For chefs
Before you sign that chef agreement, check these three things.
Chefs sign restaurant offers, private chef agreements and consulting deals. Each can decide who owns the recipes and menus you create, where you can cook next, and how hours and events are paid.
This chef agreement claims recipes you use at work, including ones you brought, and restricts work near any location for eighteen months.
Recipes you brought become theirs
“Developed or used” includes recipes you arrived with, once you cook them there.
Ask for
Check whether recipes you develop become the employer's, and ask for a list of your own recipes to be excluded.
- 18 months, 10 miles from any locationHigh · Restrictions
- Events and travel are inside the salaryLow · Payment
The numbers
In May 2025, there were 200,040 wage and salary jobs for chefs and head cooks in the U.S., with a median annual wage of $62,470.
These figures count jobs, not people, and do not include self-employed work — so they say little about how many chefs and head cooks work freelance or run their own business.
Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS), May 2025, national estimates for SOC 35-1011. Public domain.
Recipes, non-competes and event hours
- Recipes and menus — Check whether recipes you develop become the employer's, and whether that includes ones you brought with you.
- Non-compete — Look at how far and how long any restriction reaches if you leave.
- Hours and events — Check how long shifts, private events and travel are paid.
Check the agreement before the first service
A chef agreement decides what you take with you when you leave. Free: one analysis every 30 days, no card. Each analysis gives a risk read of the key clauses, quotes the contract's own words for its findings, and turns each flagged clause into a specific ask.
Analyze my contract — free- Encrypted in transit & at rest
- Files auto-deleted after 30 days
- Never used to train models
- Informational — not legal advice