Director of Food & Beverage

Role: Director of Food & Beverage

Reports To: Chief Operating Officer

FLSA Status: Full-Time, Salary, Exempt

Location/Hours: On Site, New Canaan, Connecticut, Tuesday to Saturday, 5 days per week with the ability to work weekends and evenings.

The Role:

The Director of Food & Beverage is a strategic hospitality leader responsible for overseeing food and beverage operations at Grace Farms within the Commons and the Foundation's internal catering operations. This role ensures that every culinary offering-from daily café service to large-scale public programs and smaller private events-reflects the organization's commitment to exceptional hospitality, operational excellence, and financial sustainability.

This is a hands-on, lead by example, roll-up your sleeves and work side by side with your teams to get the job done. This requires the ability to seamlessly pivot between strategic leadership, administrative responsibilities, and working alongside the team to support the day-to-day operations. The ability to seamlessly toggle and pivot is crucial for the successful candidate.

Grace Farms has a strong and extremely talented culinary team that will report to this position who will focus on day-to-day culinary and kitchen operations. The Director of Food & Beverage will have overall responsibility for all aspects of the Commons and internal catering operations, and their focus will emphasize team leadership, fostering a culture of FOH & BOH team unity, internal catering coordination/execution, guest experience, quality control, and strong financial and operational management. The Director of Food & Beverage will lead and develop a high-performing team, oversee vendor and partner relationships, build and manage budgets and revenue generation strategies, and ensure that all food and beverage experiences enhance the mission and visitor experience of Grace Farms.

Responsibilities:

• Working closely with the COO, the Director of F&B at Grace Farms toggles between the forest and the trees providing both the strategic leadership of the food & beverage operations as well as ensuring the consistently excellent activation of all daily and event- based experiences offered by the Commons at Grace Farms. In addition to their internal Grace Farms culinary team, the F&B Director will also work closely and collaborate regularly with the CFO, Events, Facilities, Programming and Marketing teams.
• Oversees the F&B aspects of all events at Grace Farms. Work closely with the Events team to ensure seamless service and exceptional guest experiences. The Director of F&B oversees and supervises the teams responsible for event setups, monitoring/refresh and end of event break-down, ensuring proper food and beverage is set up and displayed in the most appealing and logical way for the entirety of the event, paying close attention to allergen details and safe food handling practices.
• In partnership with the Director of Events, Catering & Visitor Experiences, the Director of F&B serves as the primary point of contact for communications with internal colleagues regarding internal catering needs, and is also responsible for BEO preparation and the full execution of all aspects of internal catering operations.
• The Director of F&B prepares the FOH staff with operational, catering and visitor experience information and training so that they can execute their functions with excellence and have the ability to speak confidently with guests about all of the Foundations' offerings. Instills a contagious and palpable positive, welcoming energy that creates a world class experience and hospitality for all visitors and staff who visit the Commons at Grace Farms.
• Owns the ultimate management responsibility for all Commons team members including hiring, training, mentoring, and ongoing coaching/correcting to forge an environment of collaboration and mutual respect within the team. Provides clear service standards and operation expectations to set all team members up for success as well as adequate and appropriate staffing levels for the service expected. Constantly coaches and inspires the team to achieve increasingly higher levels of customer service excellence and culinary creativity that is in alignment with Grace Farms values and needs.
• Collaborates closely with the COO and the Grace Farms Tea & Coffee team to actively participate in and ensure the strategic integration of Grace Farms Tea & Coffee products throughout all on-site food and beverage operations.
• Seeks and implements efficiencies in café operations considering staffing models, ergonomics, food waste management, customer communications vehicles and product placement. Ensures the creation and maintenance of up-to-date SOPs for Commons teams.
• Partnering with the CFO and COO as well as the Commons leadership team, the Director of F&B leads the financial performance and other KPI's of the F&B program at Grace Farms overseeing budgeting, forecasting and revenue generation while simultaneously keeping a keen eye on managing costs, overseeing inventory management practices and pricing strategies.
• Ensures quality control on all FOH aspects including specials displays, tea tastings, menu placement, overall FOH cleanliness, and operations.
• Holds final accountability for all administrative duties associated with BOH, FOH Café & Catering operations including, but not limited to: scheduling, timecards, inventory, ordering, work orders, FOH staff communications/training, and coaching.
• Oversees café POS system. Ensures its proper functionality, creates and analyzes reports and recommends changes/enhancements based on data trends.
• With the Chef de Cuisine, ensures compliance with health, sanitation, and safety regulations during both regular operation and events, maintaining a clean, organized, and inspection ready environment with an emphasis on cleanliness, food safety, and staff/visitor well-being.
• With the Commons culinary leaders and in collaboration with the Facilities teams, oversees and ensures the proper use, and ongoing maintenance of all kitchen and FOH equipment to ensure its longevity, efficiency, and safe integration with the Facility.
• Promotes sustainable practices in the FOH operations such as sourcing local and ethical products, in line with Grace Farms' values.
• Oversees inventory management, cost controls, and vendor relationships to support responsible stewardship of resources.
• Champions a guest-centric mindset across all F&B, FOH, and BOH operations ensuring every interaction reflects the Foundation's mission and values.
• Other duties as needed or as assigned.

Skills/Abilities:

• Must enjoy and have a passion for the food & beverage and hospitality industries.
• Experience with event-driven, catering and café food service required.
• Excellent communications and interpersonal skills are a must with ability to extend kindness and patience, with every interaction.
• Strong financial acumen managing budgets and cost controls with a track record of growing revenue streams.
• Proven ability to work and collaborate within and between multiple teams.
• Proven ability to work comfortably and effectively with computers, POS systems and other visitor facing technologies.
• Must be an experienced team player who is highly organized, adaptable, and flexible to meet time, priority and workload demands as well as shifting schedules and unexpected circumstances that come with working with the general public and managing employees.
• Must be able to maintain a calm exterior presence during periods of high volume, high stress, or unusual events.
• Must possess the highest level of integrity defined as being incredibly ethical, professional, responsible, truthful, authentic, honest and fair.
• Must be able to work on-site, Tuesday - Saturday with the ability to weekends and evenings as needed by the team and schedule.

Education & Experience:

• Minimum 10 years of leadership experience in hospitality and/or food & beverage management ideally in a dynamic public facing environment.
• Must have a minimum of 5 years prior supervisory experience as catering, café, coffee shop, small business restaurant manager, or similar industry role, with direct supervisory oversight of a team. Preferably with experience in both FOH and BOH industry related roles and the proven ability to successfully lead, manage, coach, mentor and inspire teams effectively.
• College degree is required preferably in Hospitality, Business, or Culinary Operations.

Physical Requirements:

• While performing the duties of this job, the employee may be regularly required to stand, sit, talk, hear, reach, stoop, kneel, navigate the site to various locations, and use hands and fingers to operate a computer, telephone, and keyboard.
• Specific vision abilities required by this job include close vision requirements due to computer work.
• The employee occasionally requires to climb, stoop, kneel or crouch.
• The employee must occasionally lift, push and/ or move up to 50 pounds.

Benefits

Grace Farms offers a comprehensive and competitive benefits package that includes tuition reimbursement, different medical plan options, including dental and vision coverage, 100% employer-paid basic life insurance and short-term disability, along with a 403(b)-retirement plan with an organizational match. We believe in the importance of rest and balance, offering generous paid time off (PTO), sick and personal days, and 11 paid holidays. All staff are invited to enjoy our scenic 80-acre preserved landscape and participate in the diverse public events hosted on-site.

Grace Farms is an equal opportunity employer. We evaluate qualified applicants without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, veteran status, and other legally protected characteristics

About Grace Farms

Grace Farms is a cultural and humanitarian center in New Canaan, Connecticut, that brings people together across sectors to explore nature, arts, justice, community, and faith at the SANAA-designed River building and Barns on 80 acres of publicly accessible natural landscape. Since opening in 2015, it has garnered numerous prestigious awards for contributions to architecture, environmental sustainability, and social good and has become a destination for arts, culture, and community. Grace Farms has welcomed 1 million visitors from around the world to experience innovative programming in music, visual and performing arts, while fostering contemplation and connection through architecture and nature.

Grace Farms' humanitarian work includes leading the Design for Freedom movement to eliminate forced labor in the building materials supply chain and advancing initiatives to foster more grace and peace locally and globally. This commitment extends to Grace Farms Tea and Coffee, a certified B Corp that models ethical and sustainable sourcing while supporting Design for Freedom.

The integration of cultural programming and humanitarian action reflects Grace Farms' collaborative approach to generating new outcomes and meaningful change.