Company description

The highly esteemed national rag, the NYTimes, called Sammy's Deluxe one of the 50 best restaurants in America (https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/dining/best-restaurants-america.html). Here's how we would describe ourselves: Sammy's Deluxe in Rockland, Maine is a rare breed of a gem, fueled by the hunger, enthusiasm, and eccentricities of chef/owner Sam Richman. While once commonplace, independent restaurants run by chef/owners who put their energy into a singular honest restaurant are sadly becoming hard to find. At Sammy’s Deluxe, we cook simple, fresh, not-fussy, very straightforward, extremely high value, exceptionally delicious food in the style of what your grandmother might have cooked if she were a very good cook who used lots of seasonal ingredients and had a soft spot for Americana.

We are fortunate to have at our fingertips one of the most exciting and enviable baskets of ingredients in the world: the absurdity of riches of Midcoast Maine. We are not without a few tricks up our sleeves picked up at the "highly rigorous" fancy pants restaurants of Sam's youth (the Fat Duck, WD-50, 71 Clinton Fresh Food, Jean Georges, Gramercy Tavern, etc.), However, Sammy's has the benefit of using the smart and worthwhile techniques from these kitchens, while cooking with Maine's far superior ingredients and scrapping the fancy pretension. Most often though, we cook simple and straightforward dishes with our pristine ingredients and do our best not to get in the way of their inherent quality, flavor and beauty.

Sam has an extensive experience foraging for Maine's mushrooms and other plants, as well as fishing for unique, seasonal and underutilized species, and he supplies the restaurant with some of these most exciting seasonal ingredients. Additionally, we are fortunate to be surrounded by a great wealth of produce and animal farms and very rich farmland. Our daily produce pickups and deliveries are absolutely stunning--city produce just can't compare.

In the world at large, what we are trying to accomplish is pretty normal--eating well made, delicious, culturally relevant and thoughtful food at a not fancy restaurant while pulling from tradition and using the best, local and seasonal ingredients of the moment. It is the experience of eating Mexican food in Mexico, Greek food in Greece or Sicilian food in Sicily. We bring that same mentality to serving Americana/New England/Maine food in Rockland with pride, technique (old and new), humility and a good dose of humor. And with a few nice things to drink too.

That's a fairly good overview of our goals, focus and philosophy. For those looking for a few more specifics, allow me to rattle off a handful of what comes into season locally throughout the year--halibut, razor clams, steamer clams, all the hard shell clams, lobster, jonah crab, alewives, mackerel, smelt, john dory, black bass, hake, whelks, periwinkles, haddock, skate, scallops, squid, all of the oysters, sea urchin, mussels, chanterelle, black trumpets, matsutake, hen of the woods, chicken of the woods, porcini, chaga, rare and underutilized mushrooms, beach roses, black locust blossoms, kelps, potatoes, maple syrup, birch syrup, apples, cranberries, blueberries, rhubarb, Maine grains, best grass fed beef and dairy, as well as some really incredibly fertile land for very high quality agriculture, grains, produce and meat, etc etc.

Job description

Bring your talents and pick up a few new ones. Help us cook and serve up some carefully made, honest, soulful, real food with the very exceptional and special midcoast ingredients and get paid very well while you’re doing it. Seeking all kind, thoughtful, hardworking food and drink-oriented persons who might be interested in joining the small but mighty Sammy’s Deluxe team.

At the moment, we are looking for someone with at least a year or two (or more) of good professional cooking experience under their belt--good speed, knife skills, broad cooking knowledge and a hunger for more information. Ideally someone who cooks a lot, reads a lot and eats a lot on their own and thinks often and critically about food, dishes, cooking, culture, and everything related. Ideally seeking someone with good communication, organizational, interpersonal skills and strong teamwork/leadership instincts as well as quite a bit of initiative. Essentially, we are looking for someone who might be leadership/sous chef material sooner or later. We don't necessarily need someone who would be ready to step into a sous chef role on day one, but where growing into this role would feel like a welcome and not far-fetched goal, challenge and reward.

For an experienced cooking position--we are looking for a full-time, 4 days a week, roughly 40 hours per week with a three day weekend. Competitive base hourly pay plus tips. This obviously varies night by night but comes out to somewhere in the mid to high $20s - mid $30s per hour, depending on experience and busy-ness.

For a Sous Chef- Earnings potential is much higher, hourly or salary depending on experience and size of leadership role assumed. For most candidates, I would bring you on as an experienced line cook and we would have a trial period to make sure that we are seeing eye to eye before bestowing the full on leadership role and title. It will be incredibly important that our communication is seamless, that I trust your instincts, your palate and leadership and work ethic and that it is clear to me that you understand fully the Sammy's ethos, philosophy and style. Among the responsibilities I would be looking for help with are:

-managing prep schedules, especially tricky in our little kitchen, making sure delicious food gets produced in a timely and efficient manner every day as well as overseeing quality control

-helping with managing product inventory and ordering

-helping with training and hiring

-proficiency on every kitchen station, able to step in as needed anywhere during a busy service and/or help cover stations in rare cases when a cook is out

-ability to smoothly, calmly and orderly manage and oversee service--expediting service, helping to plate food and overseeing quality control of service

-help manage and keep kitchen orderly, organized, and clean

-helping with R&D, menu planning and food ideas

While we are a hard working kitchen and restaurant who cares about what we do--we are also down to earth and sane. Work-life balance is a priority (3 day weekends!!) and the kitchen and restaurant is supportive, jovial, friendly and professional.

This is a unique opportunity to further your cooking or serving craft, making real food and drinks with exceptional ingredients under very excellent direction and collaboration.

Compensation

this position is: hourly, varies DOE, $23.00 - $55.00

Application instructions

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Deadline

no deadline