About Us
Dandelion Chocolate is a bean-to-bar chocolate maker and cafe in San Francisco’s Mission District. We make chocolate from only two ingredients, cocoa beans and cane sugar, and travel to origin as often as we can to build good, trusting relationships with the producers who grow and ferment our beans. Today we’re seeking a General Manager to launch and grow a world-class, high-touch chocolate experience at the Venetian Resort in Las Vegas.
About the Role
We seek a passionate, customer-focused, organized, high-energy manager to help us bring our new chocolate cafe at the Venetian Resort to life. You will oversee the opening of the café and retail experience and the hiring and training of a strong team of baristas, cafe associates, and guest experience ambassadors. You’ll learn all about operations at our San Francisco stores and tailor the systems and processes that we have in place to be applicable to the Venetian location, creating new checklists, systems, and processes as necessary. Once your team is hired and onboarded, you’ll train them on hospitality and technical service standards and maintain a high level of quality in all aspects of the customer experience. You’ll work to develop strong relationships with the operations team at the Venetian and neighboring businesses to create a robust support system within the resor. Our commissary kitchen will produce all pastries and drink bases for the cafe and you will work closely with the Kitchen Manager and delivery team to make sure that the right quantity of product is ordered, packed, and delivered safely each day. You’ll also collaborate with our Director of Marketing to develop and iterate upon a marketing plan that brings guests to the space year round.
About You
Our ideal candidate loves action and detail. You shift effortlessly between writing daily team checklists, accommodating a large group that appeared unexpectedly, calling a plumber to fix the ice machine, spending a few minutes to talk with a local teacher about a potential collaboration, and carving out a few minutes for experimenting with new retail shelf organization. You’re a self-starter with many years of high-volume, high-service leadership operation experience. In your previous roles, you laid a foundation of systems, documentation, playbooks, and manuals so that others could easily step into your shoes. You proactively jump on issues before they are pointed out to you. You have an intuitive knack for knowing what needs the most attention, such as reviews, schedules, logistics, or improving the experience.
Success looks like:
- Vision: Collaborate with the CEO and retail team to develop a vision for what a successful, exquisite chocolate café experience in the Venetian looks like - keeping an eye on profitability and building and overseeing a healthy, cohesive team. Maintain an open and clear communication line with the CEO to ensure cohesion and alignment toward the organization’s goals. Be the single point-person responsible for the day-to-day success and long-term growth of the operation.
- Department relationships: Work across the organization to build long-lasting systems with Chocolate Operations, Kitchen, Product, and Creative teams in San Francisco and Las Vegas that will ensure that products and merchandise are stocked and displayed at their best.
- Track Financial Objectives: Outline actionable goals for the company’s overall profitability, including maintaining weekly reports that track costs.
- Guest Experience: Ensure that the retail and seating area are kept to an extremely high standard of cleanliness and organization that reflects the Dandelion Chocolate brand. This includes clean, bussed tables, clean windows, and stocked shelves while still making sure the team has time to proactively greet and attend to guests.
- Employee Education: Ensure that café team is trained to deliver high-touch customer care, serve pastry items at their best, quickly, accurately, and expertly answer guest questions, and handle tricky customer issues. Iterate upon existing training materials, leveling, and checklists so that the team consistently operates at a world-class level in Las Vegas.
- Team Management: Oversee the café and salon teams to ensure smooth guest interactions, a safe work environment, completion of day-to-day tasks, and long tenures within your staff. Actively recruit, train, and develop all team members with an eye towards their long-term success so that Dandelion Chocolate gains a reputation as one of the best small businesses to work for in Las Vegas
- Community Relationships: You are excited to get to know our new neighbors and connect with the Las Vegas food community and beyond. Create strong bonds that lead to solid, trusting relationships with other local businesses.
- Social Media: Assist our press team in maintaining relationships with followers and fans through our social media and local review sites to ensure that Dandelion Chocolate is rated one of the best food experiences in the city.
- Facilities: When the ice machine breaks or a sink springs a leak, you can troubleshoot minor issues and contact service professionals to ensure minimal downtime.
- Other tasks as necessary
Requirements
- Previous Experience: Five to seven years previous experience in a restaurant or high-volume café. A proven ability to build systems and processes that prioritize elevated customer service. Experience with opening a restaurant or café is preferred. You have a trusted network of team members, colleagues, vendors, and professionals that you can enlist as necessary. A passion for chocolate or experience in the cacao world is a huge plus!
- Tech Skills: A demonstrated proficiency with spreadsheets and profitability reports. You are comfortable reading and modifying financial models to inform day-to-day decision making, such as product display and staffing hours. You also have a natural ability to use social media platforms such as Yelp and TripAdvisor to positively engage with guests.
- Availability: While this is a full-time role and we prioritize work-life balance, we’re looking for someone who can adjust their schedule to help cover weekends and weekdays as necessary.
Benefits
The benefits and perks continue beyond a robust chocolate and coffee education. Dandelion Chocolate constantly invests in our people and culture. All team members receive medical, vision, and dental benefits as well as the option to enroll in our 401k program. All employees receive paid vacation time, holiday pay, and paid sick time. In addition, our team members enjoy commuter benefits, FSAs, local gym discounts, chocolate tasting opportunities, the chance to travel to origin and our Japan locations, and a range of opportunities to grow and develop within the company.
How to Apply
Please apply through our website with a copy of your resume and a cover letter. You’ll stand out from the crowd if you include one or two sentences about your favorite techniques for guest engagement. We do our best to respond to all serious candidates within 7-14 days. We look forward to hearing from you!