Restaurant General Manager

A high-volume restaurant and bar in downtown Cleveland is looking for a General Manager.

It has a chef-driven menu covering brunch, dinner, and late night. The riverfront setting includes boat-up docking and open-air seating, with a waterfront stage planned for live music and events.

Position Overview

• Role: Ultimate leader of the restaurant responsible for bridging ownership, culinary teams, and frontline staff to deliver high-quality hospitality and financial success.

Core Responsibilities

Financial & Business Management

• P&L Accountability: Own the operating budget, revenue targets, labor cost percentages, and food/beverage cost of goods sold (COGS).
• Forecasting & Reporting: Analyze financial metrics, sales trends, and inventory variances to adjust operational strategy.
• Cost Controls: Implement systems to minimize waste, optimize scheduling-to-volume, and negotiate with vendors.

Operations & Service Excellence

• Floor Leadership: Lead hands-on during peak lunch and dinner service, setting a visible standard of warm, refined hospitality ("leading from the floor").
• Culinary Collaboration: Partner directly with the Executive Chef to ensure seamless timing, plate presentation, and menu execution.
• Quality & Compliance: Enforce health, safety, sanitation (ServSafe), and brand standards consistently.

People Management & Culture

• Recruitment & Training: Hire, train, mentor, and evaluate FOH and BOH team members to build a low-turnover, high-morale culture.
• Scheduling: Build labor schedules that match guest traffic forecasts while balancing staff workloads.
• Accountability: Conduct regular performance reviews and coach shift leads and assistant managers.

Guest Relations & Brand Building

• Guest Engagement: Interact directly with diners, create regular loyalty, and handle escalated service recovery with grace.
• Marketing & Events: Collaborate with marketing and private dining teams to promote seasonal menus, community events, or local partnerships.

Since 2000, Gecko Hospitality and its dedicated Franchise Partners and Recruiters throughout the United States have been pioneers in the hospitality recruiting industry. The value that Gecko Hospitality provides to its Clientele is evident in the advanced networking and technology skills our professional recruiters possess in identifying qualified restaurant professionals. Voted Forbes best recruitment firm since 2018.

Our national network consists of 37 regional offices that are driven to meet the needs of the hospitality industry. In addition, Gecko Hospitality offers the largest selection of hospitality jobs, restaurant jobs, hotel jobs, resort jobs and club management jobs online. Our specialized, hospitality-focused team covers all 50 states and Canada with over 80 Franchise Partners and recruiters. Gecko Hospitality was founded on providing the finest restaurant jobs nationwide to the highest performing candidates. More importantly, our Franchise Partners and recruiters began their careers in hospitality and there is no finer training ground for recruiting than real life experience.

At Gecko Hospitality, we are passionate about making sure that every member of our recruiting team is familiar with our philosophies. In the same way that we learn about people when developing relationships and friendships, we want our people to have a sense of Gecko Hospitality's values and insight into our company's "personality." With this insight comes a greater understanding of how values "fit" with Gecko Hospitality's values, why we do things the way we do as well as providing a basis for making decisions that are appropriate to those values. We all play a part in keeping these traditions and philosophies alive.

We want every member of our recruiting team to understand that we are only as good as how well we follow these philosophies on an every day basis. Gecko Hospitality is all about achieving results by being motivated. This motivation to achieve results comes from within. No one can motivate us, nor can we motivate anyone else. As leaders, all that we can do is provide an environment where people motivate themselves to achieve mutually beneficial goals. Along with this philosophy, each team member possesses the following traits for which we are proud: honesty, integrity, desire, determination, listening skills, rapid learning, responding in a timely manner, effective communication skills, thoroughness, empathy, compassion, and most of all we want every team member to have a strong work ethic that motivates them to produce superior results both for our candidates and for our Clients.

At Gecko Hospitality, you certainly have... more choices