Company description

18 Reasons is a nonprofit that increases food security through the power of home cooking. Our mission is to empower our community with the confidence and creativity needed to buy, cook, and eat good food every day. We offer food education programs to the community through two different channels. At our 18th Street Kitchen in San Francisco, paid classes reach curious home cooks with the means to pay for instruction. Through our free Community Programs, we offer grocery donations paired with free cooking and nutrition classes to families on a limited budget throughout the Bay Area. Our vision is to create equity and belonging through the transformative and healing power of home cooking.

Job description

About you

You are curious, generous, and love learning from and sharing knowledge with others. You are warm, gracious, cheerful under pressure, flexible, and committed to great service. You are supremely organized and plan ahead in great detail. You love food! You love to cook it, eat it, learn about it and share your own knowledge and perspective on it. You show off your excellent communication skills when engaging, inspiring, and instructing home cooks, whether they be paying students or volunteer assistants. You have rigorously developed your culinary skills in a catering, restaurant, or professional setting (or equivalent experience), and have a passion for teaching and building community. You are hardworking and work well under pressure and within a team. You’ve got great attention to detail and are just as willing to sweep the floor as you are to flambee.

About the Job

At 18 Reasons, you will have the opportunity to design and teach classes in our 18th St. Kitchen Program. Check out our calendar here. We are looking for teachers who want to make teaching at 18 Reasons a regular part of their monthly work. Our ideal instructor will teach once a month. This is not a requirement but applicants with regular availability will be prioritized.

We hope to welcome new members to our family who feel as passionate about our mission as we do. We are excited to collaborate with new chefs to expand our programming and offer a greater breadth of topics and perspectives that show how delicious and approachable home cooked food can be.

We have a vibrant community of teachers, facilitators and volunteers. When you teach a class at 18 Reasons, you can expect your facilitator to handle all communications with students before class, do your grocery shopping and help you set up the room. There will be a team of volunteers present to assist with dishwashing and any other tasks that will help you focus on being present with the students and sharing your skills!

Responsibilities:

• Attend planning sessions once every two months with the Program Director. Arrive at these sessions with a sense of what kinds of classes you would like to teach and why they would be a good fit for the season, our audience and our mission.
• Provide class topics, recipes, timelines and shopping lists in a prompt and thorough manner.
• Teachers are expected to arrive at least an hour and a half before class begins to set up and stay one hour after class ends to help our team clean up. Classes are typically between 3.5 to 4 hours long.
• Before teachers begin teaching at 18 Reasons, we ask that they shadow at least one class with another teacher to observe how our space works.
• Be open to feedback and respond with calm and an open mind.

Requirements:

• 2+ years of professional cooking and/or teaching experience (or equivalent)
• Personal experience, deep knowledge, and passion for the cuisine or technique you are teaching
• Serv-Safe Food Handling certified
• Must be available for evening and/or weekend work
• Must be able to stand for at least 8 hours
• Must be able to lift 20 pounds

Classification & Compensation:

This position is paid per class or dinner. Public class stipends begin at $300, but increase by $50, every 5 classes you teach at 18 Reasons. Stipends cap at $500/class. Private event stipends are $500 or $700 per class or dinner, respectively. If you have significant experience teaching cooking classes, we are open to increasing the starting pay.

Job Perks:

Promotion via 18 Reasons network

For teachers who have taught more than 5 public classes:

• a free membership to 18 Reasons - includes discounted tickets, member only events and early access to upcoming classes
• 3 free class spots in 18 Reasons events per year
  Other opportunities to work with us will include teaching private cooking classes, cooking private dinners and hosting pop up dinner events in our space.
• You will become a part of our incredible team of teachers who meet once a year for a teacher summit to share our tips, tricks, and perspectives over a beautiful meal.
• Opportunities to participate in 18 Reasons fundraisers

Supervision:

You will report to our Program Director, who is responsible for managing 18th St Kitchen programming.

Compensation

this position is: hourly, $20/hr +

Application instructions

If you are not registered, you'll be prompted to do so. Don't worry, it's free!

Deadline

June 17, 2026