General Manager

Saunter; New York (NY); On-site; USD 120,000 - 150,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Base salary $120,000–$150,000

Performance bonus and incentives

Founding operating role

National expansion opportunity

Job summary

Saunter seeks a hands-on operator to lead their first venue from pre-opening to established daily operation. You will own the four-wall P&L, build and guide a high-performing team, and ensure exceptional guest experiences across varied dayparts.

This role requires late-night readiness, strong operating discipline, and a clear playbook for future locations. You will report to the operating partner and collaborate with the CEO and founding team to shape the brand, standards, and long-term national

Qualifications

• Experience running high-touch, complex operations with guest experience
• Strong P&L management and cost controls
• Staff recruitment, development, and retention capabilities
• Ability to build systems and playbooks for multi‑revenue venues

Responsibilities

• Open the venue and lead pre-opening readiness, training, and transition to live operation
• Build and develop the team across all areas (floor, bar, reception, facilities, security)
• Own guest experience standards and daily operational discipline
• Control four-wall P&L, revenue, labor, COGS, and profitability with data-driven decisions
• Align marketing and programming to maximize utilization and spend across dayparts
• Design and implement operating systems, SOPs, and leadership rhythms for scalability
• Steward the brand and neighborhood relationships to build trust and community

Job description

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 run the room.

This is the top operating seat inside our first location, and you’ll hold it from before the doors open. The team, the guest experience, the operating standards, and the four-wall P&L are yours.

Saunter is a highly designed, all-day social venue combining high-touch hospitality, food and beverage, live programming, and a technically complex facility. It must operate across dramatically different modes: weekday mornings and afternoons, busy evenings, and a Friday and Saturday program that runs through 4am.

Saturdays will create their own demand. The harder—and more important—job is making Tuesday afternoon matter while operating late nights without compromising warmth, safety, or economics.

You’ll report to our operating partner and work directly with the CEO and founding team on the brand and experience. Because everything here is being built for the first time, the systems, culture, and feel of the place will carry your fingerprints for years as we expand to new locations.

This is a full-time, in-building role. Pre-opening and launch will require meaningful evening and weekend presence, including regular late-night closes during the early operating months. Over time, your job is to build the leadership coverage and operating systems that allow the venue to excel without depending on one person’s heroics.

What You’ll Do

Open the venue. Turn a building, operating plan, and brand vision into a functioning business. Own pre-opening readiness, training, mock services, systems testing, and the transition into live operation.

Build the team. Recruit, hire, and develop an exceptional staff across the floor, bar, reception, facilities, guest experience, production, and security—and build a workplace strong people do not want to leave. Partner with the culinary leader to ensure the same standard in the kitchen.

Own the guest experience. Set and hold an exceptional standard of hospitality, so every guest leaves better than they arrived. Teach the standard, inspect it every day, and recover quickly when something goes wrong.

Run the business. Own daily operations and the four-wall P&L. Manage revenue, labor, cost of goods, average spend, capacity, and profitability with rigor, turning operating data into clear decisions.

Make every daypart work. Build an operation that performs from weekday daytime through late-night weekends. Work closely with marketing and programming to increase utilization, repeat visits, and spend—especially Monday through Thursday.

Set the standards. Design and run the systems that keep the venue immaculate, safe, maintained, and compliant through every shift.

Create the playbook. Codify the staffing models, SOPs, training systems, and management rhythms that allow the first venue to excel and future Saunter locations to open faster.

Steward the brand and neighborhood. Make sure what Saunter stands for shows up in every detail of the experience, while building genuine trust with the people, businesses, and communities around us.

Who You Are

You have personally run and grown a high-touch, complex operation where the guest experience, a substantial P&L, a large team, multiple dayparts, and real facilities or safety requirements came together.

You have built teams from scratch—not simply inherited them. You can name the managers you hired, the people you promoted, and former colleagues who would choose to work with you again.

You are fluent with numbers. You understand how traffic, capacity, labor, spend, and service decisions combine to drive four-wall performance.

You are a hands‑on operator who is equally credible during a morning facilities walkthrough and on a packed late‑night floor.

You create structure without becoming rigid. When plans change, equipment fails, staffing breaks, or a guest experience goes sideways, you remain composed and make sound decisions.

You have operated in environments where cleanliness, safety, maintenance, and compliance are non‑negotiable. Important details do not slip past you.

You lead with warmth, directness, and emotional generosity. You are genuinely interested in people and in the music, food, art, neighborhoods, and ideas that make a room feel alive.

Successful pre‑opening experience is strongly preferred. Experience in New York hospitality, late-night operations, complex facilities, private clubs, lifestyle hotels, or other multi‑revenue venues is a plus.

What We Offer

• Base salary of $120,000–$150,000, based on relevant experience
• A target annual performance bonus and other compensation incentives tied to launch execution, venue performance, and operating standards
• A founding operating role with meaningful influence over the team, systems, and character of Saunter’s first venue
• The opportunity to help build a new national hospitality category from its first location

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