Director of Operations

Role Overview

Goat Restaurant Group operates 46 Pizza Hut restaurants across Indiana, Kentucky, and Ohio, with markets in Evansville and Bloomington, IN; Owensboro, KY; and Columbus, OH. The company is focused on building a culture where high standards are the everyday norm, driven by strong people development, consistent execution, accountability, and a refusal to settle for mediocrity.

The Director of Operations is the senior-most operations leader and reports directly to the President. In this position, you will partner with the President on strategy and then lead execution across all restaurants and markets. The role is highly visible and combines big-picture thinking with hands-on operational leadership. It requires spending significant time in the restaurants, developing leaders, improving performance, and owning results across people, culture, guest experience, standards, and financial outcomes.

Work Location and Schedule

This is an in-market, on-site leadership role based in Columbus, OH, or along the Columbus to Evansville corridor. Remote candidates are not being considered. The role involves heavy regional travel with an approximate 75/25 split between restaurant visits and time at the home office. It is a full-time, salaried position reporting to the President.

Key Areas of Ownership

You will be responsible for overseeing operational performance across every restaurant and market, using data to identify trends, surface opportunities, remove barriers, and convert initiatives into measurable improvement. The role includes driving sales, profitability, standards, and guest satisfaction at a consistently high level.

A major part of the job is building strong leaders. You will recruit, coach, develop, and hold accountable the above-store leadership team while creating a pipeline of future leaders. Expectations should be clear, feedback should be ongoing, and team members should be challenged to grow both professionally and personally.

You will also establish a steady operating rhythm through regular restaurant visits, business reviews, and follow-up actions. Cleanliness, food safety, staffing, training, execution, and attention to detail are daily expectations, and performance should be verified through direct observation rather than assumptions.

Financial stewardship is another core responsibility. You will manage sales growth, profitability, labor, food cost, and expenses with discipline, while understanding the story behind the numbers and acting early to prevent small issues from becoming larger problems.

The role also includes championing guest experience by building strong operators, maintaining high restaurant standards, and continually improving execution so that each location becomes the preferred choice in its community. In addition, you will help shape the organization’s culture by modeling ownership, encouraging improvement, and creating accountability through coaching rather than micromanagement.

What the Company Is Looking For

The ideal candidate is a leader who consistently raises expectations, develops people, and leads with humility. You should be comfortable discussing strategy at a leadership level while also coaching a Restaurant General Manager during a busy service period.

Success in this role requires proven multi-unit restaurant operations leadership experience, preferably in QSR or fast casual, with a record of improving performance across multiple locations and markets. You should bring a strong operational mindset, excellent follow-through, the ability to turn data into action, and a clear sense of ownership and accountability.

The company is looking for someone who knows how to lead through others by setting expectations, coaching effectively, holding people accountable, and building a leadership culture where managers own their businesses. Strong business judgment is needed, along with experience handling sales, profitability, labor, food cost, staffing, scheduling, operational audits, and food safety. A willingness to spend most of your time in the field is essential.

Compensation and Benefits

Compensation starts at a competitive base salary of $125,000+ and is adjusted based on experience. The package also includes a performance-based bonus, car and phone allowance, a full benefits package, and paid time off. The role offers meaningful ownership over day-to-day operations and the opportunity to serve as the President’s primary partner on operations and the leader the field team relies on most.

Equal Opportunity Statement

Goat Restaurant Group is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants are considered without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, or any other protected characteristic.