Job Overview
About the role
We're looking for a General Manager to run our restaurant and bar — and to build the team that runs it.
This is not a caretaker job. You'll own the whole business: the culture, the people and their development, the food and drink, the facility, and the numbers. You'll spend roughly 70% of your time on the floor in service with your team and about 30% on administration. If you want to lead from an office, this isn't the role. If you want to lead from the line and build people while you do it, keep reading.
You'll report directly to the CEO, with our Kitchen Lead and Service Lead reporting to you. There is no assistant manager in this structure — which means real authority and real ownership, and it also means the leads you develop are your bench. Building them into people who can run the restaurant without you is not a side project of this job; it's the center of it.
Our mission is simple: make life a little better. Food and service can genuinely change someone's day. And when our team wins, the business wins — good chemistry on a team is felt in the dining room, in the food, and in the experience. The General Manager is the person most responsible for making that true.
What we believe
We organize every role around four areas — People, Place, Product, and Profit — and we run on seven values: Radical Candor, Be Early, Be a Giver, Profit, Have Grit, Inclusiveness, and Integrity.
We take radical candor seriously: we care personally and challenge directly. Feedback here is specific, frequent, kind, and two-way — including feedback to you. We believe mistakes are how people learn, and the only real failure is the one nobody owns or corrects.
We're independently owned, and we have plans to grow. That shapes what this job is. We're not a franchise handing you a finished playbook, and we're not asking you to run someone else's system — we're building ours, and we want help building it.
We also believe a job should be somewhere you build something. We've written training manuals and skills progressions for several roles, and development plans are in place for parts of the team. Other pieces are still in progress, and some don't exist yet. You'd be walking into systems, processes, and documentation that are actively under development — using them, finding where they break, and helping shape what comes next. If you need everything defined before you can operate, this will frustrate you. If you like building the thing while you run it, this is unusually good ground.
What you'll own
People
- Be the guardian of our culture — able to answer and instill what we believe in, what's expected, what's worth preserving, and what difference we're trying to make
- Develop the leadership team: one-on-ones, quarterly performance reviews, written development plans for leads, and review of associate development plans
- Coach the entire team on radical candor — including spotting when candor is missing or has turned abrasive
- Onboard new hires end to end (payroll and scheduling setup, handbook onboarding, two-week follow-up)
- Manage recruitment within budget, conduct interviews, and partner with our Head of Talent & Development
- Own internal communication: daily status, weekly and ad-hoc updates delivered however you find most effective for the team, and the company All Hands
- Mediate conflict in real time, act as a mandated reporter, and handle documented accountability up to and including terminations
Place
- Accountable for the cleanliness and condition of the entire facility
- Own preventive maintenance and vendor relationships across all assets — hoods (serviced every 6 months), grease trap, HVAC, refrigeration, FF&E, generator, food truck, and bar equipment
- Hold leads accountable for opening and closing accuracy, and drive efficiency improvements year over year
- Generate, approve, and document new processes that improve the business
Product
- Protect product integrity through daily spot checks, taste tests, and ingredient comparisons
- Own recipes and standard operating procedures, updating them as the business changes
- Manage inventory levels, supplier relationships, and product price controls
- Own the bar and beverage program alongside the food program
- Maintain food safety standards and our health inspection rating
Profit
- Accountable for food cost (target 23–26% of revenue) and labor cost (target 18–20% of revenue)
- Budget labor hours against forecasted demand before schedules post
- Run weekly payroll accurately and on time; distribute tips per company guidelines
- Maintain compliance with health, fire, and building code requirements and keep strong relationships with those departments
Minimum requirements
- 3+ years of restaurant management experience, including at least 1 year as a GM, AGM, or equivalent with profit-and-loss responsibility
- Demonstrated ownership of food and labor cost targets — you can talk specifically about numbers you were responsible for and how you moved them
- Experience hiring, training, and developing hourly staff and shift leaders
- ServSafe Manager certification (or ability to obtain within 60 days)
- Comfortable with scheduling, payroll, and POS systems, and with basic spreadsheets
- Able to work nights, weekends, and holidays; able to lift 50 lbs and stand for long periods
- Legal US work authorization
- Excellent written and verbal communication
Preferred, but not required
- Experience with a bar or beverage program — inventory, pour cost, and controlling over-pouring
- Working knowledge of New York alcohol service compliance
- Experience developing shift leaders into managers
- Familiarity with restaurant tech — we use Toast (POS), Sling (clock-in, scheduling, and internal communications), and Gusto (payroll)
Restaurant operations experience matters most to us. If your bar background is light but your restaurant leadership is strong, apply anyway.
What will make you successful here
- You give and receive direct feedback without it becoming personal
- You'd rather build a person than replace one
- You're steady under pressure and your calm is contagious
- You do what you said you'd do, and your team knows it
- You notice the small thing a guest or a teammate didn't ask for — and act on it
- You can operate without a finished playbook — and you'd rather improve a process than wait for one
A path to partial ownership
We don't just want a General Manager. We want a partner in the long term.
After 18 months with us, you become eligible for stock option grants, awarded based on hitting agreed performance targets. Each grant vests in two steps:
- Half on the first anniversary of the grant date
- Half on the second anniversary of the grant date
The intent is simple and we'll say it plainly: the person running this business should have a real stake in it. This is a path to partial ownership, earned over time by performance — not a signing gift, and not a promise we make loosely.
Specific grant sizes, targets, and terms are set in writing and governed by our equity plan and shareholders' agreement.
Our promise to you
- Real ownership and real authority over the business you run
- A direct line to the CEO — no layers between you and the decisions
- A path to partial ownership through performance-based equity
- A team that gets honest feedback, clear expectations, and a path forward
To apply: send your resume and a short note telling us about one person you developed — where they started, where they ended up, and what you did to get them there.
Pay: $75,000.00 - $83,000.00 per year
Benefits:
- 401(k)
- 401(k) matching
- Employee discount
- Health insurance
- Paid time off
- Paid training
- Relocation assistance
Work Location: In person
