Restaurant Manager

The Role

The Lloyd opens in Shifnal this summer. It will be an evening restaurant in the truest sense — intimate, considered, and built to last. Laura Kimber leads the kitchen. The wine programme is exceptional — built to the same standard as the food, and every bit as central to the experience. The food and the list are ready. What we need now is the person who makes the room feel the way the cooking tastes.

We are looking for a Restaurant Manager who has worked at the level where every detail is intentional — where a table is turned not because the clock says so, but because the guest is ready. Someone who builds the kind of service culture that guests travel for and staff stay for.

This is a founding role. You will set the standard, hire your team, and own the guest experience from the moment a reservation is made to the moment someone steps back into the night having had the best evening they have had in years.

What the Role Looks Like

You will be the most senior front-of-house presence at every service, working in close partnership with the Chef Director and wine lead — sharing the belief that great hospitality is a single, unified act, not separate departments operating in parallel.

• Leading and developing the front-of-house team across all services
• Setting and sustaining service standards that reflect the quality of the kitchen and the ambition of the wine programme
• Owning the guest relationship — from pre-booking communication to table management to follow-up
• Managing the reservations platform (SevenRooms) and driving intelligent yield across a Wednesday–Sunday schedule
• Overseeing floor operations, dispense, and beverage service in collaboration with the wine lead
• Playing a central role in building the team — identifying, recruiting, and retaining exceptional FOH talent
• Contributing to pre-opening setup: service design, table plan, opening sequences, staff training programme

You will not be office-based. You will be on the floor, present at service, visible to guests and team alike.

What We Are Looking For

There is no fixed checklist for this. We are looking for the quality of person as much as the weight of CV. That said, the candidates most likely to thrive here will have led front-of-house operations at a comparable level — a destination restaurant, a two-rosette dining room, a serious independent.

• Reads a room the way a chef reads a pass — with precision and without hesitation
• Strong wine knowledge and genuine curiosity; WSET Level 2 minimum, Level 3 preferred
• Communicates warmth and authority in equal measure
• Understands that the best service is felt, not performed
• Has the commercial clarity to think about covers, pacing, and margin without it ever showing at the table
• Wants to build something that lasts, rather than be comfortable in something that already exists

A Note on What This Is

The Lloyd is not a chain. It is not a concept. It is a restaurant — built by people who believe that the best evenings are unhurried, that the cooking and the service should be impossible to separate, and that a small room done with complete conviction will outlast a large one done with half of it.

If that is the environment you want to work in, we would very much like to hear from you.