Kitchen Prep & Cleaning Associate
Hidden Grounds cafés run on chai, coffee, hospitality—and a lot of careful prep that guests never see.
We are looking for a dependable Kitchen Prep & Cleaning Associate to help our Summit production kitchen stay accurate, clean, and ready. You will prepare and portion food for our cafés, package and label products, wash dishes and equipment, organize ingredients and supplies, and reset the kitchen for the next production day.
This is not a chef role, and it is not a cooking-only role. Food prep and cleaning are both essential parts of every shift. Professional kitchen experience can help, but we care more about reliability, cleanliness, attention to detail, steady pace, and a willingness to learn our systems.
What you will doPrep, portion, and pack- Prepare ingredients and approved recipes according to current Hidden Grounds specifications and batch plans.
- Portion items that may include cream cheese, chicken tikka, avocado smash, smoked salmon, and other café ingredients as assigned.
- Weigh, portion, package, label, date, and stage finished products accurately for the correct café.
- Follow instructions for batch quantities, shelf life, storage, cooling and holding, allergen awareness, and cross-contact prevention.
- Rotate ingredients and finished products using date labels and FIFO—first in, first out.
- Receive, organize, rotate, and put away food, packaging, and production supplies.
- Flag shortages, damaged products, unclear instructions, incorrect labels, or questionable food to a lead. When something does not look right, pause and ask rather than guess.
- Wash and sanitize dishes, containers, utensils, prep equipment, and kitchen tools.
- Clean and sanitize prep tables, food-contact surfaces, sinks, shelving, refrigeration areas, and storage areas.
- Sweep and mop production areas.
- Handle trash, recycling, and cardboard correctly.
- Restock containers, lids, labels, cleaning supplies, and other production materials.
- Complete the end-of-shift reset so the next team walks into a clean, safe, ready kitchen.
- Communicate early about shortages, mistakes, safety concerns, equipment problems, or changing priorities.
- Work independently when needed and step in where the team has a bottleneck.
- Follow checklists and routines consistently while staying open to feedback and better ways of working.
- Take ownership of the handoff: our café teams and guests depend on the work leaving this kitchen correctly prepared, packed, and labeled.
- Show up on time and do what you said you would do.
- Take pride in a clean and organized workspace.
- Can follow recipes, measurements, labels, and checklists without cutting corners.
- Are comfortable doing both food prep and cleaning during the same shift.
- Can work at a steady pace without sacrificing food safety or accuracy.
- Speak up when something is unclear instead of making an unapproved substitution or guess.
- Work well independently and as part of a small production team.
- Are comfortable standing for much of a shift and safely bending, reaching, and moving ingredients, dishes, and kitchen supplies, with or without reasonable accommodation.
Experience in a commercial kitchen, bakery, commissary, restaurant, catering operation, dish room, packing role, warehouse, or food-service environment is helpful—but not required. We are willing to train someone dependable who learns carefully and takes the work seriously. Food-handler or food-protection training is helpful, but not required for this position; we provide role-appropriate food-safety training.
Let's be honest about the workSome of it is repetitive. That is not an accident: consistency matters when several cafés are counting on the same product to arrive prepared the same way. You will wash dishes, clean equipment, and reset the kitchen as part of the job—not as somebody else's job. If you want a cooking-only position, this will not be the right fit. If you find satisfaction in getting the details right and leaving a space better than you found it, you may feel at home here.
How we work at Hidden GroundsOur five operating pillars show up in the everyday details:
- Product Quality & Consistency: follow the recipe, check the weight, read the label twice.
- Warm Hospitality & Community: even behind the scenes, your work supports every café team and guest we serve.
- Clean, Safe & Ready: food safety, sanitation, organization, and a complete reset are part of the product.
- Teamwork, Integrity & Ownership: communicate early, fix what you can, and never hide a mistake.
- Learning & Continuous Improvement: learn the system, ask thoughtful questions, and help us make the work better.
- Base pay: $16.00 per hour.
- Employees accrue earned paid sick/protected leave in accordance with applicable law and Hidden Grounds policy. This role does not include a separate paid-vacation benefit.
- No guaranteed bonus or other additional compensation is included in this offer.
Apply through the Hidden Grounds careers application. We will ask about:
- The days and times you can consistently work.
- Your preferred and maximum weekly hours.
- When you could start.
- Any relevant kitchen, restaurant, bakery, cleaning, dishwashing, packing, stocking, or food-prep experience. Experience from another kind of work counts, too.
- Why this combination of hands-on prep and cleaning interests you.
The application includes a résumé upload and a short video response so we can get to know you beyond a list of past jobs.
Hidden Grounds makes employment decisions using job-related qualifications and business needs. We welcome applicants who can perform the essential responsibilities of the role, with or without reasonable accommodation.