General Manager

The General Manager is responsible for balancing the needs and expectations of ownership, staff and guests. Overseeing every aspect of the business, managing the performance of all departments.

Roles and Responsibilities

• Business Oversight : Overseeing the entire business operation, ensuring all departments run smoothly and efficiently, and ensuring there is a systemized policy and procedures that guide each staff and task. This includes managing the distinct daytime cafe operations and bakery with pastry, as well as the nighttime wine bar with small plates.
• On-Premise Presence & Brand Leadership : A minimum of 40 hours per week is required to be spent on-premise. While working on business administration tasks, you will also be present on the floor as needed, ensuring you are seen and known by both staff and regulars. You will serve as the face and voice of SEMM, embodying the highest level of our brand and hospitality at all times.
• Quality and Customer Experience : Ensuring that every touchpoint for guests, from the beginning to the end of their experience, is a defined SEMM experience. This includes overseeing the quality of food, staff hospitality, cleanliness of the space, and the intentional design of the sound, sight, and scent.
• Financial Management : Managing payroll, tips, and labor costs. You will be responsible for controlling the profit and loss (P&L) and ensuring that EBITDA / NOI remain above a predetermined threshold. This includes understanding how every operational decision impacts financial performance, with a keen focus on inventory, labor, and food waste. Using functions of our POS and Restaurant 365 systems, you will be agile in controlling staffing and pars based on estimated and actual sales, reservations, and projections, ensuring consistency in recipe and usage to keep EBITDA / NOI above the specified threshold. You will also use these systems to present detailed sales and product mix (pmix) reports, communicating what is selling, what is not, and where adjustments need to be made in terms of offerings and menu prices.
• Staffing and Team Leadership : You will be responsible for all hiring, which includes posting jobs on platforms like Culinary Agents and Craigslist, interviewing, and filtering potential hires. You will also be responsible for creating and updating job descriptions, and mentoring staff on the SEMM brand and culture. To ensure each staff member is properly trained and executes their scope of work, in addition to embodying the SEMM hospitality guidelines, you will conduct monthly performance reviews and check-ins to identify specific training and support needs. You will pair staff with managers and mentors on shifts to create natural learning environments for growth, using metrics to evaluate both performance and mentoring effectiveness. This also includes serving as the central point of contact for all HR-related matters, ensuring a healthy workplace for all staff. You will have a keen eye for staff relationships, proactively calling individual meetings to explore sensitive topics and prevent potential liabilities. When situations occur where staff act outside of normal behavior and break policies or procedures, you will be responsible for clearly documenting the incident, citing the behavior in writing, and having the staff member acknowledge and sign the document, and guide the staff by mentoring and training so that they may be within healthy parameters of actions.
• Set-up Business : Due to the new business nature of this project, you will have overlapping responsibilities for the final installation of equipment and setting up technologies and systems required for the space to prepare for opening.
• Communication Hub : Serving as the central point of contact for all staff questions, ensuring that training, documentation, and onboarding are all implemented to reduce confusion. You will also ensure that the needs of the kitchen, bar, cafe, and bakery are all acknowledged. You will take a leadership role in ensuring that all questions and confusion are funneled through the General Manager to maintain consistency and clarity. You will also create transparent reports for ownership and the Director of Operations to provide visibility into key progress, frictions, and obstacles. These reports, which will utilize data from systems like our POS and Restaurant 365, will use data and example experiences to convey needed decision requests and strategic insights.
• Lead by Example : Having an acute understanding of every position and the willingness to jump into any role to fill a gap. This posture of leadership is what will earn staff respect and set a standard of operational excellence.
• Sales and Events : Driving sales initiatives and overseeing the planning and execution of events. This includes collaborating with ownership to create event packages, pricing, and policies. You will conduct walk-throughs with buyout and event clients, guiding guests through the booking process and closing the deal. You will ensure transparent communication of cancellation policies, rules, payment schedules, and other details using Banquet Event Orders (BEOs). You will be responsible for ensuring that all managers and staff needed to execute an event have a proper BEO in hand with enough lead time to prepare, while also communicating any changes in a timely manner.
• Inventory Management : Overseeing proper end-of-month, weekly, and daily inventory counts for purchasing, with the goal of transparency and accuracy. This ensures the total value on hand is correctly reflected so that the P&L and Cost of Goods Sold (COGS) remain within the parameters of our NOI / EBITA goals. You will delegate orders as needed while having visibility into all manager and staff actions that could negatively impact business finances. You will also ensure there is transparency on potential waste and theft, and review any discrepancies with staff and managers.
• Marketing : Working with ownership and the Director of Operations to develop strategies and content to generate public interest in visiting and booking. This includes coordinating monthly photoshoots of new menu items and events hosted internally, as well as providing copywriting support for email newsletters, Instagram, and other social media platforms.
• Public Perception : Taking an active role in managing the company's public perception and communicating with the press and media as needed. This includes regularly reviewing and replying to reviews and complaints on platforms like Google, Yelp, and Resy to resolve conflicts and keep a pulse on public sentiment.

REQUIREMENTS

Compensation & Benefits :