What You Need to Know About Restaurant Cook
Job Description & Duties 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.
Daily Life Of a Restaurant Cook
- Portion, arrange, and garnish food, and serve food to waiters or patrons.
- Turn or stir foods to ensure even cooking.
- Butcher and dress animals, fowl, or shellfish, or cut and bone meat prior to cooking.
- Bake, roast, broil, and steam meats, fish, vegetables, and other foods.
- Keep records and accounts.
- Consult with supervisory staff to plan menus, taking into consideration factors such as costs and special event needs.
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What Every Restaurant Cook Should Know
These are the skills Restaurant Cooks say are the most useful in their careers:
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.
Related Job Titles for this Occupation:
- Appetizer Preparer
- Specialty Foods Cook
- Line Cook
- Specialty Cook
- Cook
Job Demand for Restaurant Cooks
There were about 1,231,900 jobs for Restaurant Cook in 2016 (in the United States). 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. Due to new job openings and attrition, there will be an average of 195,300 job openings in this field each year.
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.
Average Restaurant Cooks Salary
Restaurant Cooks make between $19,420 and $37,630 a year.
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 |
What Tools do Restaurant Cooks Use?
Below is a list of the types of tools and technologies that Restaurant Cooks may use on a daily basis:
- Microsoft Excel
- Microsoft Word
- Microsoft Office
- Inventory management software
- Menu planning software
How to Become a Restaurant Cook
What education is needed to be a Restaurant Cook?
What work experience do I need to become a Restaurant Cook?
Restaurant Cooks Sector
The table below shows some of the most common industries where those employed in this career field work.
Related Careers
Career changers with experience as a Restaurant Cook sometimes find work in one of the following fields:
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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