification accepted by the applicable state.
• Strong knowledge of culinary techniques, food preparation, sanitation, and infection-control practices.
• Knowledge of FIFO practices and appropriate food labeling and rotation procedures.
• Experience with P&L accountability, budgeting, food-cost management, and labor-cost calculations.
• Previous experience hiring, training, supervising, and managing employee performance.
• Strong leadership and interpersonal skills with the ability to successfully manage a diverse team.
• Excellent organizational, time-management, problem-solving, and decision-making skills.
• Strong customer-service orientation and professional communication skills.
• Willingness and ability to learn and follow therapeutic diets and nutritional programs.
• Knowledge of current culinary, restaurant, and food-service trends.
• Creativity and a passion for delivering an excellent dining experience.

Senior living, healthcare, hospitality, restaurant, or institutional food-service experience is especially valuable.

Schedule

The Executive Chef is a hands-on leadership position and requires flexibility based on the needs of the residents, culinary department, and community. The position generally works within daytime operational hours but may require additional hours, weekends, holidays, or special-event coverage based on community needs.

Why Heritage Senior Living?

At Heritage Senior Living, you’ll have the opportunity to do more than manage a kitchen.

You’ll lead a team, shape the dining experience, build relationships with residents, and create meals that residents genuinely look forward to each day.

If you’re an experienced culinary leader who believes great food, strong leadership, and exceptional service belong at the same table, we’d love to meet you.

Apply today and bring your culinary leadership to Heritage Senior Living.

Essential Functions & Reasonable Accommodation

This position requires the ability to perform the essential functions of the job, with or without reasonable accommodation. The role requires regular communication with prospective residents, families, referral partners, and team members; use of computers and CRM systems; community tours; participation in outreach activities and events; and regular travel throughout the local market.

Regular and reliable attendance and the ability to travel as required are essential functions of the position.

Reasonable accommodations may be available to qualified individuals with disabilities to enable them to perform the essential functions of the position.

Heritage Senior Living is an Equal Opportunity Employer.

#IND