Hotel Food & Beverage Manager

Food & Beverage Manager

Elysée New York Hotel is seeking an experienced, passionate, and highly visible Food & Beverage Manager to help shape and lead the service experience within the Lounge and across the hotel's food and beverage operations. This is more than a traditional outlet-management position. Reporting to the Director of Operations, the Food & Beverage Manager will serve as a cultural leader, gracious host, and ambassador of the Elysée New York experience. This individual will be instrumental in bringing the Lounge to life, establishing its service approach, developing a highly engaged team, and ensuring that every guest interaction reflects the hotel's approach to personalized luxury hospitality.

The Food & Beverage Manager will oversee the daily operation of the Lounge, beverage service, and other assigned food and beverage experiences while maintaining the highest standards of service, presentation, financial performance, team engagement, and quality assurance. The ideal candidate is a hands-on luxury hospitality professional who leads from the floor, connects naturally with guests, develops and inspires teams, and understands that exceptional service is created through consistency, anticipation, emotional intelligence, and genuine human connection.

Key responsibilities include:

• Serve as a highly visible leader and gracious host within the Lounge and throughout the hotel's food and beverage operations.
• Lead the daily operations of the Lounge, beverage service, and other assigned food and beverage experiences.
• Bring the Lounge concept to life through thoughtful service practices, personalized guest recognition, consistent presentation, and a warm residential style of hospitality.
• Ensure every food and beverage interaction reflects the hotel's luxury positioning, service philosophy, Leading Quality Assurance Standards and commitment to authentic, individualized experiences.
• Establish a strong leadership presence during breakfast, afternoon service, evening cocktails, special events, and peak operational periods.
• Engage actively with guests, anticipate preferences, recognize returning visitors, and create memorable moments that encourage loyalty and emotional connection to the hotel.
• Monitor guest feedback, online reviews, service trends, and direct guest comments to identify opportunities for improvement.
• Resolve guest concerns with professionalism, empathy, discretion, sound judgment, and a strong ownership mentality.
• Maintain the highest standards of service, cleanliness, atmosphere, product presentation, grooming, and operational readiness.
• Support service teams directly during peak periods to ensure a seamless, polished, and unhurried guest experience.
• Ensure full compliance with food safety, sanitation, liquor, health department, and workplace safety requirements.
• Maintain detailed opening, closing, side-work, and operational procedures for all assigned areas.
• Collaborate with Culinary, Front Office, Housekeeping, Engineering, Security, Sales, and other hotel teams to ensure a cohesive hotel-wide guest journey.
• Help establish the Lounge as one of the defining experiences of Elysée New York and a distinctive gathering place within the New York luxury hospitality market.
• Protect and enhance its residential atmosphere, ensuring that service feels polished and attentive without becoming overly formal, scripted, or transactional.
• Oversee the daily transition of the space from morning breakfast service to afternoon hospitality and evening cocktails.
• Ensure the consistent execution of signature experiences, including afternoon refreshments, beverage offerings, and other evolving hotel traditions.
• Partner with hotel leadership to develop programming, events, partnerships, and cultural moments that reflect the personality of Elysée New York.
• Maintain appropriate music, lighting, table presentation, service pacing, room readiness, and overall atmosphere throughout each period of the day.
• Ensure all physical and sensory details of the Lounge support the hotel's positioning, including sound, lighting, scent, presentation, timing, and service flow.
• Develop a team capable of acting not only as servers and bartenders, but also as knowledgeable hosts, ambassadors, and storytellers for the hotel.
• Promote a service culture in which guests feel recognized, comfortable, and genuinely cared for rather than processed through a traditional hotel outlet.
• Recruit, interview, hire, train, coach, mentor, evaluate, and develop food and beverage team members.
• Create a positive, inclusive, and highly engaged workplace culture centered on teamwork, accountability, professionalism, and genuine hospitality.
• Lead daily briefings and ensure team members are informed about hotel occupancy, VIP guests, returning guests, special occasions, dietary requirements, events, menu changes, and service priorities.
• Establish clear expectations and ensure consistent execution of service standards, operating procedures, Leading Quality Assurance criteria, and luxury quality requirements.
• Translate luxury service standards into practical, observable, and coachable behaviors for the team.
• Provide ongoing feedback, recognition, coaching, and professional development.
• Address performance concerns promptly, fairly, professionally, and in accordance with hotel policies.
• Encourage team members to take ownership of the guest experience and feel confident making thoughtful decisions in the moment.
• Develop future hospitality leaders by identifying talent, creating development opportunities, and supporting internal career growth.
• Maintain open communication and productive working relationships with culinary leaders, hotel executives, ownership representatives, vendors, and operational partners.
• Foster a culture in which every team member understands their role in protecting the reputation and long-term success of Elysée New York.
• Ensure team members understand the history, character, service philosophy, and storytelling elements of the hotel and the Lounge.
• Assist the Director of Operations with annual budgeting, forecasting, revenue planning, expense management, and departmental financial analysis.
• Monitor labor productivity, scheduling, overtime, food cost, beverage cost, operating supplies, and departmental expenses.
• Adjust staffing and service strategies based on occupancy, reservations, business levels, guest patterns, events, and operational demands.
• Review daily revenues, covers, average checks, voids, discounts, service charges, and other relevant performance indicators.
• Identify responsible opportunities to increase revenue while preserving the integrity, exclusivity, and quality of the guest experience.
• Manage purchasing, receiving, inventory controls, storage, and product rotation to maintain quality and minimize waste.
• Participate in monthly beverage and retail inventories.
• Participate in quarterly china, glassware, silverware, linen, and operating-equipment inventories.
• Maintain appropriate par levels for beverages, supplies, tabletop items, and guest-facing materials.
• Ensure compliance with all cash-handling, point-of-sale, purchasing, billing, and financial-control procedures.
• Partner with the Director of Operations to analyze departmental performance and implement appropriate operational improvements.
• Balance financial responsibility with the service investment required to deliver a highly personalized luxury experience.
• Partner with hotel leadership to develop food and beverage promotions, seasonal experiences, and programming that support the positioning of Elysée New York.
• Collaborate with Sales, Marketing, Public Relations, Catering, and Guest Relations teams to maximize visibility and business opportunities.
• Support private gatherings, press events, cultural programming, VIP experiences, hotel activations, and selected partnership events.
• Develop relationships with local guests, neighborhood partners, cultural organizations, luxury brands, and community stakeholders.
• Contribute operational insight to menus, beverage programs, service experiences, pricing strategies, and promotional initiatives.
• Help position the Lounge as a destination that feels exclusive and distinctive while remaining welcoming, residential, and authentic.
• Support initiatives that build local recognition and establish the Lounge as a meaningful part of the hotel's identity.
• Represent Elysée New York professionally at hotel functions, industry events, community activities, and partner engagements when requested.
• Champion the service standards and quality expectations of Elysée New York, Crescent Hotels & Resorts, and Leading Quality Assurance.
• Lead the Lounge operation in accordance with Leading Quality Assurace standards, ensuring service delivery consistently reflects luxury expectations for guest recognition, product knowledge, presentation, timing, personalization, and attention to detail.
• Translate LQA and Forbes Standards into practical service behaviors, operating procedures, training materials, daily briefings, and measurable performance expectations.
• Conduct regular service observations, departmental inspections, and operational audits to evaluate compliance with hotel, Leading Quality Assurance, Forbes, health, and safety standards.
• Participate actively in quality assurance reviews, mock inspections, official assessments, training initiatives, and continuous-improvement programs.
• Analyze guest feedback, service-performance results, audit findings, and quality trends to identify patterns and implement appropriate coaching, training, or procedural changes.
• Develop corrective-action plans when service or quality standards are not achieved and ensure timely follow-