A restaurant general manager runs one full-service restaurant and owns what happens there: sales, labor, cash, guest reviews, and every health and liquor inspection. In a restaurant group, the GM runs the group's menu and playbook in one building, leads its front-of-house managers, and works the floor on the busiest nights.
By the HireBus team · Updated · Pay data: BLS, May 2025
Median pay, full-service restaurants · BLS, May 2025
We're hiring a General Manager to run one of our full-service restaurants and own its P&L. You'll lead the Assistant GM, Floor Managers, Bar Manager and front-of-house team, and partner with the Executive Chef on the kitchen. Sales, labor, guest experience, cash, and every health and liquor inspection at this location are yours.
2. Essential Duties and Responsibilities
Hire and train the front-of-house team with the Assistant GM, and hire kitchen leads with the Executive Chef and Culinary Director.
Set the manager schedule, and approve front- and back-of-house schedules against forecast covers and the labor budget.
Run the weekly P&L review: sales, covers, check average, labor, food and beverage cost, and controllable expenses.
Approve comps and voids above a manager's limit, and review the comp and void report every week.
Keep the liquor license, health permit and food manager certificates current and posted.
Lead the restaurant through health inspections and fix any violation by the inspector's deadline.
Schedule hood cleaning, grease trap service, pest control and refrigeration repairs, and keep the records.
3. Key Tasks / Daily Activities
Meet with the Executive Chef on specials, prep, food cost and kitchen staffing.
Work the floor during peak service: touch tables, watch ticket times, and help where the kitchen or bar gets stuck.
Send cuts or call in staff as the night's covers come in over or under forecast.
Verify the closing manager's cash-outs, deposit and log before the next shift.
Answer online reviews and follow up on guest complaints the floor managers couldn't resolve.
4. Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
Restaurant profit versus budget: [your target].
Sales growth over last year: [your target].
Labor percentage: [your target].
Guest review rating: [your target].
Health inspection results: [your target].
5. Required Qualifications and Skills
[3+] years as a General Manager or Assistant General Manager in a full-service restaurant with a bar.
ServSafe Manager or another accredited food protection manager certificate, current or earned within [30] days.
Responsible alcohol service training (TIPS, ServSafe Alcohol, or your state's program), current or earned within [30] days.
Has managed a restaurant P&L, including labor scheduling and inventory.
Has closed out a POS, balanced cash drawers and prepared bank deposits.
6. Preferred Experience
Experience opening a restaurant or turning one around.
Experience with [your POS], [your reservation system] and [your scheduling app].
Background in both front and back of house.
Has handled a health inspection or liquor board visit as the manager in charge.
7. Physical Requirements
Stand and walk for most of a [10]-hour shift, moving between dining room, bar and kitchen.
Carry trays, glass racks and cases up to [40] pounds when the team needs a hand.
With or without reasonable accommodation.
8. Work Environment and Schedule
Nights, weekends and holidays are core shifts; [number] of [five] weekly shifts end at close.
On the floor during service, with office time before open for schedules, ordering and reports.
Meetings at the central office or other locations: [how often].
9. Compensation and Benefits
Pay: [range and hourly or salary basis].
Additional pay: [overtime, bonus or incentive terms, or none].
Benefits: [health, dental, vision, retirement, paid time off, and when they start].
10. Company Culture and Overview
[Two or three sentences on what your company does, the area you serve, and the support a new general manager gets in the first 90 days.]
11. How to Apply
[Apply link or email]. Our process: [phone interview, in-person interview, and next steps]. Contact [hiring contact] if you need an accommodation during the application process.
Need help filling this role? HireBus posts the ad, Iris interviews every applicant by phone before you do, and you decide who to hire. Start hiring now
What's different about running one restaurant in a group
A restaurant group hands its GMs a menu, a vendor list and a brand they didn't pick, then holds them to one building's numbers. Most of that gets done in the dining room during service, not at a desk.
The P&L gets made during service
Labor and food and beverage cost are the lines a GM can move most, and both change while the dining room is full. Covers come in under forecast, so the GM sends a server home early. A cooler fails, and product goes in the trash. The weekly P&L review shows what happened, but the fixes happen at seven o'clock on a Friday.
The kitchen has its own boss
The Executive Chef answers to the Culinary Director on food. The GM can't change a recipe or switch a produce vendor, but shares the labor budget, the food cost line and every guest complaint with the chef. A daily check-in on specials, prep and staffing keeps the two from finding out about problems in the P&L.
The hood, the grease trap and the paperwork
Fire codes set hood inspections by what and how much a kitchen cooks. King County, Washington, is one example. Its permit handout lists a check every three months for high-volume cooking, such as charbroiling or wok cooking. Kitchens that cook over wood or charcoal get one monthly, and most other kitchens every six months. Grease found on a check gets cleaned. The GM books those vendors, plus grease trap and pest service, and keeps the records. Source: King County Permits: Commercial cooking fire systems handout (June 2025).
Review replies come with rules
The GM answers the restaurant's online reviews and follows up on complaints the floor managers couldn't settle. A free dessert can't be the price of five stars. The FTC's consumer review rule bars any reward tied, openly or by hint, to a review saying something good or bad. Win the guest back at the table, and let the review say what it says. Source: 16 CFR 465.4: Buying positive or negative consumer reviews (Cornell LII).
Big nights you didn't book
Private rooms and buyouts for every location are booked by the group's Catering and Events Manager. The GM delivers them from the event order: staff, timing, the bar and the rest of the dining room. Add Valentine's Day, Mother's Day and New Year's Eve, and the calendar sets the year's biggest nights, not the GM.
How much restaurant general managers make
The closest BLS group for restaurant general managers is food service managers. Food service managers who work for full-service restaurants earned a median of $73,610 a year ($35.39 an hour) in May 2025, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That’s above the $69,390 median for food service managers in all industries. About 84,940 of the 238,430 food service managers in that survey work for full-service restaurants.
Salaried, with a bonus usually figured from the restaurant's profit against the budget the GM signed off on. Inspection grades, guest reviews and keeping good managers often count toward it too.
Full-service restaurants
$73,610$73,610 median Middle half $60,430–$90,600 10th–90th $49,070–$109,810
All industries
$69,390$69,390 median Middle half $56,870–$86,800 10th–90th $45,960–$107,640
$25k$50k$75k$100k$125k
10th–90th percentileMiddle halfMedianAnnual pay, May 2025. Source: BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics.
Annual pay by percentile
Group
10th
25th
Median
75th
90th
Full-service restaurants
$49,070
$60,430
$73,610
$90,600
$109,810
All industries
$45,960
$56,870
$69,390
$86,800
$107,640
Skills to hire for, and what you can teach
Hire for these
Reads a restaurant P&L and explains why each line moved from last week
Has run the dining room and bar of a full-service restaurant through a sold-out Saturday
Builds and trims a schedule from forecast covers without shorting service
Handles cash closely: checkouts, drawers, deposits and a clean paper trail
Coaches managers face to face and writes it down when it matters
Teach these on the job
Your group's operating playbook and opening and closing checklists
Your POS, reservation and scheduling systems
Group vendor contracts and ordering rules
How far each manager can go on comps and voids, and the reports behind it
Weekly reporting to the central office and the budget calendar
Restaurant GMs work in the POS (Toast, Aloha, Square for Restaurants and similar), a reservation system such as OpenTable, Resy or SevenRooms, scheduling software such as 7shifts or HotSchedules, and the group's inventory and reporting tools. The bigger question for candidates is who builds the weekly P&L: the central office or the GM.
Restaurant general manager interview questions
They have their own page: 6 questions that test this job, what strong and weak answers sound like, and a work exercise to run with your finalists.
A restaurant in its first year and one in its tenth shouldn't share goals. Start from this location's budget and last year's results, not the group average.
Restaurant profit versus budget
Compare the monthly operating profit on this restaurant's P&L with the budget the GM agreed to, then find the lines behind the gap: labor, cost of goods, comps or repairs.
Sales growth over last year
Line up sales with the same weeks last year by day of week, and split them into covers and check average to see whether more guests came or each one spent more.
Labor percentage
Total labor cost as a share of net sales each week, pulled from scheduling and the POS. Track front and back of house apart, and treat salaried managers the same way every period.
Guest review rating
Monthly star ratings for this location on the review sites guests use most, such as Google, Yelp and OpenTable. Sort the worst reviews by theme, such as waits, food or a server, and check that each one got a reply.
Health inspection results
The score or grade from each official inspection, plus a count of the most serious violations on each report. Run your own mock inspections between visits so problems surface before the inspector arrives.
What's the difference between a restaurant GM and a director of operations?
The GM runs one restaurant and is in the building most nights. The director of operations leads all the GMs, moves between locations, runs audits and approves spending above a GM's limit. A GM is judged on one P&L; the director on the whole group's. Hire GMs you could see running the group's operations one day, since that's often where the next director comes from.
How much does a restaurant general manager make?
Food service managers who work for full-service restaurants earned a median of $73,610 a year ($35.39 an hour) in May 2025, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The middle half earned between $60,430 and $90,600 a year. Pay also depends on your local market, experience and bonus terms.
Does a restaurant general manager need food safety certification?
The answer turns on your state and county. BLS says some states and localities require food service managers to hold a food safety certification, and others don't. Ask your state or county health department. Either way, the template here asks for an accredited manager-level food safety certificate (ServSafe Manager is one), held at hire or earned within the window you set. The GM leads every inspection.
Does a restaurant GM need experience opening a restaurant?
Only if you're hiring for a new location. Openings reward people who can hire a whole staff in a few weeks and train them before the first guest. Most GM jobs are in restaurants already open, where steady habits matter more: tight schedules, clean closes and managers who stay. For those, ask how the candidate ran a restaurant through its slowest month.
How is a GM in a restaurant group different from one at an independent restaurant?
An independent GM often writes the menu with the chef, picks vendors, runs social media and reports straight to the owner. In a group, the menu comes from the Culinary Director, vendors from group contracts, and marketing from the central office. In return the GM gets payroll, HR and bookkeeping support and a director to call. Hire someone who likes running a good system.
What hours does a restaurant general manager work?
Shifts are built around dinner, with office time before open for schedules, ordering and reports. BLS notes that food service managers often work evenings, weekends and holidays, and may be called in on short notice. Tell candidates how many closes they own and which holidays they work.
