SUMMARY OF POSITION

The Fish Room Attendant / Seafood Butcher plays a key role in Hog Island’s tide-to-table operations by receiving, fabricating, and preparing fresh seafood for our restaurants and wholesale programs. This role requires strong knife skills, seafood handling knowledge, and the ability to work efficiently in a fast-paced, cold and wet production environment.

This position supports daily production through fish butchery, prep, sanitation, inventory, and occasional customer interaction while upholding Hog Island’s high standards for food safety, sustainability, and quality.

GENERAL DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

This position requires flexibility and the ability to perform a variety of tasks in a fast-paced environment.

The duties listed are representative but not exhaustive. Management reserves the right to modify duties

and assign additional responsibilities as needed to meet operational or business demands.

Seafood Receiving & Processing

• Receive and inspect seafood deliveries for quality, freshness, accuracy, and temperature compliance
• Weigh, label, rotate, and store product following FIFO and HACCP standards
• Document receiving logs and communicate discrepancies

Fish Fabrication & Butchery

• Gut, scale, fillet, skin, trim, and portion whole fish
• Break down seafood to specification for restaurant and wholesale use
• Maintain high yield and minimize waste
• Operate safely with knives, fish saws, and other fabrication tools
• Follow proper sanitation and cross-contamination controls

Prep & Production Support

• Assist with food prep and production tasks as needed
• Support packaging, labeling, and order fulfillment
• Maintain production schedules to meet daily demand

Cleaning & Sanitation

• Wash dishes, tools, and equipment
• Clean and sanitize fish room, prep tables, sinks, drains, floors, and storage areas
• Follow daily and weekly cleaning schedules and health department standards

Inventory & Communication

• Track inventory levels and notify leadership of shortages
• Assist with ordering and stock rotation
• Use email and basic computer systems for communication and documentation

Customer & Team Support

• Occasionally assist internal teams or customers with product questions
• Work collaboratively with kitchen, farm, and wholesale teams
• Maintain a positive, safety-first team environment

GOALS

• Deliver consistently excellent and tasty food that makes customers happy to be here and return using local, seasonal and sustainably-produced products adhering to Seafood Watch standards. 
• Foster teamwork and a sense of camaraderie; Create and maintain a happy, comfortable, respectful, cooperative and collaborative workplace.
• Familiar with all kitchen work stations, able to work any station at a moment’s notice
• Learn, model, and convey Hog Island Values and Guiding Principles in the daily work environment.

SKILLS AND EXPERIENCE

• 1+ year kitchen, fish processing, or butchery experience preferred
• Experience breaking down whole fish strongly preferred
• HACCP or seafood handling knowledge a plus
• Ability to work weekends and holidays
• Ability to work under pressure and deal with stressful situations during busy periods; 
• Ability to communicate clearly and respectfully with staff and management in English and Spanish;
• Must be consistently proactive, punctual, organized, efficient, solution oriented, and positive; 
• Familiarity with Kitchen SOPs and safety practices

PHYSICAL DEMANDS

The physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this job. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.

• Employees are regularly required to talk and hear. 
• Employees regularly stand for long periods of time.
• Employees are frequently required to walk, bend, stoop, reach, and use their hands to grasp, handle and feel with delicate dexterity. 
• Repetitive cutting, gripping, and knife use
• Exposure to seafood, ice, water and cleaning chemicals
• Specific vision abilities required by this job include close vision, distance vision, color vision, peripheral vision, depth perception and ability to adjust focus. 
• Regularly requires working taste buds with the ability to smell, taste, recognize, and discern the subtle differences of ingredients and flavors.

WORK ENVIRONMENT

The work environment characteristics described here are representative of those an employee encounters while performing the essential functions of this job. 

• The noise level is high, typical of a restaurant environment and workspace is shared with other staff and customers.
• The work environment is fast paced and frequently changing; interruptions are considered normal.
• Moderate exposure to physical risks such as operating dangerous equipment, sharp knives, or working with sanitizing chemicals.
• Constant exposure to possible food allergens such as milk, egg, peanut, tree nuts, fish, shellfish, wheat, and soy.
• Constant exposure to unusual elements such as extreme temperatures both hot and cold, wet floors, open gas flame, fumes, smoke, grease, and strong odors.
• Chemicals known to the State of California to cause cancer or birth defects or other reproductive harm may be present in foods or beverages sold or served here.

PLEASE NOTE: This job description is intended to convey information essential to understanding the scope of the Fish Room Attendant/Butcher position and it is not intended to be an exhaustive list of skills, efforts, duties, responsibilities or working conditions associated with the position.