restaurant general manager

Restaurant General Manager

The Restaurant General Manager (RGM) provides overall leadership and direct supervision of operations in an individual restaurant to ensure that the restaurant meets or exceeds its annual operating plan. Focal points include driving excellence in customer service, maintaining company standards in product and facility specifications, supervising food handling procedures and operational processes, exercising financial control to meet the restaurant profit margin targets, and selecting, training, developing and motivating employees. The RGM directly performs hands-on operational work (as necessary) to train employees, responds to customer service needs or otherwise role model appropriate skills and behavior in the restaurant.

The RGM is responsible for maintaining fast, accurate service, positive guest relations and ensuring products are consistent with company quality standards. They drive a customer-focused culture by serving as a role model in resolving customer issues and training managers and crew to meet or exceed customer service standards. They track, analyze and resolve sources of customer complaints and ensure food safety standards are met.

The RGM develops and drives the restaurant annual operating plan, analyzes sales, labor, inventory and controllables on a continual basis and takes corrective action to meet or achieve margin and sales growth targets. They train and mentor subordinates on financial analyses and profitability tips for the restaurant. They develop store CAPEX requests and are the principle interface with all vendors.

The RGM ensures that facilities and equipment are maintained to Company standards, monitors inventory, food preparation and order fulfillment daily to ensure adherence to Company standards, establishes restaurant speed with service (SWS) targets, monitors performance and resolves bottlenecks to achieve SWS goals, and oversees development and revision of weekly management and crew schedules.

The RGM directs all restaurant level HR activity including personal accountability for crew hiring decisions, learning zone planning and execution, performance management, compensation, employee relations issues up to and including termination, hands-on training for management staff in Learning Zone, development of all Shift Managers and Assistant General Managers to assume higher level responsibilities, development and monitoring of staffing plans and crew sourcing activities, and managing the work environment on all shifts to ensure fair and equitable employee treatment, as well as adherence to all Company, state and federal workplace regulations.

The RGM achieves restaurant annual operating plan, margin improvement over previous year sales growth, weekly/period restaurant performance in sales, labor, ICOS and controllables, PRC results and OSAT scores, Learning Zone certification levels, crew turnover and staffing levels.

The RGM is fully aware of customer needs and ensures that they receive quality products and service. They ensure work is to the correct standard, possess extremely high standards of product quality and speed with service, constantly monitor performance against those standards, possess a strong eye for detail and cleanliness, present a positive image through tidy and professional appearance of self and other employees, interact with customers in a highly effective and proactive manner, consistently seek to improve the customer experience, demonstrate and emphasize to others the importance of a winning customer experience, use customer feedback tools and techniques in making decisions and improving restaurant performance.

The RGM supervises others and efficiently coordinates their work, delegates tasks to the most appropriate member of staff, remains in control in difficult situations, provides clear direction and authority, gets involved in a hands-on manner and leads by example, is assertive, communicates restaurant goals and a motivating vision, links individual performance to achieving restaurant goals, demonstrates principled leadership and sound business ethics, celebrates achievements, recognizes and rewards others, generates pride and commitment, regularly coaches staff to drive performance against objectives, provides ongoing, constructive feedback, demonstrates passion, enthusiasm and intensity in work, is a role model.

The RGM identifies problems quickly, assertively develops and implements solutions, manages restaurant flow to ensure customer satisfaction, focuses the team on critical business issues, plans, organizes and delegates work for peak efficiency, ensures understanding and use of available business tools by appropriate team members, accurately analyzes financial data, identifies trends and takes appropriate action, follows-up to ensure 100% implementation, understands key business drivers and uses this knowledge to build sales and achieve margin targets.

The RGM identifies appropriate staff development needs and action plans and ensures time is available for crew development, is tenacious in ensuring that all employees receive the opportunity to learn and demonstrate new skills, transfers own knowledge to others by clearly demonstrating procedures, maintaining high standards and walking the talk, provides resources for development, follows up and gives positive, direct feedback, provides ongoing coaching and feedback as well as periodic formal assessment of progress.

The RGM is technically proficient in all aspects of food preparation, production and delivery, displays detailed knowledge of all key food handling/food safety procedures, familiar with basic restaurant equipment troubleshooting, and displays detailed knowledge of all company product standards.

High school diploma or GED. Supervisory experience in either a food service or retail environment. Demonstrates ability to maintain financial controls and coach and train hourly employees. Proven ability to drive customer satisfaction, financial performance and employee satisfaction.