How Do You Hire a Multi-Unit Restaurant Manager?

What is a multi-unit restaurant manager?

A multi-unit restaurant manager, often called a governor, is the person who manages the managers running each individual location, taking the owner out of the middle of day-to-day operations.

Every title changes from one restaurant to the next, so the level is named by who it manages. A manager who oversees shift leads or department heads runs one location. A manager who oversees that person is the M2. Once a group reaches two or three locations, someone has to manage the M2s. That person is the governor, often called the M3. This is the hire that takes an owner out of the middle of two locations, which is why it gets the most care of any hire in a given year.

Can the group actually afford this hire?

Yes, but the math changes sharply with scale, so the seat should be planned before it is filled.

In a worked example, the seat costs around $110,000 a year. Divided by two mature locations, that cost works out to $110,000 ÷ (2 × $150,000) = 37% of their combined sales. Divided by three locations, it is $110,000 ÷ (3 × $150,000) = 24%. The seat gets lighter as a share of sales as the group grows, which is why it should be planned ahead of time rather than reacted to once the owner is stretched too thin. Owners can hold the seat themselves with a date attached to it, and can pay the governor partly on the profit of the locations they run, so the incentive matches the responsibility.

Where does a good multi-unit manager come from?

The strongest candidates are usually promoted from inside, and the rest have to be found rather than recruited through job postings.

• Promote from inside first: a manager who has already run one location without the owner's daily involvement has shown the job and has a track record of numbers to review.
• If there's nobody inside, go find the rest: strong candidates for this seat are already working, not browsing job boards, so the seat has to be sold before it can be qualified.
• Interview a dozen or more: a wide set of conversations is what teaches an owner what the budget actually buys.

Results are not typical and will vary with your business, your market, your team and how much of the work you actually do. Client figures on this site come from recorded interviews and are dated. Nothing here is a guarantee of revenue, profit or growth.

How should a candidate be scored?

Every candidate should be scored one to five on six traits, and the average score determines whether they are a strong hire, a hire, a hold, or a pass.

The six traits are: P&L literacy, experience running more than one location or department, ability to develop other managers, strategic thinking, ownership, and how they carry themselves when walking the floor during a live shift. The average of the six scores makes the call. A score of four point five and up is a strong hire. Three point eight to four point four is a hire. Three to three point seven is a hold. Below three is a pass.

What question actually tests a candidate for this role?

The strongest test is handing a finalist two P&Ls and asking which one they would fix first and how they would add profit to it.

Strong answers work the price and the check, cut waste, match the schedule to real demand, and renegotiate vendors. The trap is labour. A candidate who reaches for cutting labour first looks sharp on paper, but that choice tends to wreck service within a short window. How a candidate answers this one question is a preview of how they will actually run the locations they're given.

Should a hire ask more questions than they answer?

Yes. A real governor asks more questions about the business than the owner asks them, because they need to understand what they are walking into.

“Follower is answers. Leader is questions.”

This is also why entrepreneurial personalities are usually the wrong fit for this seat. The governor is a manager of managers, not a partner and not a second owner.

“I never hire entrepreneurial people for these roles. I need somebody who wants to get paid every two weeks and doesn't want to take risk.”

This structure, governors over locations and ministers over functions, is the same structure that scaled one group to 735 locations, 10,000 employees, and $200M a year in sales. The owners featured in case studies show what this looks like in practice at much smaller scale, including Liron Michaeli's move from doing every role himself to rarely needing to be in the building.

Owners who want the full chart, scorecards, and the system this hire fits into can look at Founders Board or apply directly.