Restaurant Manager: What is the cost of hiring?

Why hire a restaurant manager?

The need for new staff can affect both your existing team and your bottom line. A great restaurant manager hire can help your business increase its margins and create great promotions that will bring customers in. A manager can create a great work environment that customers and employees will love. Other reasons to hire a restaurant manager include:

• Better management of food waste
• Increase in sales
• Better customer return rate

What are the different types of restaurant manager?

When hiring a restaurant manager, it’s important to understand the specific kind of restaurant manager you need for your business. Whether you need someone to manage the kitchen, front of house or both, there’s a restaurant manager that can get the job done. Here are some of the most common types of restaurant managers to help you find one that meets your needs:

• Assistant restaurant manager: Assists general restaurant managers with day-to-day operations.
• Executive chef or kitchen manager: Oversees the kitchen staff, creates restaurant menus, managed ordering and inventory and ensures proper food safety/sanitation. Typically requires formal training through a culinary institute or apprenticeship.
• Front of house manager: Manages front of house staff (e.g., hosts, servers, bussers) and operations.
• General manager: Handles a restaurant’s day-to-day operations, including creating staff schedules, hiring and training employees, improving communication between the kitchen and front of house staff and ensuring good customer service.

Where to find restaurant managers

To find the right restaurant for your business, consider trying out a few different recruiting strategies:

• Hire from within: Are any of your servers, hosts or chefs ready to move up to a management position? If so, determine if any of your current employees have the skills and qualifications required for your restaurant manager role.
• Ask for referrals: Reach out to your personal and professional network and ask if they know anyone who is a match for your restaurant manager role. Current employees may also have former coworkers and managers who could be a great fit.
• Post a help wanted sign in your window: Tell people you’re hiring by posting a “Now Hiring” sign in your restaurant window.
• Post your job online: Try posting your restaurant manager job on Indeed to find and attract quality restaurant manager candidates.

Skills to look for in a great restaurant manager

A great restaurant manager candidate will have the following skills, attributes and work experience that reflects:

• Years of restaurant experience
• Ability to coordinate daily restaurant operations
• Ability to appraise and improve staff performance
• Ability to build rapport with customers
• Strong customer service skills
• Team work skills

Writing a restaurant manager job description

A thoughtful description is important to finding qualified restaurant manager candidates. A restaurant manager job description includes a compelling summary of the role, a detailed list of duties and responsibilities and the required and preferred skills for the position.

When writing your restaurant manager job description, consider including some or all of the following keywords to improve the visibility of your job posting. These are the most popular search terms leading to clicks on restaurant manager jobs, according to Indeed data:

• restaurant manager
• manager
• restaurant
• general manager
• restaurant management
• management
• food service
• hospitality
• restaurant general manager
• hiring immediately

Interviewing restaurant manager candidates

After reviewing the resumes of your top restaurant manager applicants, schedule interviews to learn more about them. Strong candidates for restaurant manager positions will be confident answering questions regarding:

• Creating menus
• Promoting events
• Managing staff
• Developing a budget

Need help coming up with interview questions? See our list of restaurant manager interview questions for examples (with sample answers).