Restaurant Operations Manager

Location: Dubai, UAE (kitchen + field-based) · Type: Full-time · Reports to: Founder · Start: Within 1–2 months Founding role — effectively the founder's right hand on operations. About RoomService RoomService gives a household its own dedicated private chef — without the cost or hassle of hiring one. Each customer is paired with a named chef who plans and cooks their meals fresh, to order, at mealtime — breakfast, lunch and dinner, personalised down to ingredients and macros — delivered hot. It's not a meal-kit, a delivery app or a restaurant. We make private-chef quality affordable by sharing one chef across a small cluster of nearby households and running the entire operation behind them: procurement, centralised prep (mise en place), packaging and delivery. We've proven the experience in a pilot; now we're building the operation that scales it across Dubai. This is a ground-floor role — you won't inherit a playbook, you'll write it. The role (mission) Be the founder's right hand and run the entire day-to-day operation — kitchens, chefs, procurement and delivery — so the founder can focus on product and raising capital. You're a restaurant operator who knows the kitchen: you've run F&B operations and you understand what makes a kitchen and its prep efficient. You own the operation end to end and make it run without the founder in it. What you'll own • Chef recruitment & team. Source, hire, onboard and manage our chefs; build and grow the roster as we scale, and hold quality and reliability across them. • Kitchen operations & mise en place. Run the cloud-kitchen operation day to day, and optimise the centralised prep (mise en place) that lets one chef serve many households without quality loss — our core efficiency lever. • Procurement & supplier management. Source ingredients, packaging and consumables to each household's standards; negotiate pricing and terms; control cost, quality, stock and waste. • Delivery & logistics. Stand up and run hot, on-time delivery; find, onboard and manage delivery partners (3PLs) and riders; own routing, time windows and last-mile quality. • Daily operations & standards. Run the daily rhythm end to end; own food safety, hygiene and HACCP; resolve issues at the root; build the SOPs so nothing breaks twice. • Cost & performance. Own the operational numbers — food cost, delivery cost, labour, waste, on-time rate — and keep the unit economics healthy as we grow. • What success looks like (first 6–12 months) • An operation that runs without the founder in it — daily kitchen, procurement and delivery humming to a documented playbook. • A chef roster recruited and performing — enough reliable chefs to serve demand, at a consistent standard. • Delivery partners in place — dependable last-mile capacity and a hot, on-time, in-spec delivery rate at or above target. • Procurement and prep under control — managed suppliers, negotiated terms, an efficient mise-en-place, and food/delivery cost held to target per menu. • A replicable playbook — clear SOPs across kitchen, procurement and delivery, ready to roll out to the next kitchen. You are • A restaurant / F&B operations manager who also knows the kitchen. You've run restaurant, multi-site or cloud-kitchen operations end to end — and you have real hands-on culinary/kitchen experience, so you can optimise a prep line, not just read a P&L. • Experienced at hiring and leading chefs and kitchen teams. You know how to find good chefs, onboard them, and hold a standard. • Strong on procurement, cost control and delivery/logistics. Supplier negotiation, stock and food-cost discipline, and setting up last-mile with 3PL partners. • ~6–10 years in F&B / hospitality operations, ideally in Dubai. We weigh what you've run over years or title on paper. • A founder's right hand. Comfortable owning the whole operation, wearing several hats, and moving fast in an early-stage company — you take the operational load off the founder, not add to it. • Numerate and commercial. Fluent in food cost, labour, delivery cost and unit economics. • Dubai-equipped. Valid UAE driving licence and access to a car strongly preferred; food-safety / HACCP knowledge a plus; Arabic alongside English a plus. Nice to have • Experience opening or setting up a restaurant, cloud kitchen or delivery operation from scratch. • Cloud-kitchen, q-commerce or delivery-operations background. • Existing supplier, chef or delivery-partner relationships in Dubai. • Awareness of nutrition / macro-tracking (we cook to specific macros and calories). The practical details • Full-time, Dubai-based; split between the cloud kitchen and the field — this is a hands-on leadership role, not a desk job. • Reports directly to the founder; this is the senior on-the-ground leader of the operation. • Package circa AED 15,000–20,000/month (depending on experience), paid monthly via the Wage Protection System, plus founding equity to discuss and a clear path to grow into a Head of Operations / COO role as we scale across kitchens and the GCC Show more Show less

Experience ~6–10 years in F&B / hospitality operations, ideally in Dubai. Strong on procurement, cost control and delivery/logistics. Experienced at hiring and leading chefs and kitchen teams. A founder's right hand, comfortable owning the whole operation and moving quickly in an early-stage company. Numerate and commercial with fluency in food cost, labour, delivery cost and unit economics. Dubai-equipped with valid UAE driving licence and access to a car strongly preferred; food-safety / HACCP knowledge a plus; Arabic alongside English a plus.

What you'll own: Chef recruitment & team. Source, hire, onboard and manage our chefs; build and grow the roster as we scale, and hold quality and reliability across them. Kitchen operations & mise en place. Run the cloud-kitchen operation day to day, and optimise the centralised prep (mise en place) that lets one chef serve many households without quality loss — our core efficiency lever. Procurement & supplier management. Source ingredients, packaging and consumables to each household's standards; negotiate pricing and terms; control cost, quality, stock and waste. Delivery & logistics. Stand up and run hot, on-time delivery; find, onboard and manage delivery partners (3PLs) and riders; own routing, time windows and last-mile quality. Daily operations & standards. Run the daily rhythm end to end; own food safety, hygiene and HACCP; resolve issues at the root; build the SOPs so nothing breaks twice. Cost & performance. Own the operational numbers — food cost, delivery cost, labour, waste, on-time rate — and keep the unit economics healthy as we grow. What success looks like (first 6–12 months): An operation that runs without the founder in it — daily kitchen, procurement and delivery humming to a documented playbook. A chef roster recruited and performing — enough reliable chefs to serve demand, at a consistent standard. Delivery partners in place — dependable last-mile capacity and a hot, on-time, in-spec delivery rate at or above target. Procurement and prep under control — managed suppliers, negotiated terms, an efficient mise-en-place, and food/delivery cost held to target per menu. A replicable playbook — clear SOPs across kitchen, procurement and delivery, ready to roll out to the next kitchen. You are: A restaurant / F&B operations manager who also knows the kitchen. You’ve run restaurant, multi-site or cloud-kitchen operations end to end — and you have real hands-on culinary/kitchen experience, so you can optimise a prep line, not just read a P&L. Experienced at hiring and leading chefs and kitchen teams. Strong on procurement, cost control and delivery/logistics. ~6–10 years in F&B / hospitality operations, ideally in Dubai. A founder's right hand. Comfortable owning the whole operation, wearing several hats, and moving fast in an early-stage company — you take the operational load off the founder, not add to it. Numerate and commercial. Fluent in food cost, labour, delivery cost and unit economics. Dubai-equipped. Valid UAE driving licence and access to a car strongly preferred; food-safety / HACCP knowledge a plus; Arabic alongside English a plus.