Food & Beverage Program Consultant

Saunter; New York (NY); On-site; USD 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Founding team access

National scalability project

Competitive compensation

Job summary

Saunter is seeking a senior pre-opening F&B consultant to design a complete program for its first location in New York. You will shape menu architecture, beverage direction, service models, and operating standards that enable a successful opening and scalable future locations.

You will work with the founding team, kitchen partners, and brand team to build a defensible program, hire the kitchen leader, and establish a hands-on playbook that drives margins, guest experience, and repeatability from

Qualifications

• Built F&B programs in high-touch hospitality environments.
• Experience opening new hospitality concepts is strongly preferred.
• New York experience and local vendor network is a plus.
• Ability to translate vision into executable menus, service flows, and standards.

Responsibilities

• Refine Saunter’s F&B POV into a coherent, commercially viable program.
• Develop menus for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and late-night with practical cadence.
• Lead search and hire of the operating kitchen leader and establish a clear kitchen rhythm.
• Create SOPs, inventory controls, and an actionable F&B playbook for pre-opening and beyond.
• Partner with operations and design teams on equipment, packaging, and service flow.

Skills

F&B program development

Hospitality operations

Menu architecture

Vendor management

Team leadership

Tools

POS systems

RFID ordering

Inventory software

Job description

The way we gather is broken. Modern culture trades presence for digital sedation, and nightlife makes good health the price of admission.

We’re building the successor to the bar—a new kind of third space, designed from first principles for how people want to gather today. Our first location opens in Williamsburg in early 2027, and the model is built to scale nationally.

We’re artists and serial entrepreneurs—builders of creative and nightlife communities, consumer brands, and technology companies. We’ve spent our careers pushing culture forward, and this is our biggest swing yet.

We’re backed by founders of some of the most influential technology companies of the past two decades, alongside one of the most followed voices in health.

From first dawn to last call, a quick reset or a whole afternoon, our mission is to make room for warmer ways to gather.

About Saunter

The way we gather is broken. Modern culture trades presence for digital sedation, and nightlife makes good health the price of admission.

We’re building the successor to the bar—a new kind of third space, designed from first principles for how people want to gather today. Our first location opens in Williamsburg in early 2027, and the model is built to scale nationally.

We’re artists and serial entrepreneurs—builders of creative and nightlife communities, consumer brands, and technology companies. We’ve spent our careers pushing culture forward, and this is our biggest swing yet.

We’re backed by founders of some of the most influential technology companies of the past two decades, alongside one of the most followed voices in health.

From first dawn to last call, a quick reset or a whole afternoon, our mission is to make room for warmer ways to gather.

The Role

You’ll build the program around the room.

Saunter is a bathhouse and social lounge where food and beverage is not the headline—it is what makes the whole experience work. Guests will move from sauna and pool to coffee, lunch, dinner, late-night, and back again, often barefoot, in robes, and on their own schedule. Your job is to create an F&B program that feels native to all of it: nourishing without being earnest, generous without being heavy, operationally sharp without feeling engineered.

This is a senior pre-opening consulting engagement. You will turn an established vision into a working program: menu architecture, beverage direction, service models, operating standards, systems, vendors, and the decisions that let a first location open well and future locations repeat it.

The strategic center of the program is dinner after 5pm, when the room becomes most social. Daytime still has to earn its place: a strong coffee program, easy lunch and co-work service, and food guests can genuinely come back for twice a week. Late night has its own test—fast, hand‑held, high‑throughput food that can hold up at 200+ guests without compromising the feel.

You’ll work directly with the founding team and operating partner, alongside the GM, designers, kitchen partners, and brand team. You will help define the decisions that will carry your fingerprints long after opening.

What You’ll Do

• Refine Saunter’s F&B point of view into a coherent, commercially viable program built around mindful indulgence : bright, herbal, citrus‑forward flavors alongside umami, fermented, savory depth.
• Develop the food and beverage menus across breakfast, lunch/co‑work, dinner/happy hour, and late‑night—combining durable signatures with a practical specials cadence.
• Build a beverage program led by coffee, matcha, functional drinks, smoothies, cold‑pressed juices, and a full non‑alcoholic bar. Alcohol has a deliberately small, premium role.
• Engineer food and beverage for the actual guest context: closed‑top, unbreakable vessels; lap‑tray‑friendly formats; compact plating; one‑handed ease where possible; no glassware.
• Work alongside Senior Operational Leaders to develop service models for each daypart, from counter service and runners to any evening table service, with clear thresholds for when the model should change.
• Lead the search, evaluation, and hire of Saunter’s operating kitchen leader—Chef de Cuisine / Kitchen Manager—then establish a clear working rhythm that lets them own the day‑to‑day kitchen with confidence.
• Support the opening team build: define key BOH roles, interview and assess opening staff, and set the training plan, culinary standards, and onboarding materials that create a strong kitchen culture from day one.
• Mentor the operating chef beyond opening. Provide regular, candid feedback and practical support on execution, team leadership, prep and production systems, menu refinement, and the quality and consistency of every service.
• Create the operating backbone: hospitality standards, SOPs, prep and production systems, a clear F&B P&L and analytics framework, and a performance cadence that turns food cost, labor, waste, sales mix, and guest feedback into action.
• Stay close to the live program after launch: taste, challenge, and refine dishes; diagnose operational friction; and help the operating chef make the changes that improve margins, repeatability, and guest experience without sanding off the program’s personality.
• Lead or advise on vendor selection and onboarding, including a Brooklyn coffee‑roaster partnership, NA and functional beverage suppliers, and outsourced cold‑pressed juice.
• Partner with operations, kitchen design, and MEP teams on equipment, extraction, aroma, and sound decisions appropriate for a bathhouse environment.
• Advise on POS and RFID‑enabled ordering, pricing by item and daypart, packaging and vessel specifications, menu copy, and other pre‑opening decisions.
• Implement inventory controls for F+B program, alongside General Manager
• Leave behind a usable playbook—not a beautiful deck—that the opening team can operate, train from, and improve.

Who You Are

You have built food and beverage programs in high‑touch hospitality—ideally for a hotel, private club, wellness concept, cultural venue, beach club, or another all‑day, multi‑format operation. You know how to make a menu feel alive without making it hard to execute.

You are equally comfortable in the creative and operational details. You can talk through a dish, a drink, a labor model, a COGS target, a service flow, and the equipment decision that makes each one possible. You know how to develop an emerging kitchen leader without taking over their kitchen, and where a brand flourish is worth its operating cost—and where it is not.

You understand that the best wellness‑coded program does not lecture guests. It makes them feel good, makes the easy choice genuinely craveable, and still leaves room for pleasure.

You have a real point of view on non‑alcoholic beverages, coffee, functional drinks, and daytime hospitality. You appreciate an excellent alcoholic offering, but you do not default to building a cocktail bar.

You can work directly with founders who have taste, move quickly, and expect clear recommendations. You bring warmth, directness, and the confidence to make a call when the answer is not yet obvious.

Experience opening a new hospitality concept is strongly preferred. New York experience, a strong local vendor network, and familiarity with constrained or unusual serving environments are all a plus.

What This Engagement Offers

• A foundational consulting role in the first Saunter location, with meaningful influence over how the brand tastes, feels, and operates.
• Direct access to the founding team and the opportunity to build a program from first principles rather than inherit one.
• The chance to create an F&B playbook for a new, nationally scalable hospitality category.
• Engagement scope, timing, and compensation structured with the selected consultant based on experience and availability.

Saunter is an equal opportunity employer. We welcome applicants of every background and meet people where they are.