General Manager

We are looking for a General Manager to own the day-to-day operation of a high-volume, fast-growing restaurant. This is the senior operating role in the building — over 100 team members and a director team of eight — and it covers more than the hours we are open. Cleaners overnight, a truck overnight, setup before the doors unlock: a lot of what makes a good day happen takes place when nobody is here to see it, and that is yours too.

Why this role exists

Our owner-operator is in this restaurant every day and intends to stay that way. Alongside running the business, his focus sits on what comes next — new programs, partnerships across the Seacoast, and developing the people who lead here.

What the restaurant needs beside that is someone whose whole attention is on how the building runs today. Every shift, every standard, the hours we are open and the hours we are not.

That is this job, and it is a partnership. Two people doing what each does best, against one restaurant and one standard. It is not a backfill for an absent owner — he is here, he is engaged, and he is looking for a true counterpart rather than a deputy.

What you own

The building. Not a function within it.

• The daily operation. Every shift, open to close, six days a week. When something goes sideways at 6am or 9pm, it is yours.
• Standards and accountability. Checklists actually completed. Food safety and cleanliness held without being asked. The follow-through that turns a standard into a habit.
• Scheduling and labor. Coverage that matches the business, availability that gets honored, and the judgment to know which gaps matter.
• Guest and team member experience. Both are the same privilege — the chance to lead and serve people well. You own how both feel.
• The leadership team's performance. Developing directors, holding them to their commitments, and making the calls they escalate.

Your decisions carry. This role has real authority, including over directors who have been here longer than you have. That is deliberate, and it is the part of the job that will be hardest in the first ninety days.

The team you lead

Eight directors, each owning a function:

• Operations — Daily execution and the standards behind it
• Restaurant — Facilities, equipment, vendors, and the systems the restaurant runs on
• Human Resources — Hiring, onboarding, pay, and team member relations
• Training — How new team members get good, and how good ones get better
• Hospitality — The guest experience end to end
• Front of House — The counter, the drive-thru, the dining room
• Back of House — The kitchen, food safety, production
• Marketing — Brand, community presence, and local growth

This is an established team, not one you are building from scratch. Every one of them has been here since we opened. They are good at their jobs and they know this restaurant well.

So the work is less about installing your system and more about raising the ceiling on a team that is already working — sharpening accountability, connecting the functions to each other, and being the person who decides when two directors see it differently.

Who does well here

Someone who is genuinely good at the daily grind and not embarrassed by it. The best operators we know find real satisfaction in a clean building, a schedule that works, and a shift that ran the way it was supposed to. If that reads as small to you, this is the wrong job.

Someone who enjoys working with new technology. We use technology and AI extensively in how this restaurant is managed — scheduling, tasks, hiring, reporting, day-to-day decisions. You do not need to arrive an expert. You do need to like learning new tools, and to help carry that work forward rather than wait for it to settle down.

Someone who is present. Standards hold because a leader notices every time, not because a leader announced them once — and noticing happens in the building. This is not an office job, and it is not a seat in the dining room during a busy lunch. It is being on the floor, stepping into positions when the team needs the hands, and engaged with the team and the guests.

Someone who can be told no and say no. You will disagree with the Operator. He wants that, and he will tell you when he thinks you are wrong. The person who thrives here is comfortable holding a position and equally comfortable changing it.

Someone who develops people rather than manages tasks. Eight directors, over 100 team members, and a lot of young people working their first job. How they are coached here follows them for years.

What we are not asking for

Restaurant experience is not required. Neither is hospitality. Both help, and we will not pretend otherwise — but we would rather have a strong leader who has to learn our operation than an experienced operator who cannot lead this team.

If you have run a store, a plant, a branch, a unit, a department or a crew — somewhere with real headcount, real standards and real accountability — the transferable part is most of the job. We can teach the chicken.

What we cannot teach is judgment about people, the instinct to walk toward a problem, and the discipline to hold a standard on a day when it would be easier not to.

How we work

Nothing here matters more than the culture we build and the impact we have. These are the things that define both, and we mean them operationally rather than as slogans.

Family-friendly. We care about the team member and about the family behind them. It looks like a flexible schedule built around the lives people actually have, a supportive place to work where nobody is left to figure it out alone, and a restaurant that is closed every Sunday — that last one is the model, not a perk we invented. The availability people give us is the availability we honor.

Team-oriented. Directors here cover for each other without being asked. Nobody's title keeps them off the floor on a hard night.

Community-engaged. We are in the schools, at the fundraisers, and in neighborhoods around the Seacoast. A lot of our best team members found us that way.

Fun by working hard. Lunch rush here is loud and fast and genuinely enjoyable if you are wired for it. The people who love it are the ones who like the work itself, not just the result.

The culture is the thing we would most hate to lose in a hire. A General Manager who improves the numbers and erodes the culture is not a good hire here.

The particulars

Location. Chick-fil-A Newington, 2060 Woodbury Ave, Newington, NH. On site.

Reports to. The Operator.

Schedule. Salaried and full-time. We are open Monday through Saturday and closed every Sunday. The week moves with the business — some opens, some closes, busy stretches that ask for more, and a real presence on the nights and Saturdays that matter most. What it is not is the seven-day, sixty-hour version of this job where one person carries the building alone. There is a full director team here and real rotation across it, and this role exists to lead and support that team.

Compensation. This is the senior role in the building and it is paid that way — meaningfully above what a general manager position in this market usually carries, with benefits. We are glad to talk specifics early rather than late. That said, the people who do well here would want this job for the work; the pay is what makes it a career.

Working at a Chick-fil-A® restaurant is more than a job – it’s an opportunity for teamwork and leadership development in a positive, people-focused environment. Chick-fil-A Newington is locally owned and operated by the Vonhof family who invest in the future of their Team Members and give back to their communities.