Head of Operations – Hotel, Restaurant and Club House

£48k pa – depending on experience

HQ: Harrogate, North Yorkshire,

 Purpose of the role

This role exists to translate the group’s standards into the daily reality of how every venue operates. The Head of Operations owns the consistent delivery of the operating standards across every site, every shift, turning brand promises into how every guest is actually met, how every detail is actually finished, how every team member actually performs.

This is a senior delivery role. The Head of Operations owns getting it done, consistently, measurably, every day, across a multi-site, multi-brand business. Our client is looking for an operator who can take a clear, demanding standard and deliver against it relentlessly across sites, through other people, on time, on budget and on brand.

You will be the most senior operational figure in the business below the Founder, with full autonomy to run the estate and develop the team. You will be expected to walk into any site unannounced, identify what is and is not working against our standard, and resolve it without needing to be asked.

Key responsibilities

Operating standard and group leadership

• Translate and codify the group operating standard across every venue. What excellent looks like.
• Bring informed input on service, operational delivery and team standards into brand, menu and design decisions led by the Founder, with the discipline to execute the agreed direction, not relitigate it.
• Benchmark relentlessly against the best independent operators in the region and beyond. Visiting, reading, learning and bring that thinking back into how we operate.
• Be the operational voice in the leadership conversation with the Founder, Group Head Chef and Group Marketing & Content Manager, providing operational reality-check on direction, then driving consistent execution across the estate.

People and team management

• Direct line management of site / general managers and FOH leads, with full accountability for their performance, development and conduct.
• Recruitment, onboarding and probation for all FOH and operational hires across the group, working with the Founder on senior appointments.
• Performance management  Including documented feedback, formal capability and disciplinary processes where required, in line with the employee handbook.
• Coaching and development of site leadership. Building managers who can run their venue independently and developing a clear progression path within the group.
• Group-wide communication ensuring every team member is informed, briefed and held to the same standards regardless of site.

Service, standards and guest experience

• Lead pre-service briefings and walk every site regularly during service - front and back of house, at unsocial times as well as easy ones.
• Own guest feedback end-to-end. Review monitoring, response, root cause analysis, and changes to operations as a result. Customer reviews are reviewed weekly and acted on.
• Manage complaint resolution directly, with the authority to make commercial decisions to protect the guest and the brand.

About you: Essential

• Proven multi-site operational leadership in food-led hospitality - minimum two years in a head of operations, area manager or a role across two or more sites.
• A demonstrable track record of delivering consistent operating standards across multiple sites and through other people, with evidence of how you held the line under pressure.
• Demonstrable track record of running to a P&L, not just delivering service. You can read a weekly report and tell us what to do about it.
• Confident user of operational systems - Square, BrightHR or equivalent rota / HR / EPOS platforms, and comfortable working from data.
• Strong people leader: has hired, developed, performance-managed and where necessary exited team members, with paperwork done properly.
• Personal accountability as default, you do not wait to be asked, and do not need to be chased, you own the outcome.
• Direct, professional communicator who can give and receive honest feedback without ego, and who can hold their own at leadership level.
• Full UK driving licence and own transport, sites are rural and not on a single bus route.
• Right to work in the UK.

Desirable

• Experience opening a new site or transitioning a venue through a fit-out / launch phase.
• Experience operating across two or more distinct brand identities within one group.
• Background in destination, food-led venues, upscale cafes or rural hospitality (as opposed to high-street chain experience alone).
• Personal Licence holder.
• Level 3 Food Safety and IOSH or equivalent.

How you work

• You are visible. You are at sites, in service, walking the floor, not running the group from a laptop alone.
• You are evidence-led. You bring numbers, observations and proposals.
• You are calm under pressure and consistent in tone whether trade is up or down.
• You raise the bar quietly. The team gets better because you are there, not because you