Restaurant Manager

SRG Hospitality; Sydney; On-site; AUD 100,000 - 120,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

12% super

Job summary

SRG Hospitality invites an experienced Restaurant Manager to lead Aqua Dining’s floor during opening. You’ll partner with the Head Chef to ensure the floor and kitchen operate as one unit, shaping standards, service rhythms, and guest experiences.

This role is central to building a high-performing opening team and delivering premium hospitality in Sydney. You’ll manage rosters, labour costs and revenue against budget, while enforcing safety and licensing requirements.

Qualifications

• Restaurant Manager experience, or an Assistant Restaurant Manager ready to step up in a premium/high-volume room.
• Command of rostering, labour cost and revenue at venue level.
• Knowledge of the Restaurant Industry Award, wage compliance and WHS obligations.
• SevenRooms or an equivalent reservations platform.
• RSA (NSW) and Food Safety Supervisor Certificate (NSW).
• Opening experience highly regarded.
• Available across evenings, weekends and public holidays; we trade seven days.

Responsibilities

• You will be the most present, accountable leader on Aqua’s floor, guiding the floor team and coordinating with the Head Chef.
• Lead service, standards and guest experience with structured briefing and debriefing rhythms; manage service recovery.
• Hire, onboard, coach and performance-manage the opening team and develop Supervisors for the future.
• Own revenue against budget and manage FOH labour within band, ensuring optimal roster coverage.
• Run opening and closing disciplines, and ensure RSA, liquor licence, WHS and award obligations are met every shift.

Skills

Restaurant management experience

Rostering

Labour cost management

Revenue awareness

Service standards

Education

RSA (NSW) and Food Safety Supervisor Certificate (NSW)

Tools

SevenRooms

Job description

THE BEST VIEW IN SYDNEY HOSPITALITY IS HIRING.

Aqua Dining reopens the week of 30 November 2026. The floor team starts now, and it needs a leader.

$100,000 – $120,000 + 12% super | Reports to the Venue General Manager | Fifteen venues heading to twenty

FOUR REASONS TO APPLY RIGHT NOW

• You’re paid from the day you sign. We place you straight into one of our operating venues. You’re paid and trained across our existing restaurants before Aqua’s doors open.
• You build the floor. You don’t inherit it. Service sequence, standards, rosters, the team itself: you set all of them alongside the Venue General Manager and Head Chef. You’ll walk into opening week with a team you built.
• Fifteen venues heading to twenty. Section Wait Staff to Supervisor to Assistant Restaurant Manager to Restaurant Manager to Operations Manager. This reopening pulls people up across the whole group, which opens seats behind them. The people already inside SRG are first in line.
• You’ll open a Sydney landmark. Not join one. Open one. That stays on your CV forever.

THE ROLE

You’ll be the most present, most accountable leader on Aqua’s floor. You own the day-to-day performance of the room and lead the Assistant Restaurant Manager, Supervisors and the full FOH team. You work in close partnership with the Head Chef so the floor and the kitchen run as one team.

• Service and guest experience: you run a structured briefing, service and debrief rhythm, use SevenRooms properly, and handle service recovery quickly and with real care
• Team leadership: you hire, onboard, coach and performance-manage the opening team, and develop the Supervisors who will step up after you
• Commercial performance: you own revenue against budget, FOH labour within band, covers, spend per head and table turns. You build rosters around actual trading, never guesswork
• Standards and compliance: you run opening and closing disciplines without shortcuts, and keep RSA, liquor licence, WHS and award obligations met every shift
• Reporting: the Venue General Manager is never surprised by anything from your floor. Issues arrive early, each with a proposed solution

WHY THE TRAINING RAMP MATTERS

Most openings hire a month out and open with a team that has never worked together.

We’re not doing that. Every Aqua hire trains inside a live SRG venue first: Sails, The Nielsen, Ventuno, The Fenwick or Riva. You’ll learn SevenRooms, our service sequence and our standards, and you’ll already know the people beside you.

By opening week this won’t be a new team. It will be a trained team walking into a new room.

WHO WE WANT

You have run a floor, held a standard, developed a team, and you understand that labour cost and guest experience are the same conversation.

• Restaurant Manager experience, or an Assistant Restaurant Manager genuinely ready to step up, in a premium or high-volume quality room
• Command of rostering, labour cost and revenue at venue level
• Working knowledge of the Restaurant Industry Award, wage compliance and WHS obligations
• SevenRooms or an equivalent reservations platform
• RSA (NSW) and Food Safety Supervisor Certificate (NSW)
• Opening experience highly regarded
• Available across evenings, weekends and public holidays. We trade seven days

Heart. Ownership. Craft. Together. We prepare with intention, keep the team in the loop, and act for the guest without waiting. That is how we work.

WHAT TO EXPECT

• Phone screen: a short call to talk through your experience, availability and the role that fits you best
• Virtual interview: with the people you’d actually report to
• Trial: a shift on the floor. Leadership here is demonstrated, not described
• Contract offered: full-time, salaried
• Placed at venue: you’re embedded in an operating venue to learn our systems before opening

THE LOCATION

Milsons Point. Harbour Bridge on one shoulder, Luna Park on the other, Opera House across the water, floor-to-ceiling glass on three sides.

There are maybe five dining rooms in this city with a view like this, and none of them are building an entire floor team from scratch.

Aqua is the address people book when the occasion actually matters: the proposal, the anniversary, the deal. That means the guests are invested, the standard is high, and the service you lead here opens doors everywhere else. “Aqua Dining, opening Restaurant Manager” is a line on your CV that Sydney operators recognise instantly.

WHERE HOSPITALITY LEAVES ITS MARK

That’s SRG’s line, and we mean it both ways: the mark we leave on guests, and the one this group leaves on the people who work in it.

Bill and Kathleen Drakopoulos opened Aqua in 2000. Everything else came after. Twenty-six years on, SRG is fifteen venues heading to twenty. Those venues are Sydney’s harbourside icons and neighbourhood favourites: Sails, The Nielsen, The Fenwick, Ventuno, Riva, Akti, Noi, Porcellino, and the food and beverage across The Langham, Sydney.

• What that means for your career: Somewhere to go. Fifteen venues and forty-plus event spaces. Internal moves are normal here, not a favour.
• Real training, not a handbook. The SRG Wine Academy develops floor teams properly.
• Still family-run. Led by Bill and Kathleen’s four children. The people deciding where you go next know your name.

Applicants must have full working rights in Australia. SRG Hospitality is an equal opportunity employer.