Salaries / Chef / Head Cook
Food Service · SOC 35-1011
Chef / Head Cook salary
Chefs and head cooks oversee kitchens, create menus, and prepare meals in restaurants and other food settings.
Washington · 2025
Median annual (WA)
$76,010
Median hourly (WA)
$36.54
Typical range (WA)
$49,920 to $95,990
Washington source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics OEWS 2025.
National
Median annual
$62,470
Median hourly
$30.03
Typical range
$37,900 to $98,560
National source: US Bureau of Labor Statistics, OEWS 2025. Figures are gross pay and vary by location, employer, and experience.
The pay range, visually.
Low end (about the 10th percentile), median, and high end (about the 90th percentile).
By state, at a glance
These at-a-glance figures are estimates derived from the national median and a state wage index, shown to give a rough sense of local differences. Pick any state (here or in the selector above) to look up its real figures.
Your skills are a business
Ideas we have for people in food service.
The same experience that earns a paycheck as a chef / head cook can start a business. Here are real ideas from our marketplace that fit this field.
Start an Abula Restaurant or Yoruba Food Business
Serve abula, the beloved Yoruba combination of amala with ewedu and gbegiri soups and stew, to a Nigerian diaspora that craves the taste of home and a wider food scene hungry for authentic West African cooking. Start with delivery, pop-ups, and catering before any storefront.
Start a Catering Business
Cook for weddings, corporate events, and parties, where one booked event can be worth more than a week of restaurant covers.
Start a Korean BBQ Food Truck and Catering Business
Serve Korean BBQ from a food truck and cater events with bulgogi and galbi bowls, tacos, and rice plates, a far lower-capital mobile alternative to a full tabletop-grill restaurant.
Start a Cocktail Catering and Consulting Business
A hybrid that both caters cocktails at private events and consults on drink programs for restaurant openings, bars, and brands. It blends event revenue with higher-margin advisory work, and leans on expertise rather than heavy equipment.
You could hire chef / head cooks, not just be one.
We have a staffing calculator to price the work and a full course on how to start a staffing agency, so you can turn a field you already know into a business that puts other people to work.