Front of House Operations Manager - Hands-On Hospitality Manager
Small Things Hospitality Group | Brisbane
Remy's | Hai Hai x 2 | King Tea
We're looking for someone with a complete understanding of hospitality and deep experience from the Service side of operations.
Our General Manager must have a strong front-of-house operations background developed on the front line. Ideally you have proven multi-venue leadership experience and a genuine love of hospitality and a desire to coach leaders while standing shoulder to shoulder with them.
Our stage of maturity with the company means we're looking for active, hungry doers. If you're not the sort of person who has a keenly developed sense of guest needs, in a hospitality setting or think that nit picking the small things is 'micro-management' instead of building muscle memory in a culture of attention to details, this is not going to fulfil you. There are no business shirts, document maker's or pen pushers in our business.
Our executive team is exactly 2 people presently - a Group Director & a cracking Exec Chef. We're not looking for an advisor, we're looking for someone who can tied up our little triangle with god-like experience in leading FOH operations along with entrepreneurial spirit & know how that understands the numbers that matter in the early stages.
Recruitment takes more time than ever at the moment and coaching, retention & culture-setting are more key than ever for us. We're pushing deeply for the few committed individuals available in the market and looking for A-Players who always default to "do it better" as their approach to service, products, culture & even admin.
We cannot stress enough that this is a group leadership role with a clear FOH/service-operations focus - it is not a desk job with occasional site visits.
The role
Working alongside our Group Director and Executive Chef, you'll lead venue managers and FOH teams across the group.



Your focus will be creating a culture of exceptional hospitality in a landscape where mediocre seems to have become the standard.
Your unrelenting approach to standards across big things & small things that make hospitality memorable is critical to your success.
You will be:
Leading
during
service: being regularly present across daytime, evening and weekend trade, actively supporting and coaching teams — not simply checking in.
Building service professionalism in front line managers and their teams: lifting guest recognition, product knowledge, service timing, floor organisation, presentation and complaint handling.
Recruiting strong people: actively building the team, assessing practical service ability and hiring for both capability and attitude.
Training and developing teams: creating practical onboarding, running useful pre-service briefings, coaching on shift and checking that learning translates into performance.
Developing venue managers: building leaders who can run excellent services, hold standards and develop their own people.
Improving sales and profitability: growing spend per head, repeat visits and revenue while managing labour and working with the Executive Chef on cost and operational performance.
Following through: keeping managers accountable on their rosters ahead of time, ensuring reporting is tactical and useful to day to day operations, focusing on priorities until they're embedded before diluting your time on other opportunities.
The numbers matter and are only relevant if the core tenants of hospitality are being met - we're not looking for smart number management that stems from hospitality fundamentals in order to build lasting & resilient brands as we expand.




The environment
We're an independent, owner-led hospitality group — still startup-like in the systems and structure we're building, rather than a large corporate operation.
You'll work side by side with our small Executive team and the front line managers underneath you. We're looking for someone who can prove their value and contributions to the team with results & ownership.
This suits someone who enjoys building practical systems, moves fast and iterates, takes decisive actions and owns results. The aim is to build capable teams and reliable operations, not make yourself the permanent emergency cover.
Mandatory experience/evidence we're looking for:
Proven leadership across multiple hospitality venues and their managers.
Strong, recent FOH experience and confidence actively leading busy services.
Evidence of recruiting, onboarding and coaching successful hospitality teams.
Pride in warm, attentive service — professional does not mean formal or stuffy.
Measurable improvements in sales, guest experience, team performance or profitability.
The ability to develop strong performers and address underperformance directly and fairly.
Comfort working in a small business where you both lead others and do practical work yourself.
Availability for a roster that regularly includes days, nights and weekends.
Be clear about suitability
If you're looking to move away from service and into a predominantly office-based role, our little business is unlikely to be what you're looking for.
Venue presence here means participating in service, observing guest experience and coaching the team in real time as opposed to booking meetings, reviewing docs & numbers and directing from the sideline before the rush.
Equally, this is not simply a senior floor-manager role. You must combine strong service leadership with commercial judgement, multi-venue accountability and disciplined administration.
#J-*****-Ljbffr

📌 Front Of House Operations Manager - Hands-On Hospitality Manager (Brisbane)
🏢 Small Things Hospitality Group.
📍 Brisbane