Company description
Chef Spike Gjerde & his team are growing again following 20 years at Woodberry Kitchen, Baltimore’s only James Beard award-winning restaurant. Woodberry opened with a question: “What is the best way to feed ourselves?” What followed was the making of an experimental restaurant group that measured success by maximizing purchasing from local, regenerative farms in the Mid-Atlantic, while firmly rejecting broad-line distributors and commodity agriculture.
Now, 20 years later, our company is still determined to change our food system, this time by expanding our reach– creating accessible restaurants that prioritize local, regenerative farm products.
Job description
Our company is approaching a period of rapid growth. The Director of Operations is responsible for leading daily operations, service, and beverage across our properties, working to create and maintain a complex restaurant group that works to high standards.
Your work will help our company establish a national presence in hospitality and regenerative agriculture. Each day, your job is to challenge your team and yourself to improve– creating places, food and beverage, and businesses that continue to innovate and get better over time.
The right candidate is someone who is:
- immensely passionate about delighting guests with exceptional service... from fine dining to retail
- an inspiring, energetic leader who wants a hands-on role building a company
- passionate about changing the food system
Responsibilities:
Daily Operations
-Ensure each location opens every day with absolute readiness for our guests. Work to ensure managers, teams, spaces, and product are at their best every day.
-Spend focused time working on each business, each week. Be present on the floor, at pre-shift meetings, and closings. Manage important events, guest of note dinners, and high-touch services.
Front of House Team & Guest Experience Management
-Hire, train, and provide ongoing coaching/development for team members in every position in the Front of House at Artifact Coffee, Woodberry Kitchen, and future projects to be announced. Focus on getting the exact right person in the exact right role, then provide the clear and inspiring leadership that gets the best performance out of each individual.
-Drive staff education including extensive knowledge of our menus, sourcing practices, the local food system, food and beverage, service mechanics, and more. Run effective team trainings and menu meetings, provide written training materials where appropriate, and challenge team members to continue to expand their knowledge.
-Work with Spike to understand his vision for service in each restaurant along with our success metrics for managers. Learn to translate Spike's approach to the restaurant teams. Independently build systems and training manuals that reinforce his vision, measure and track team performance. Model empathetic service and The Soil for team members and managers.
-Perform corrective and disciplinary action as needed in compliance with company HR policies. Provide clear timelines for improvement for team members who are falling short of established standards, and follow up on improvements. Terminate team members when appropriate. Advocate for the business in employment issues and ensure compliance with employment laws.
-Maintain Woodberry Kitchen and other restaurants in the group as professional level work places that facilitate high quality employment.
Systems & Facilities
-Maintain our restaurants as well-functioning, clean, and organized places to work and dine.
-Define organizational systems for each Front of House area in the restaurant, communicate them to teams, and enforce them. This includes physical storage spaces, refrigeration, service stations, beverage inventory, paper products/packaging, and more.
-Manage equipment maintenance and repairs on appropriate dining room facilities, including working with service providers to address the repairs, managing costs, and maintaining facilities for uninterrupted services at each location.
-Manage digital systems including menu printing, online menus, online ordering, Toast menus, reservation platforms, tripleseat/BEO management, and others. Keep employee information up to date with Business Manager/HR and in HRIS.
Business Improvement & Growth
-Affect positive change on our top-line sales through the development of well-trained teams and service mechanics, exceptional offerings that satisfy our demand and reflect our sourcing, and identifying and capturing opportunities for sales.
-Use an understanding of business metrics including Sales, COGS, Labor Cost, and Expenses to drive profitability at each location. Work with Aazam to manage the financial success of each location.
Required Experience:
-5+ years in management/director positions
-Strong written and verbal communication skills
-Experience managing diverse teams including junior managers
-Understanding of financial metrics in F&B businesses
-Strong beverage & service knowledge
-Bachelor’s degree preferred
-Multi-unit experience preferred
Must be based in Baltimore.
Compensation
this position is: salaried, $75,000 - $100,000
Application instructions
This job expired on July 17, 2025
Deadline
June 30, 2025