Pastry Chef

Three Dog Bakery Houston

We are a locally owned retail bakery for dogs, specializing in all-natural cakes, cookies, and pastries for dogs. We feature a working kitchen on-site and bake treats every day of the week. Our bakery also carries boutique and specialty brands of packaged treats, dog and cat food, chews, toys, accessories, spa products, and gifts.

What really sets us apart are our baked items. Crafted from scratch in small batches, our highly skilled pastry chefs use only simple, real ingredients, slow baking each recipe to lock in all those luscious flavors and canine-loving nutrients. So healthy and so drool-worthy, we consider our treats and cuisine to be the absolute best in the animal kingdom.

Three Dog Bakery has been making tails wag since 1989, and today our mission remains the same –– feed the souls of dogs and the people that love them!

Job Description: Our pastry chef is responsible for management of our kitchen operations. We make a wide assortment of cookies, cakes, and pastries to celebrate the joy dogs bring into our lives. Our pastry chef sets the schedule for the kitchen, manages raw materials and supplies inventory, bakes, and decorates treats. Our bakery offerings and flavors change with every season.

Key Responsibilities: 

Hours:

• Full-time position requires a minimum 32 hours per week.
• Part-time position requires a minimum 8 hours per week.
• Flexibility on evenings, weekends, and holidays is expected.
• Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Valentine’s, Easter, and July 4th are busy holiday periods.
• We have a general blackout period between Thanksgiving and Christmas to ensure strong leadership and kitchen coverage during the most important period of our fiscal year. Time off must be pre-approved during that time.
• Pastry chefs primarily work during business hours as we have an open kitchen and customers enjoy seeing our treats being baked and decorated. That is part of our customer experience.
• Pastry chefs personalize select cakes and cookies with dogs’ names on demand.

Culture:

• Embody the Three Dog Bakery brand ideals to support a culture of excellence at the bakery.
• Provide exemplary customer service to all customers and interact with everyone in a friendly, positive manner. Service must be quick, efficient, and knowledgeable.
• Demonstrate strong knowledge of Three Dog Bakery recipes and dog-safe ingredients and basic dog dietary and nutritional concepts to answer customer questions and make recommendations.

Operations:

• Manage daily kitchen baking and decorating schedule. Ingredients and recipes change with holidays/seasons throughout the year.
• Direct associate staff to bake recipes in preparation for decorating.
• Bake and decorate birthday and celebration cakes.
• Advise on, price, and schedule custom cake inquiries.
• Bake and decorate cookies, pupcakes, and all other pastries.
• Manage and communicate inventory of ingredients and consumable supplies.
• Personalize cakes and cookies for advance and walk-in orders.
• Maintain kitchen organization and cleanliness.
• Wash dishes and supplies.
• Support associate staff with assisting customers with product selection, ringing customer transactions, answering the bakery phone during peak periods.

Knowledge and Skill Requirements:

• Must love dogs.
• Pastry skills: Confidence and competence with pastry bags, a variety of decorating tips, parchment paper bags, buttercream frosting, royal icing, cake decorating, cookie decorating, and writing on cakes/cookies with exceptional penmanship. Attention to detail and a commitment to quality is required.
• Experience with commercial ovens and mixers.
• Time management: Ability to manage and prioritze to-do lists and time. Time management is the differentiator between success and failure.
• Service skills: Ability to support a customer-oriented and team-oriented culture. Ability to think outside the box and find solutions to questions/problems on the spot. Ability to politely diffuse difficult situations and maintain respect under all circumstances.
• Sales skills: Ability to approach customers, inquire about their needs and listen to their responses, offer product solutions without applying pressure, and recognize that first impressions are lasting impressions.
• People skills: Comfort in public settings. Friendly and welcoming demeanor toward all visitors and staff.
• Training skills: Ability to train others to complete tasks with excellence.
• Communication: Polite, courteous, and confident communications are required, both verbally and in written form.

Education and Experience:

• Baking and decorating experience required.
• Cake decorating experience required.
• Cookie flooding experience required.
• Writing experience required.

Physical Requirements:

• Position requires stooping, reaching, standing, lifting, talking, hearing, and repetitive motion.
• Must be able to exert up to 20 pounds of force occasionally and up to 10 pounds of force frequently.
• Must be able to lift parcels weighing up to 50 pounds occasionally and up to 30 pounds frequently.
• Visual acuity required to determine accuracy, neatness, and thoroughness of work or to make general observations of facilities or structures.
• Employee is subject to environmental conditions both inside and outside the facility.

 

Employment Type: Full Time
Years Experience: 1 - 3 years
Salary: $16 - $20 Hourly
Bonus/Commission: Yes