Short Order Cook

Food in a matter of minutes doesn’t just come from a box or a microwave. Short Order Cooks are experts at whipping up something fast when diners need quick food.

Short Order Cooks may find themselves working in such places as restaurants, diners, drive-ins, or hospitals. The type of food you prepare as a Short Order Cook is quick and easy to cook (think hamburgers, or eggs and hash browns). Complicated dishes with lots of ingredients are not part of your repertoire. Instead, you stick to the basics, offering one or two menu items with only a few ingredients. You fix a meal very quickly. And through your expertise, customers are served in a matter of minutes, from the time they order to the time the meal lands on their table.

For this job, you need to be quick on your feet, and have some serious prioritizing skills. During busy periods, Short Order Cooks handle waves of orders. So you need to know what must go on the grill and when, bearing in mind how long it needs to cook, and when the order was placed. Once a meal is done, you plate it up, call over the Server, and make sure the food goes out before it gets cold.

During slow times, you take stock of the food and supplies that have been used, and those you need to order. You contact suppliers and fill out order forms, making sure you order enough of one item to never run out of it, but not too much that it goes bad before you can use it.