Director of Operations
The Buttered Biscuit | Bentonville, AR (with regular travel across our locations) Reports to: CEO | Full-time | Salary + Bonus.
10+ years of multi-unit restaurant or operations leadership required
The Opportunity
We exist to nourish people. That's our why. The how is a made-from-scratch breakfast, brunch, and lunch experience worth the extra effort — biscuits cut by hand, gravy simmered from scratch, the kind of cooking our grandmothers would recognize.
In 2017, we opened The Buttered Biscuit with one location and that conviction. Nine years later, we're six locations strong across Northwest Arkansas and Little Rock, 200+ teammates, and one of the most beloved breakfast brands in the state.
Now we're doubling. Our growth plan is concrete: two new locations in 2027, two more in 2028, and two more in 2029. Six restaurants becomes twelve in three years, with our next markets adjacent to our existing footprint or a regionally located major metro market.
The Director of Operations is the single person responsible for making that happen — running our six existing restaurants at world-class standards while building the operational infrastructure that supports a doubled footprint. This is the operational #2 to the CEO.
Our ten-year goal is to serve 200,000 people in a single week. Twelve locations is the next runway, not the destination. The leader we're hiring should be able to see the line from running a six-restaurant company today to building the operational machine that delivers a number that big.
If you've been waiting for a seat where you can shape the next decade of a brand instead of inheriting someone else's systems, this is it.
What You'll Own
The guest experience, everywhere. Six dining rooms today, more tomorrow. You're the person who makes sure a biscuit in Bentonville tastes the same on a Tuesday as a biscuit in Little Rock on a Saturday — and that the service does, too.
Our General Managers. You'll directly lead our GMs, coach them weekly, develop them into the next generation of multi-unit leaders, and hold them accountable to scorecards and standards. Their growth is your job.
Restaurant-level financial performance. You'll own the P&L across the portfolio — food cost, labor models, prime cost, four-wall margins. You'll partner with the CEO and finance team on period closes, variance reviews, and the directives that get sent back to the field.
The systems that make us scalable. Training programs, inventory systems, vendor relationships, operating standards, compliance and safety. If a process is informal today and needs to be repeatable across ten locations, you're the one writing it down.
New store openings on a predictable cadence. Six openings over three years, two per year. You'll build the NSO playbook, the opening team structure, and the training pipeline that make each opening smoother than the last. Site readiness, hiring and training waves, soft launch, ramp — all of it sits with you.
Culture in the field. We're not a corporate restaurant chain and we don't want to become one. You'll cultivate a culture of hospitality, ownership, and pride that retains the best people we hire and attracts the next great ones.
What Your First Year Might Look Like
- Days 1–60: Get on the ground. Go through our custom built Manager In Training development program and work shifts in every location. Build relationships with each GM. Understand our scorecards, financials, and pain points firsthand.
- Days 60–120: Stand up a consistent weekly operating rhythm with GMs. Identify the three biggest leaks in food cost and labor. Begin closing them.
- Months 4–9: Codify the NSO playbook. Strengthen training programs. Build the bench of shift leaders and AGMs who will run our future openings.
- Months 9–12: Lead the operational readiness for our first two new-market openings in 2027. Hand the CEO a portfolio operating at higher margin than when you started — and an NSO playbook ready to support a sustained two-openings-per-year cadence through 2029.
What We're Looking For
- 10+ years of multi-unit restaurant or operations leadership, with at least three of those at the multi-unit director, regional level, Scratch-kitchen, full-service, or premium fast-casual backgrounds preferred.
- Direct experience leading GMs — coaching, developing, hiring, and holding accountable. You'll also need to build the bench of AGMs and shift leaders who will run our future openings.
- Full P&L ownership at the unit or district level, including a working command of food cost, labor cost, prime cost, and the levers that move them.
- Comfort with our tech stack or the ability to get comfortable fast — Toast POS, back-office reporting, scheduling platforms, and modern multi-unit dashboards. You also are excited to use and continue to learn AI tools (Claude, ChatGPT, and the like) as a daily part of how you work — variance analysis, drafting communications, building training content, pressure-testing decisions, summarizing field reports. You should be able to point to concrete examples of work you got done faster or better because AI was in the loop.
- A bias for the dining room, not the office. Our best operators are the ones the line cooks and servers actually know by name.
- Willingness to be based in or near Northwest Arkansas and travel regularly across our footprint. Relocation assistance is available for the right candidate.
Who You Are
You're a builder. You'd rather create the system than be handed it. You take ownership of outcomes, not just activities. You believe hospitality is a craft, scratch cooking is worth the extra labor, and that people are the entire business. You're comfortable being the most senior operator in the room and just as comfortable bussing a table when the rush hits.
You're also fluent with AI tools and use them like a sharp knife — to compress analysis, sharpen decisions, and free your hours for the dining room. You're not seduced by every shiny new model, and you don't waste time evangelizing the ones that work. The point is always the work, not the technology.
How We Work
Six values define how we hire, how we coach, and how we evaluate every leader on our team:
- Honesty — Straight talk, even when it's uncomfortable. Hard feedback delivered with care. No spin in P&L reviews and no avoiding the difficult conversation with a GM who isn't performing.
- Ownership — If you see it, it's yours. Outcomes over activities. Excuses don't open restaurants.
- Care — For our guests, for our teams, for our brand. The work is only worth doing if we do it with love for the people on both sides of the counter.
- Excellence — Scratch cooking is harder than the alternative. Consistency across six locations — and twelve, and beyond — is harder still. We chose this. We commit to it.
- Positivity — Restaurant operations is a grind. The leaders we want bring energy on the worst Monday, not just the easy Friday.
- Win as a Team — The stores win or we all lose. Finance, marketing, ops, the kitchen — same team, same scoreboard.
Compensation & Benefits
- Base salary: $130,000
- Performance bonus: 20% of base salary, measured and paid quarterly against company performance and individual goals
- PTO: Two weeks annually, increasing with tenure
- Direct reporting line to the CEO — a seat at the table, not three layers down
About The Buttered Biscuit
Founded in Bentonville in 2017 by Sam and Anna Russell, The Buttered Biscuit is a made-from-scratch breakfast, brunch, and lunch concept with six locations in Arkansas. We exist to nourish people, and we've grown from a single restaurant into one of the region's most recognized breakfast brands. We're on a path to twelve locations by the end of 2029 — and a ten-year goal of serving 200,000 guests in a single week. We're family-owned, community-rooted, and intentionally not a corporate chain.
Pay: $130,000.00 per year
Benefits:
- Dental insurance
- Health insurance
- Paid time off
- Relocation assistance
- Vision insurance
Application Question(s):
- Have you directly managed multiple General Managers (not assistant managers or shift leads) in a prior role? YES / NO
- Have you owned unit-level or district-level P&L responsibility, including accountability for food cost, labor cost, and prime cost performance? YES/NO
- Have you personally led the opening of one or more new restaurant locations from site through ramp? YES/NO
- This role is based in Northwest Arkansas with regular travel across our six locations and into new markets. Are you able to be based here (or relocate) and travel as needed? YES/NO
- Which of the following best describes the concepts where you have spent the most time?
Scratch-kitchen, full-service breakfast/brunch (e.g., First Watch, Snooze, Another Broken Egg, independent breakfast)
Scratch-kitchen, full-service casual dining (e.g., Cracker Barrel, regional independent)
Premium fast-casual, scratch-made (e.g., Cava, Sweetgreen, Flower Child)
Traditional full-service casual/family dining (e.g., Chili's, Applebee's, Olive Garden)
Quick-service or fast-casual, non-scratch
Fine dining or upscale casual
Other
- Describe one specific operational problem you solved across multiple restaurant locations in the last 2 years. What was the problem, what did you do, what was the measurable result, and what would you do differently?
- Give one concrete example of work you got done faster or better in the last 90 days because you used an AI tool (Claude, ChatGPT, or similar). Specifics matter — what was the task, what tool, what was the output?
Education:
Experience:
- Multi-unit Restaurant or Operations Leadership: 10 years (Required)
Willingness to travel:
Work Location: In person
