Head of Operations

Apply: https://form.typeform.com/to/DS3RVAwa

Who We Are

The Little Things is a company built to help restaurant entrepreneurs succeed. We incubate and scale restaurant brands by providing the capital, operational support, and resources that founders need—so they can focus on what they do best. Founded in 2025, The Little Things’s businesses include The Green Collective and Little Engine, with more collaborations in the works. We're hiring a senior operations leader to drive execution, mentor founders, and build the systems that let great concepts scale without losing what makes them special.

What You'll Do

Support Our Entrepreneurs

• Coach and mentor founders, GMs, and leaders at each of our businesses. Give them the tools and best practices to be successful
• Support hiring, onboarding, and development of restaurant leadership
• Drive Restaurant Performance
• Be deeply embedded in operations across our stores, with frequent site visits, KPI reviews, and follow-through on action plans
• Identify performance gaps quickly and implement practical solutions
• Develop scrappy and creative solutions to solve challenges
• Own the numbers: sales growth, profitability, labor efficiency, food costs, and guest experience

Build Operating Systems & SOPs

• Document how we work: service standards, kitchen execution, staffing, training, inventory
• Create simple, scalable playbooks that make expectations clear and execution repeatable. Turn best practices into systems so we're not relying on tribal knowledge

Support Strategic Growth

• Lead new store openings through staffing plans, training, and pre-opening readiness
• Make sure lessons from existing restaurants inform future openings
• Help assess when we're ready to scale and what infrastructure needs to be built first
• Identify & Evaluate New Opportunities
• Have a seat at the table with The Little Things’s Founders as future partnership decisions are made.
• Help identify restaurant brands for potential partnership and support the creation and development of new brands from scratch

What Success Looks Like

• Clear operating standards and expectations across all restaurants
• Better controllable metrics: labor, food cost, waste, and guest satisfaction
• Stronger Founder and GMs who feel supported, coached, and accountable
• New openings that feel organized and repeatable—a business that scales with discipline
• Development of a replicable model to support future entrepreneurs

Who You Are

• Scrappy, driven, and hardworking
• High-energy, positive, and ability to set culture
• Obsessed with the pursuit of finding better solutions and constantly improving
• Bias for action over endless planning
• Comfortable with ambiguity and making decisions without perfect information
• Entrepreneurial mindset with high ownership and sound judgment
• Willingness to travel

What You Bring

Required

• 10 years of restaurant operations experience, including multi-unit leadership
• Proven track record of scaling a restaurant concept from a few locations to a larger footprint
• Strong understanding of restaurant P&Ls and the operational levers that move them
• Demonstrated ability to develop and mentor leaders
• Experience being in restaurants and leading from the floor
• Familiarity with modern restaurant tech: POS, scheduling, inventory systems

Nice to Have

• Experience starting a business on your own
• Track record evaluating restaurant acquisition or investment opportunities
• Multilingual (especially Spanish)
• Culinary background
• Specialty in HR and talent development programs
• Based in Washington D.C., Denver, or New York

Compensation & Benefits

• Total Compensation: $150,000 - $175,000
• Healthcare and 401k