We are looking for an experienced Restaurant General Manager Upper Casual & Fine Dining to lead the overall operations, guest experience, team performance, and commercial results of a premium restaurant in Saudi Arabia. The Restaurant General Manager will be accountable for delivering a consistent and elevated guest experience while maintaining strong operational discipline, profitability, compliance, and team development. This role requires a hands-on leader with a strong floor presence, a genuine hospitality mindset, commercial awareness, and the ability to lead and develop a diverse restaurant team in an upper casual or fine dining environment. The ideal candidate will have strong experience in premium F&B operations, a solid understanding of guest expectations in Saudi Arabia, and the ability to balance service excellence, financial performance, people development, SOP compliance, and operational readiness. I prefer this because accountable for and overall operations better reflect General Manager-level ownership.

Desired Candidate Profile

Bachelor s degree in Hospitality Management, Business Administration, or a related field is preferred. Minimum 8 years of progressive experience in restaurant operations, with at least 3 years in a senior management or General Manager role within an upper casual, premium casual, or fine dining environment. Proven experience managing end-to-end restaurant operations, with strong front-of-house leadership and effective coordination with kitchen and back-of-house teams. Proven ability to lead, develop, and manage restaurant teams, including supervisors, hosts, head waiters, waiters, baristas, and support staff. Strong floor presence during service periods, with the ability to anticipate guest needs, maintain service standards, and resolve operational or guest-related issues proactively. Strong experience handling VIP and regular guests, guest complaints, service recovery, guest recognition, and loyalty-building initiatives. Strong understanding of premium restaurant service standards, guest journey management, and elevated hospitality expectations. Demonstrated experience in recruitment, training, coaching, performance management, workforce scheduling, succession planning, and team development. Strong commercial and financial understanding, including revenue, EBITDA, COGS, labour cost, average check, productivity, inventory control, budgeting, forecasting, and daily/periodic reporting. Proven ability to analyze restaurant performance and implement corrective actions to achieve revenue, profitability, guest experience, and operational KPIs. Experience managing POS systems, reservation platforms, inventory systems, guest/CRM tools, and restaurant financial and operational reports. Strong knowledge of health, safety, hygiene, food safety, licensing, and restaurant compliance requirements. Proven experience maintaining SOP compliance, brand standards, opening and closing procedures, pre-service readiness, operational checklists, and audit standards. Solid understanding of the Saudi F&B market, local cultural expectations, premium guest behavior, and hospitality standards. Strong leadership, decision-making, problem-solving, and cross-functional communication skills. Professional English communication is required; Arabic and English bilingual communication is highly preferred. Food safety, WSET, hospitality leadership, or other relevant professional certifications are considered an advantage.