About this role
Welcome to Lava Island
Lava Island is an indoor play oasis where kids fly across trampolines, vanish into towering jungle gyms, dive into foam pits, and race down slides while families share pizza and celebrate birthdays in the party rooms. It is loud, bright, and full of energy.
Every park has a café at its heart, where families refuel between jumps, parents grab a break, and birthday parties gather around the table. We're opening more parks every year, and we're ready to take our food and beverage program to the next level.
What You're Really Building
You'll lead the vision for what families eat and drink at Lava Island. That means a menu with real personality, where signature items feel like part of the adventure. It means seasonal items that give guests a reason to come back, and a coffee and hot drinks program that turns a quick stop into a favorite part of the visit.
The challenge is making it all work in our world, and that starts in our kitchens. You'll spend real time on the line during a Saturday rush and in the middle of a birthday party wave, learning what our kitchens can handle and how our young crews work. Then you'll design for that: ideas that are fun, simple to prepare, built from a focused set of ingredients, and just as good at our newest park as at our first. Get it right and guests spend more, parks serve the same great food everywhere, and food and beverage becomes one of the best parts of a Lava Island visit.
Why You'll Love Working at Lava Island
- Lead the program. You set the direction for food and beverage across every park.
- Play with the brand. Create signature items with names and flair that only make sense at Lava Island.
- Build something new. Launch a coffee and hot drinks program from the ground up.
- Stay hands-on. Split your time between HQ and our park kitchens across the country.
- Real impact. Your ideas drive revenue and shape the guest experience.
- Competitive salary, medical, dental, and vision, and employee perks.
What You'll Do
You will lead menu strategy, innovation, and revenue growth for our food and beverage program, and make sure every park can deliver it well.
Know our kitchens
- Start by working in our park kitchens, including busy weekends and parties, before leading menu changes.
- Keep spending regular time in kitchens across markets to learn capacity, equipment, speed, and how our crews work.
- Test every new item with real crews under real conditions.
Shape the menu
- Set the direction for our menu, balancing family appeal, brand personality, speed, simplicity, and revenue.
- Create signature, brand-inspired items with playful names and presentation.
- Develop new, seasonal, and limited-time items, and test them in parks before rollout.
- Build the menu around a lean set of ingredients used in more than one way.
Build the beverage program
- Launch a coffee and hot drinks program for parents and adult guests.
- Develop specialty, seasonal, and brand-inspired drinks for the whole family. Our beverage program is non-alcoholic.
- Evaluate beverage equipment, vendors, and partnerships.
Grow revenue and manage cost
- Find new ways to grow food and beverage revenue per guest.
- Partner with our party coordinators on food and beverage upgrades for birthday parties.
- Set food cost targets for every item, recommend pricing, and use sales results to keep improving the menu.
Make it work in every park
- Create recipes and standards a young crew can follow consistently.
- Plan rollouts with our operations, HQ, and new park teams, including SOPs, kitchen guides, and training materials.
- Visit parks to test, support, and check consistency.
Partner across the company
- Work with Sysco and other vendors on products, availability, and pricing.
- Lead our F&B Manager, who manages food safety certifications, permits, and inspections.
- Partner with our brand team on item names, menu boards, promotions, and how we talk about food.
Who We're Looking For
This is a leadership seat for a creative, practical food and beverage developer. The people who do well here are:
- Hands-on. You'd rather learn a kitchen by working in it than by reading about it.
- Creative and practical. You have fun, on-brand ideas and know which ones will work in a fast, family kitchen.
- Revenue- and cost-minded. You think about how every menu decision affects what guests spend and what it costs to make.
- A simplifier. You'd rather do fewer things really well than many things just okay.
- Guest-focused. You design for what kids and parents actually want.
- A finisher. You take ideas from concept to consistent execution in every park.
What You'll Need
- 5 or more years of culinary, menu development, or food and beverage leadership experience in quick service, fast casual, family entertainment, family dining, or multi-unit hospitality.
- A track record of developing and launching menu items across multiple locations.
- Experience designing menus for speed, consistency, and entry-level kitchen teams.
- Working knowledge of food cost, cost of goods, ingredient cross-utilization, and menu engineering.
- Hands-on kitchen experience, and willingness to work shifts in our park kitchens, including weekends and rush periods.
- ServSafe Manager certification, or the ability to obtain it within 90 days.
- Willingness to travel regularly to our parks.
- Ability to pass a background check.
Nice to have
- Experience in family entertainment centers, attractions, or kid-focused venues.
- Experience creating branded or themed menu items.
- Experience building or launching a coffee or specialty beverage program.
- Experience working with Sysco or another broadline distributor.
- Culinary degree or formal culinary training.
A full job description will be shared and walked through with you during the process, so you have the complete picture before moving forward.
Ready to Lead the Menu Behind the Fun?
If you want to create food and drinks that families love and remember, built in real kitchens for real crews in every park we open, we want to meet you. Apply today.