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Restaurant Cook

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All About Restaurant Cooks

Restaurant Cook Job Description Prepare, season, and cook dishes such as soups, meats, vegetables, or desserts in restaurants. May order supplies, keep records and accounts, price items on menu, or plan menu.

Life As a Restaurant Cook

  • Estimate expected food consumption, requisition or purchase supplies, or procure food from storage.
  • Bake breads, rolls, cakes, and pastries.
  • Wash, peel, cut, and seed fruits and vegetables to prepare them for consumption.
  • Ensure freshness of food and ingredients by checking for quality, keeping track of old and new items, and rotating stock.
  • Inspect and clean food preparation areas, such as equipment and work surfaces, or serving areas to ensure safe and sanitary food-handling practices.
  • Keep records and accounts.

What a Restaurant Cook Should Know

Restaurant Cooks state the following job skills are important in their day-to-day work.

Monitoring: Monitoring/Assessing performance of yourself, other individuals, or organizations to make improvements or take corrective action.

Active Listening: Giving full attention to what other people are saying, taking time to understand the points being made, asking questions as appropriate, and not interrupting at inappropriate times.

Speaking: Talking to others to convey information effectively.

Time Management: Managing one’s own time and the time of others.

Critical Thinking: Using logic and reasoning to identify the strengths and weaknesses of alternative solutions, conclusions or approaches to problems.

Coordination: Adjusting actions in relation to others' actions.

Other Restaurant Cook Job Titles

  • Prep Cook (Preparation Cook)
  • Specialty Foods Cook
  • Assistant Cook
  • Grill Cook
  • Fry Cook

Are There Job Opportunities for Restaurant Cooks?

In 2016, there was an estimated number of 1,231,900 jobs in the United States for Restaurant Cook. New jobs are being produced at a rate of 11.8% which is above the national average. The Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts 145,300 new jobs for Restaurant Cook by 2026. The BLS estimates 195,300 yearly job openings in this field.

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The states with the most job growth for Restaurant Cook are Colorado, Utah, and Texas. Watch out if you plan on working in Ohio, West Virginia, or Maine. These states have the worst job growth for this type of profession.

Restaurant Cook Average Salary

The typical yearly salary for Restaurant Cooks is somewhere between $19,420 and $37,630.

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Restaurant Cooks who work in District of Columbia, Washington, or New Jersey, make the highest salaries.

Below is a list of the median annual salaries for Restaurant Cooks in different U.S. states.

State Annual Mean Salary
Alabama $24,080
Alaska $30,230
Arizona $28,330
Arkansas $22,980
California $30,620
Colorado $29,490
Connecticut $30,450
Delaware $27,430
District of Columbia $33,840
Florida $27,740
Georgia $24,280
Hawaii $34,330
Idaho $24,880
Illinois $27,720
Indiana $24,570
Iowa $24,700
Kansas $23,640
Kentucky $22,920
Louisiana $23,230
Maine $28,780
Maryland $28,220
Massachusetts $32,430
Michigan $25,550
Minnesota $29,120
Mississippi $22,340
Missouri $25,180
Montana $25,230
Nebraska $28,280
Nevada $31,960
New Hampshire $29,200
New Jersey $33,200
New Mexico $24,100
New York $30,440
North Carolina $24,950
North Dakota $28,130
Ohio $25,560
Oklahoma $24,000
Oregon $29,340
Pennsylvania $26,510
Rhode Island $30,890
South Carolina $23,680
South Dakota $26,630
Tennessee $24,370
Texas $25,400
Utah $27,350
Vermont $31,180
Virginia $26,590
Washington $32,370
West Virginia $23,520
Wisconsin $25,910
Wyoming $29,750

Tools & Technologies Used by Restaurant Cooks

Although they’re not necessarily needed for all jobs, the following technologies are used by many Restaurant Cooks:

  • Microsoft Excel
  • Microsoft Word
  • Microsoft Office
  • Facebook
  • Inventory management software
  • Menu planning software

Becoming a Restaurant Cook

What kind of Restaurant Cook requirements are there?

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How Long Does it Take to Become a Restaurant Cook?

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Where Restaurant Cooks Are Employed

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The table below shows the approximate number of Restaurant Cooks employed by various industries.

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You May Also Be Interested In…

Those who work as a Restaurant Cook sometimes switch careers to one of these choices:

References:

Image Credit: U.S. Army Europe Images via Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic

More about our data sources and methodologies.

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