Chief Operations Officer (COO)

Industry: Café / Casual Dining / Multi-Branch Hospitality

Reports to: Founding Directors

Role Overview: A fast-growing, multi-format café and food-led hospitality business is looking for an entrepreneurial, systems-driven Chief Operating Officer to lead its next phase of scale. The business currently operates multiple flagship cafés and smaller-format pastry/coffee outlets , with further expansion planned through company-owned and franchise-led growth. This role will act as the operational right hand to the founders , replacing an outgoing strategic

consultant and building the systems, people, and governance needed for scale.

Key Mandate: The COO will lead all head office and operational functions, ensuring strong coordination between branch operations, people, supply chain, service standards, training systems, and expansion readiness. The ideal candidate is a hands-on systems builder with strong restaurant, café, QSR, or chain hospitality experience.

Key Responsibilities

• Head Office Management: Ensure harmony, prioritisation, and high-velocity coordination across all support and operational departments.
• Café Operations & Guest Experience: Own service flow, SOP execution, customer journey, and consistent in-store standards across all branches.
• Strategy Execution, Governance & Founder Alignment: Translate founder vision into execution plans, leadership dashboards, and cross-functional accountability.
• Product Quality & Training Excellence: Ensure food, pastry, and coffee consistency through strong training systems, audits, and branch capability development.
• Supply Chain, Procurement & Inventory Control: Drive supplier coordination, stock discipline, procurement controls, and cost-efficient inventory systems.
• People Operations, HR & Branch Leadership: Lead staffing structures, branch manager accountability, performance culture, and people decision-making.
• Financial Controls & Administrative Discipline: Strengthen branch paperwork, reporting compliance, reconciliations, and operational control processes.
• Franchise / Small Format Governance: Build scalable SOPs and governance standards for smaller-format and franchise-led expansion models.
• New Branch Launches & Scalability: Lead pre-opening readiness, launch planning, hiring, training deployment, and early-stage branch stabilisation.
  
  
  

Ideal Profile

• 8–12+ years in hospitality / chain restaurant operations
• Strong experience in multi-branch execution
• Deep focus on service and quality
• Capable of building SOPs, dashboards, and reporting rhythms
• Strong people leader who can make tough decisions
• Comfortable working closely with founders
• Experience in scaling emerging brands preferred
  
  
  

Success will be defined by:

• Stronger service consistency
• Tighter branch controls
• Robust training systems
• Improved supplier coordination
• Better branch manager discipline
• Scalable launch systems for new branches
• Stronger founder reporting and execution cadence