Director of Operations

Industry:

Company: Riviera Dining Group

RDG introduces its first restaurant-concept brand, MILA, which offers guests a culinary journey through exquisite MediterrAsian cuisine, opened in January 2020 in Miami Beach. Combining genuine hospitality, fine dining, and a sophisticated nightlife atmosphere, MILA has quickly become a premier destination within Miami’s upscale social scene.

At RDG, we are a collective of individuals dedicated to excellence and the art of sensory engagement. We embrace the rhythms of life and are motivated by the thrill of adventure. Our core principles focus on providing customers with immersive experiences, organic design, and a refined culinary journey.

DREAM IT
MILA has exceeded expectations in its initial two years, achieving remarkable success despite pandemic-related challenges, and securing the #5 spot in The Restaurant Business Top 100 ranking. Building on this success, RDG has expanded into new concepts including AVA MediterrAegean in Winter Park, Florida, CASA NEOS on the Miami River (opened June 2024), and MM, a Membership Community. Upcoming projects include NOORA and Claudie (scheduled for fall 2024), AVA’s second location in Coconut Grove (2025), and HONŌ Japanese Steakhouse (2026).

BUILD IT
RDG’s distinguished brand portfolio and exclusive membership program aim to create a network of venues and experiences that offer a unique lifestyle to guests and members in Florida. Our goal is to establish RDG as a leader in the luxury restaurant industry in the United States.

GROW IT
RDG has demonstrated rapid growth and is poised for significant economic expansion globally. We are actively exploring national markets such as New York City, Los Angeles, and Las Vegas, and international markets including Paris, London, Dubai, and Mexico City for potential expansion opportunities.

Summary:

We are looking for an experienced Director of Operations to organize and oversee the daily operations of our company. You will be the one to ensure that our business is well-coordinated and productive by managing its procedures and coaching its people. The area of responsibility for this role is very wide and thus requires thorough knowledge of various company processes. The ideal candidate must be competent and able to plan many kinds of operational activities. He/She must be an excellent leader who can discover the most efficient ways to run the business. The goal is to safeguard and augment the efficiency of the company’s operations to facilitate accelerating development and long-term success. This role reports into the CEO.

RESPONSIBILITIES:

• Must be a self-starter, must have analytical abilities and self-criticism.
• High level of communication skills
• Develop a set of management principles and accountability principles.
• Create budgets along with finance dept and ways to manage these budgets.
• Develop strategies and vision.
• Communicate Company vision and mission.
• Create a positive and respectful work environment.
• Develop systems and processes.
• Focus relentlessly on the customer.
• Be close to your KPIs: measuring financial performance, customer satisfaction, employee satisfaction, product satisfaction and other key indicators.
• Extremely organized and efficient
• Operate with business transparency: open, honest, and aligned with core values and management/company culture.
• Bottom-up management: Encourage creativity and proactivity and autonomy => leading to greater employee engagement and productivity and accountability.
• A bottom-up approach emphasizes the fact that those who are out “in the field” every day can provide significant insights that management, from their perspective a bit higher up, might fail to notice.
• Transparency & collaboration with HR is a MUST! Please ensure that you give HR “visibility” into your property, and all allow them provide you guidance on best practices and mitigate potential legal claims.
• Fostering a creative culture: More minds (often from dramatically different backgrounds and walks of life) can increase an organization’s creative ideas. This can lead to new processes, products, and potential revenue opportunities.

• Product driven – insuring tasting and product evaluations are happening daily. Inconsistencies must be disclosed.
• Passion for providing top-notch hospitality to guests: operating at or above 4.6 stars Guest satisfaction (Food, service, and ambiance).
• Integrity to make the right decisions for the restaurant, staff, and guests. Honesty is the best policy and a nonnegotiable.
• Confidence in your knowledge of the industry: The company must provide an annual restaurant/hospitality experience expenses budget per DOO to keep up to date with trends, ideas and constant inspiration and improvements.
• Problem-solving and relationship building skills.
• Ability to strategize based on customer demographics.
• Ability to manage multiple projects at once.
• Ability to successfully train and coach a team: Training calendars, train the trainers.
• Ability to identify inconsistencies across restaurants.
• Members and VIP driven operations: VIP treatment, recognition at the door, expedited services, developing relationships, connecting VIPs, VVIPS, and VVVIPs to VIP reservation line and VIP directors. (Facilitate reservations.)
• Book to read: Good to great by Jim Collins, Setting the table, the 7 habits of highly effective people by Stephen Covey.
• Identify problems in the day-to-day operations and ways to fix them.
• Manage day-to-day operations while also working toward long-term business goals.
• Large emphasize on hiring, training, and staffing according to Payroll analysis and company requirements to maintain high guest satisfaction.
• Identify profits and losses and operate within the parameters of budgets.
• Daily communication across many teams (accounting, operations, human resources, and executive management)
• Interview, hire, train and manage new supervisors and managers: Sourcing talents for your own business: use of LinkedIn, going to other restaurants.
• Develop the team and provide paths for growth within the company.
• Maintain company culture and staff morale.
• Keep operations as streamlined as possible.

• Understanding and management of operational standards (grooming, policies, and procedures).
• Understand key revenue drivers and identify any room for improvement.
• Make decisions on how to operate the business from both a guest and financial standpoint.
• Know how, when to use support center and various department heads to help you and your operation strive.
• The “devil is in the details!” It is very important to be as efficient and decerning as possible.

Setting the stage for a value-based culture:

1. Define clear strategic objectives and share them within the organization.

Highlight value drivers for meeting financial and operational goals. Assign owners who are accountable for each target or goal and follow up to review their plans to deliver.

1. Delineate roles and responsibilities individuals will play/execute in the organization’s success.

Move from good to better to best:

• Good: Organizational charts illustrate roles, reporting relationships and spans of control.
• Better: Job descriptions summarize role expectations and standards for how work is performed.
• Best: Corporate strategy cascades to department- and individual-level objectives. Define roles in the overall corporate success and empower employees to build a plan for execution.

1. Understand the current state of the business.

Organizational capabilities must support strategic objectives. What resources does the business have or need to be successful? Understanding this will help prioritize investments to fill the people, process, or technology gaps.

1. Measure progress and reward success.

Track key metrics to drive accountability, and reward those who positively impact business performance. Keep attainable targets in front of the team and watch them thrive. Aligning employee objectives with the company’s strategy drives the right behavior and creates a win-win culture.

Taking these straightforward steps to creating a value-focused culture can help:

• Deliver on strategic and financial objectives. Defining financial targets and a plan to achieve them is the starting point for sustainable value creation.
• Attract and retain good employees. People like to be challenged, respected, and valued. A happy workforce will have buy-in and really care about business performance.
• Build a company less dependent on you.

REQUIREMENTS/QUALIFICATIONS:

• A minimum of 10 years previous experience as a GM or DOO in a fine dining/luxury, high volume, recognized dining, and cocktail bar/lounge venue setting.
• Bachelor’s degree in business administration, hospitality or related field of study or any equivalent combination of education and/or experience is required.
• Previous hotel, dock operations and catering experience is desirable.
• Must be detail oriented and possess effective communication and written skills.
• State compliant food handling certificate & TIPS certification required.
• Ability to multi-task.
• Must be a team player.
• Self-motivated and performance driven.

• Punctuality and regular and reliable attendance.
• Effective communication, written and interpersonal skills.
• Time management skills.
• Maintain confidentiality of company information
• Ability to work a flexible schedule inclusive of weekends, am, and pm.
• Must be able to travel among RDG properties.

Physical Demands And Work Environment:

• General office assignments-(typing), which lends itself to repetitive motion.
• Be able to reach, bend, stoop and frequently lift to 50 pounds.
• Ability to be in warm (hot) weather conditions throughout shift (Pool and boat deck)