Director of Food & Hospitality

About T&J Travel Centers At T&J Travel Centers, we're redefining what a travel center can be: a place where guests experience genuine hospitality, not just convenience. We combine craveable food, spotless facilities, and friendly local service that feels like home. We're a fast-growing, family-run company built on strong values and servant leadership.

We're looking for a Director of Food & Hospitality who lives craveable food, leads humbly, stays hungry, and helps every kitchen deliver the same great meal every shift. MISSION OF THE ROLE Own the food: every item that comes out of any T&J kitchen, every guest's experience at Tarzan Grill, and a grab-and-go program built on deli offerings made fresh in-house every day.

What you'll do

You'll be the leader of everything we cook and serve: responsible for food quality, speed, consistency across every kitchen, the grab-and-go program, and the Kitchen Managers who run it all day to day. Your success will be measured by how well you: ● Hold every kitchen to the same standard for quality, portion and ticket time, and review the numbers weekly ● Write the spec for every menu item and build the brand book a new store can open from ● Own kitchen training: the curriculum, station certification, and follow-up to make sure it sticks ● Build and coach a bench of Kitchen Managers who are trained and ready to step up ● Launch and run the grab-and-go deli at every store, with fresh product in the case from open to close ● Protect the menu: new items earn their place on speed and quality, and come off if they slip What you bring ● Five or more years in multi-unit food operations, at director or area manager level ● Experience running a kitchen that cooks from raw product ● Recipe, SOP and food cost systems you have built yourself ● A record of holding quality and speed standards across several stores at once Nice to have ● Culinary degree or formal culinary education ● Experience as a head chef, including menu design at a busy fast casual ● Bilingual, English and Spanish.

This would be a big advantage in this role ● Experience building teams ● A record of humble leadership What you can expect ● A family-style culture built on respect, teamwork, and humility ● Real ownership: Craveable Food is one of our six core values, and you're accountable for it ● Competitive salary, performance bonuses, and recognition for excellence ● A hands-on job in kitchens: long stretches standing and walking, and lifting up to 50 pounds OUR VALUES Run Lean: Waste nothing.

We live or die by pennies. Care Deeply: Respect the guest in front of you and the teammate beside you. Clean Relentlessly: If you see it, you own it. The restroom, the parking lot, the whole store. Craveable Food: Make it worth driving across town for. Every single time. Lead Humbly: Go first. No job is beneath us. Stay Hungry: Good today isn't good enough tomorrow.

Ask for the harder job. About Tarzan & Jane Travel Centers At T&J Travel Centers, we’re redefining what a travel center can be — a place where guests experience genuine hospitality, not just convenience. We serve hardworking men and women and their local communities with great fuel, a strong convenience store experience, and craveable made-to-order food through our in-house restaurant The Tarzan Grill.

We’re growth-minded and people-first. Our teams run lean, lead humbly, care deeply, and stay hungry—because the standard is simple: fast, friendly, and spotlessly clean, every day.