Founded in 2004 by Hugo Matheson and Kimbal Musk, The Kitchen Restaurant Group is family of restaurants with locations across America focused on sourcing and preparing real food at every price point. Its restaurant concepts, Next Door, The Kitchen, and Hedge Row, employ hundreds of people with mission driven jobs and source food from American farmers helping stimulate the local farm economy to the tune of millions of dollars a year.  

The Director of Purchasing will be responsible for directing purchasing and related programs and services for The Kitchen Restaurant Group; providing information and serving as a resource to others; achieving defined objectives by planning, evaluating and developing, implementing and maintaining services in compliance with established guidelines; and serving as a member of the leadership team.

Essential Duties/Responsibilities

• Authorize purchase orders, contracts and bids for the purpose of ensuring vendor compliance and regulatory requirements and established guidelines;
• Monitor budget allocations, expenditures, fund balances and related financial activities for the purpose of ensuring that allocations are accurate, revenues are recorded, expenses are within budget limits and/or fiscal practices are followed. Work with the finance department to resolve purveyor payment/receiving issues;
• Collaborate with internal and external personnel for the purpose of implementing and/or maintaining services and programs;
• Work closely with the VP of Operations to keep purveyor contracts updated; keep VP of Operations promptly and fully informed of all issues and take prompt direct action where necessary;
• Work with the team to establish and refine the inventory management process; work with store GMs to maintain proper inventory of small wares, glass ware, etc.
• Maintain strong purveyor relationships and secure the best possible pricing for goods and services that adhere to our quality standards. Maintain a favorable working relationship with all vendors
• Help with new store openings, purchasing, receiving, help process returns; advise build teams of any shipping problems; develop purchase kits for new store openings; review purchase bids and invoices for all store openings;
• Develop purchasing program processes including identifying quality standards for all purchases; source new products (e.g. equipment, small wares, furnishings); establish a sound internal control structure to manage purveyor contracts; develop purchasing guidelines to be implemented at store level;
• Coordinate purveyor correspondence to resolve quality and delivery issues, quantity discrepancies, and arrange warranty replacements for damaged equipment;
• Evaluate processes to identify efficiencies; verify stores are purchasing items from approved purveyors;
• Complete job responsibilities and performance objectives in a timely and efficient manner in accordance with The Kitchen Restaurant Group’s standards; perform other duties and responsibilities as required or requested.

Qualifications

• Work under limited supervision; strong project management skills and operational knowledge; ability to travel and manage multiple tasks from a distance; excellent written and verbal communication skills
• 5+ years of experience managing purveyor relationships within a restaurant group or similar industry
• Well organized and able to assume increased responsibility as we grow