Best States for Food Service Managers: California Leads, but Top Salaries Are in Washington and Massachusetts

Across the top-10 states for food service managers, the LaborCove results show that high salaries, large employment counts, and high Geography Scores do not always align. California leads the ranking with the highest Geography Score and the largest reported employment count, but Massachusetts and Washington both have higher median salaries than California while ranking lower overall. The data also show that several states in the top 10 have median salaries above the national median of $69,390, though they differ substantially in employment counts. Texas and Florida illustrate another pattern: both combine sizable employment counts with median salaries that are closer to the national level than the highest-paying states in this ranking. These contrasts underscore that the "best" state depends on whether a food service manager focuses more on the LaborCove Geography Score, on median salary, on the size of the state employment count, or on some blend of these factors. The 6.4% national projected growth rate for this occupation provides additional context but does not specify how individual states may change over time.

The national median annual salary for food service managers is $69,390. Several of the top‑ranked states have median salaries above this level. Among the top three, Massachusetts has a median salary of $92,240 and Washington has a median salary of $95,190, both above the national median of $69,390. California, ranked #1 overall, has a median salary of $78,260, which is also above the national figure. Farther down the list, New York’s median salary of $84,200, Hawaii’s $87,800, New Jersey’s $78,020, and Colorado’s $79,870 all exceed the $69,390 national benchmark. Florida’s median salary of $72,790 and Maryland’s $72,850 are also above the national median. Texas, at $60,770, is below the national median while still ranking in the top 10 states overall.

LaborCove’s Geography Score provides a single summary number for each state. In these results, California holds the top spot with a Geography Score of 72.81, ahead of Massachusetts at 57.48 and Washington at 55.55. New York, with a Geography Score of 53.85, ranks fourth, followed by Maryland at 49.97, Texas at 48.09, and Florida at 48.02. Hawaii (47.86), New Jersey (45.74), and Colorado (43.32) complete the top 10. The ordering shows that the highest median salaries do not automatically produce the highest LaborCove ranking. Washington and Massachusetts have median salaries of $95,190 and $92,240, respectively, which are higher than California’s $78,260, yet both trail California in the Geography Score ranking. This highlights that the Geography Score reflects more than just a single salary number, even though the internal weighting of its components is not specified in the available evidence.

National employment for food service managers stands at 238,430. Within the top‑ranked states, California has the largest reported employment count at 33,180, and this is also identified as the largest employment market among the geographies in this dataset. Texas has an employment count of 25,990, which is smaller than California’s 33,180 but still substantial within this top‑10 group. Florida follows with 18,500 food service manager jobs based on the supplied data, again below California’s count but above several other top‑ranked states. New York’s employment count is 8,000, New Jersey’s is 6,360, Massachusetts reports 4,310, and Colorado 2,440. Hawaii’s employment is 1,230 and Washington’s is 1,180. Maryland’s employment count is not supplied, so it cannot be directly compared on this measure. These figures describe the relative scale of employment across states in the ranking but do not indicate numbers of job openings or employers.

Several states in the top 10 combine salaries above the national median with meaningful employment counts in the supplied data. California pairs a median salary of $78,260 with an employment count of 33,180. New York shows a median salary of $84,200 and an employment count of 8,000. New Jersey has a median salary of $78,020 with 6,360 jobs, while Florida reports a median salary of $72,790 and 18,500 jobs. Colorado’s median salary of $79,870 is accompanied by 2,440 jobs. Each of these states sits above the national median salary of $69,390 while also having a reported employment count. By contrast, Massachusetts and Washington emphasize pay more than scale in this dataset. Massachusetts has 4,310 food service manager jobs and a median salary of $92,240, while Washington reports 1,180 jobs with a median salary of $95,190. Both median salaries are well above the national median and above California’s median salary of $78,260, even though their employment counts are smaller than California’s.

The national projected employment growth rate for food service managers is 6.4%. This projection applies to the occupation across the entire United States and is not broken out by state or metro in the supplied evidence. This national projection can help food service managers place the state‑level results in context by indicating that, at the national level, employment in this occupation is projected to increase. However, the available data do not specify how individual states such as California, Massachusetts, or Texas may change over time. Because no geographic growth rates are provided, the state rankings in this article should be understood as a snapshot based on May 2025 OEWS observations and LaborCove’s Geography Scores, rather than as forecasts of which states will grow fastest in the future.

LaborCove builds these state rankings for food service managers using authoritative U.S. labor‑market data combined with our internal LaborCove Geography Score methodology. For this article, national and state labor‑market values for food service managers are based on Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) observations with a reference period of May 2025. The report year of 2026 reflects LaborCove’s product and publication cycle and is not the OEWS observation year. The LaborCove Geography Score is a composite measure that supports our ranking of locations. For the states listed here, we use each state’s Geography Score together with its median annual salary and employment count where available. Because the internal weighting of these components is not provided in the evidence, this article treats the Geography Score and the underlying metrics as separate descriptive information rather than interpreting how each factor contributes to the final score. Projected employment growth of 6.4% is a national occupational projection for food service managers. It supplies broad national context only and should not be interpreted as a state‑ or metro‑level forecast. Individual managers should consider these rankings alongside their own priorities, including geography preferences and non‑labor‑market factors that are outside the scope of this data.