Head of Food & Beverage

Travelodge Hotels Limited; Thame; Hybrid; GBP 108,000 - 132,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Up to £120,000 & Annualise Bonus

Car Allowance payable at £570 per month

Contributory pension scheme

Hybrid working

50% discount for hotel bookings

25 days holiday + bank holidays

Job summary

Travelodge Hotels Limited is seeking a Head of Food & Beverage Strategy to oversee a multi-million pound F&B operation across 370 hotels. This role involves defining a 3-year vision, managing budgets, and ensuring a consistent customer experience.

The ideal candidate will have a strong commercial background, a proven P&L accountability track record for portfolios exceeding £50m, and the ability to influence at the executive level. This position offers a salary of up to £120,000 plus annual bonuses, car allowance, and hybrid working arrangements.

Qualifications

• Proven track record in high-volume food & beverage or large-scale restaurant retail.
• Ability to transform market trends and consumer data into growth strategies.
• Experience influencing at executive level and managing supplier relationships.

Responsibilities

• Define the 3-year food & beverage vision and growth initiatives.
• Manage a £2m budget and influence investment.
• Oversee product lifecycle from concept to national launch.
• Ensure high-quality brand experience across operations.
• Utilize data dashboards to optimize commercial performance.

Skills

Commercial director experience

P&L accountability for portfolios exceeding £50m

Stakeholder management

Strategic thinking

Strong negotiation skills

Data analytics

Job description

Job Description

Find where you belong!

Do you have the commercial and customer-first mindset to develop and deliver a successful F&B business on a national scale? Can you architect a 3-year F&B strategy that drives out-performance, puts our guests first, and translates into a seamless mission for our hotels and their teams? If yes, our Head of Food & Beverage Strategy position might be the right next move for you.

Your Purpose

We are seeking a visionary cultivator to scale our multi-million pound F&B operation, overseeing 230 bar-cafes and our F&B proposition across 370 hotels. Our Head of F&B will be responsible for driving revenue, margin and ensuring a consistent brilliant customer experience across the entire estate.

Key Responsibilities

• Define the 3-year F&B vision, identifying new growth initiatives and pricing strategies that maximise our revenue and optimise margin through a customer-first approach.
• Oversee a c£2m management budget and influence investment.
• Manage the end-to-end product lifecycle from initial concept to national launch, optimizing for both profitability and consumer demand.
• Act as the bridge between Marketing, Finance, and Ops - ensuring we deliver a consistent, high-quality brand experience.
• Spearhead the use of data dashboards and digital platforms to optimise conversion, the guest journey and commercial performance.

Your Strengths

The ideal candidate will be a strong commercial director with a proven track record in high-volume F&B or large-scale restaurant retail. We are seeking a candidate who has held full P&L accountability—ideally for portfolios exceeding £50m—and possesses the rational mindset to transform complex market trends and consumer data into high-growth strategies. Beyond the numbers, they should demonstrate rational intelligence, showing a history of working hand-in-hand with ground-level teams to ensure that national change is implemented seamlessly and sustainably.

Our Head of F&B will need to influence at the ExCo level and negotiate high-value supplier relationships with ease. They should be a collaborative partner known for winning "hearts and minds" across a business, pairing exceptional stakeholder management with the flexibility to travel nationally. We are looking for a strategic thinker with technical expertise—someone who can present to the board one day and analyse the drivers behind a 1% margin shift the next.

Your Perks

• Up to £120,000 & Annualise Bonus
• Car Allowance payable at £570 per month
• Contributory pension scheme - auto enroll at 5% after 3 months and we contribute 8%
• Hybrid working - a minimum of 60% of your time should be spent in the office and or visiting suppliers
• 50% personal discount for hotel bookings and great friends and family discounts too!
• 25 days holiday + bank holidays, increasing with length of service