A restaurant line cook works one station on the line, such as grill, sauté, fry or garde manger, and cooks each ticket to the recipe and the picture of the plate. They get the station ready before service, fire dishes on the expeditor's call and break it all down at close.
By the HireBus team · Updated · Pay data: BLS, May 2025
Median pay, full-service restaurants · BLS, May 2025
We're hiring Line Cooks to cook our menu to spec at one of our full-service restaurants. You'll set up your station, pass the line check, cook and plate every ticket the same way each time, and keep your station clean, stocked and safe through the rush. Stations include grill, sauté, fry and garde manger, and you'll learn more than one.
2. Essential Duties and Responsibilities
Set up your station before service from the prep list and par sheet: mise en place, sauces, garnishes and smallwares.
Cook and plate each dish to the recipe, portion size and plating photo.
Read tickets on the [kitchen display or printer], fire on the expo's call, and keep your station in time with the rest of the line.
Temp proteins with a probe thermometer, and hold hot and cold food at the temperatures on the line check sheet.
Follow the allergy procedure on flagged tickets: clean board, clean utensils, fresh gloves, and plate apart from other food.
Label and date everything you store, and use the oldest product first.
Tell the Sous Chef before an item runs out so it can be 86'd with the floor.
3. Key Tasks / Daily Activities
Pass the pre-service line check: temps, taste, portions and labels.
Call back orders as the expo fires them so the pass knows you heard.
Restock your station between pushes so you never run out in the middle of a ticket.
Break down and clean your station at close: wrap, label and store product, clean equipment, sanitize surfaces.
Help with prep, dishes or another station when your own is caught up.
4. Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
Ticket times on your station: [your target].
Plates sent back or remade: [your target].
Line checks passed without correction: [your target].
Station waste: [your target].
5. Required Qualifications and Skills
[1+] year on the line in a full-service restaurant, or culinary school plus prep experience.
Food handler card (ServSafe Food Handler or your state's approved card) within [30] days, where your state or county requires one.
Solid knife skills and basic cooking methods: grill, sauté, fry and roast.
Can follow several tickets at once and time each one with the rest of the line.
Knows safe cooking temperatures, hot and cold holding, and how to avoid allergen cross-contact.
6. Preferred Experience
Experience on more than one station.
Culinary school or a cooking certificate.
Experience with a kitchen display system.
7. Physical Requirements
Stand on the line for an entire [8]-hour shift.
Lift and carry cases, hotel pans and stock pots up to [50] pounds.
Work in heat next to fryers, grills, open flame and sharp knives.
With or without reasonable accommodation.
8. Work Environment and Schedule
Nights, weekends and holidays; [full-time or part-time] shifts.
Hot, loud kitchen with tight space and wet floors.
Shifts start [time] before service for station setup.
9. Compensation and Benefits
Pay: [range and hourly or salary basis].
Additional pay: [overtime, bonus or incentive terms, or none].
Benefits: [health, dental, vision, retirement, paid time off, and when they start].
10. Company Culture and Overview
[Two or three sentences on what your company does, the area you serve, and the support a new line cook gets in the first 90 days.]
11. How to Apply
[Apply link or email]. Our process: [phone interview, in-person interview, and next steps]. Contact [hiring contact] if you need an accommodation during the application process.
Need help filling this role? HireBus posts the ad, Iris interviews every applicant by phone before you do, and you decide who to hire. Start hiring now
What line cooking in a full-service restaurant asks for
A fast-food cook makes a handful of items as orders come in. A full-service line cook works a longer menu built on the kitchen's own prep, cooks to a plating photo, and times every plate so a table's food lands together.
Plates fire by course, not by arrival
Appetizers go first, and entrées fire when the expeditor calls the table. A grill cook may hold off on a steak until the sauté cook's fish is a few minutes from done, so the whole table hits the pass at once. Calling back each order tells the pass the cook heard it.
Cooking temperatures come from the code
Health codes set the temperatures a restaurant cooks to. Minnesota's, for example, calls for 145°F for fish and whole cuts of meat, 155°F for ground meat and 165°F for poultry, each held there briefly. A probe thermometer settles it, not the color. Under that code, a rare burger can go out when a guest asks for it, as long as the menu carries a consumer advisory and the burger isn't on the kids' menu. Source: Minnesota Rules 4626.0340: cooking raw animal foods.
The line holds food hot or cold, never in between
Sauces in the steam well and salad greens in the reach-in sit out for hours on a busy night. Minnesota's code, for one, has hot food held at 135°F or above and cold food at 41°F or below. The pre-service line check and a few probe readings during the rush catch a sauce that's slipping. Source: Minnesota Rules 4626.0395: hot and cold holding.
Allergy tickets get a fresh setup
When a ticket flags an allergy, the cook switches to a clean board, clean tools and fresh gloves, and plates it away from other food. Heat won't save a mistake: FARE, the food allergy group, warns that proper cooking does not remove the risk of a reaction. If the wrong garnish touches the plate, the dish starts over. Source: FARE: Prevent cross-contact poster for restaurant kitchens.
Cooks cover more than one station
Full-service kitchens cross-train cooks on grill, sauté, fry and garde manger. A cook who can cover two stations keeps the line running when someone calls out on a Saturday, can fill in across town when a sister restaurant is short, and is the first one the sous chef looks at for lead cook.
How much restaurant line cooks make
The closest BLS group for restaurant line cooks is cooks, restaurant. Cooks, restaurant who work for full-service restaurants earned a median of $17.90 an hour ($37,230 a year) in May 2025, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That’s about the same as the $37,390 median for cooks, restaurant in all industries. About 1,055,820 of the 1,409,890 cooks, restaurant in that survey work for full-service restaurants.
Paid by the hour, plus overtime. Some groups pay a higher rate for skilled stations such as sauté and grill, or for cooks who can cover more than one station.
Full-service restaurants
$37,230$37,230 median Middle half $33,940–$44,270 10th–90th $28,690–$47,310
All industries
$37,390$37,390 median Middle half $34,010–$44,620 10th–90th $28,700–$47,900
$20k$30k$40k$50k$60k
10th–90th percentileMiddle halfMedianAnnual pay, May 2025. Source: BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics.
Annual pay by percentile
Group
10th
25th
Median
75th
90th
Full-service restaurants
$28,690
$33,940
$37,230
$44,270
$47,310
All industries
$28,700
$34,010
$37,390
$44,620
$47,900
Skills to hire for, and what you can teach
Hire for these
Knife skills and the core methods: grill, sauté, fry and roast
Tracks several tickets at once and times each plate with the other stations
Plates the last ticket of the night the same way as the first
Uses a probe thermometer and knows safe cooking and holding temperatures
Keeps the station clean and stocked through the rush
Can work the weekend and holiday shifts the schedule needs
Teach these on the job
Your menu, recipes and plating photos
Your station setup and line check sheet
Your allergy procedure and how tickets flag it
Reading your ticket screen or printer
A second station, such as sauté or garde manger
Line cooks run the station's equipment: char-broiler, flat-top, sauté burners, fryers, salamander or a cold reach-in for garde manger, plus a probe thermometer. Tickets show up on a screen or a printer at each station. Many cooks bring their own knives, so mention it if the kitchen supplies or sharpens them, and list the open stations.
Restaurant line cook interview questions
They have their own page: 6 questions that test this job, what strong and weak answers sound like, and a work exercise to run with your finalists.
Set targets by station, because a sauté cook running five pans and a garde manger cook plating salads won't match. Review them with the sous chef each week, as coaching rather than punishment.
Ticket times on your station
Minutes from fire to bump for this station on the kitchen display system, compared on nights with similar covers so a slow night doesn't flatter anyone.
Plates sent back or remade
Remakes traced to this station through POS reason codes or the expeditor's notes, such as overcooked protein or a missing garnish, grouped by dish to find patterns.
Line checks passed without correction
How often the sous chef's pre-service line check finds this station's temperatures, taste, portions and labels right the first time.
Station waste
What this station puts on the waste log at close: trim, burnt or dropped plates, and prep past its date. Compare stations that cook similar volume.
A prep cook works before service, turning cases of produce and protein into the cut, portioned and sauced food each station needs. A line cook takes that prep and cooks tickets to order during service. Prep shifts usually start early in the day, while line shifts run through dinner. Many cooks start in prep, learn the recipes there, and move to the line.
How much does a restaurant line cook make?
Cooks, restaurant who work for full-service restaurants earned a median of $17.90 an hour ($37,230 a year) in May 2025, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The middle half earned between $33,940 and $44,270 a year. Pay also depends on your local market, experience and overtime.
Do line cooks need a food handler card?
That depends on the restaurant's location. Per BLS, some states and cities make cooks get a food handler certificate, and many states don't. Texas, for one, requires many food service workers to finish an accredited food handler course within 30 days of being hired. Call the county health office to find the local rule, and cover the course cost if you require it.
Which line stations can a cook under 16 work?
Very few, under federal rules. At 14 and 15, cooks may prep by hand, cook on electric or gas grills with no open flame, and run a deep fryer that lowers and lifts its baskets by itself. All other cooking is off-limits, so sauté and stovetop work are out, and so are baking, broilers, rotisseries, pressure cookers and high-speed ovens. Their hours are capped too. Once a cook turns 16, any station is open under federal law, though the machines it lists as hazardous, such as meat slicers, stay off-limits until 18. State child labor laws can be tighter, so check yours.
Can line cooks get a share of the servers' tips?
Under federal law, yes, but only if the restaurant skips the tip credit and gives every worker in the pool a cash wage no lower than the federal minimum. Then it can require servers to share with back-of-house staff such as cooks and dishwashers. When servers are paid with a tip credit, a required pool stays limited to jobs that customarily get tips, so cooks are out. Anyone who counts as a manager or supervisor stays out of every pool. State law can add limits.
