Senior Director, Food and Beverage Operations

Journey with us! Combine your career goals and sense of adventure by joining our exciting team of employees. Royal Caribbean Group is pleased to offer a competitive compensation and benefits package, and excellent career development opportunities, each offering unique ways to explore the world.

We are proud to be the vacation-industry leader with global brands — including Royal Caribbean International, Celebrity Cruises and Silversea Cruises — the most innovative fleet and private destinations, and the best people. Together, we are dedicated to turning the vacation of a lifetime into a lifetime of vacations for our guests.

The Royal Caribbean Group’s Hotel Operations Team has an exciting career opportunity for a full- time Senior Director, Food and Beverage Operations reporting to the SVP, Food and Beverage.

The position will work onsite in Miami, Florida.

Agency and Third-Party Submissions: Please note this is a direct search by the Company, and applications through agencies and other third parties will not be accepted, nor will fees be paid for unsolicited resumes. Any unsolicited resumes will be considered the Company’s property.

What does the Hotel Operations Team do? 

The Hotel Operations Team at Royal Caribbean Group oversees the end-to-end onboard and shoreside hotel experience across the fleet. The team sets operational standards and partners with culinary, housekeeping, entertainment, and guest services to ensure safe, efficient, and exceptional service delivery, driving consistency, quality, and continuous improvement while bringing the brand promise to life and enhancing guest satisfaction.

What does the Senior Director, Food and Beverage do?

The Senior Director, Food and Beverage Operations is responsible for the management and coordination of all Restaurant Operations Fleet-wide shoreside and shipboard. This includes ensuring the consistency of existing & future levels of service and any other Restaurant Operations initiatives associated. Work closely with Culinary, Beverage and Operation Excellence departments to strengthen the F&B Division.

In addition, this position’s primary focus will be the development and continuous improvement of products, concepts, and standards to ensure Royal Caribbean International remains a market leader in service delivery.

This position is also responsible and accountable for financial aspects of Restaurant Operations including the revenue target of specialty Revenue – over $100M a year.

Lastly, this position manages all dining coordination with a team of 6 people making reservation for over 5 million Guests per year for the Main Dining Room and Specialty Restaurants.

What your day-to-day will look like:

• Manages a team that works to understand and improve upon all current restaurant processes. This includes but is not limited to shipboard operations, shoreside dining coordination and all projects related to F&B operations.

• Defines departmental objectives, develops strategic plans, and deploys supporting tactics and project work for Restaurant Operations that support F&B and Hotel Operations business objectives.

• Monitors shipboard and shoreside restaurant payroll, time and attendance, ILO compliance and other HR related matters for F&B Operations. Maintains knowledge of human resources policies within F&B Operations. Cooperates and communicates with shoreside human resources to support any major updates or upgrades of restaurant operations which can impact crew and staff in any way. Assists with recruiting and scheduling key positions within restaurant operations: Head Waiter, Assistant Maitre D’, Maitre D and Restaurant Operations Manager.

• Ensures all shipboard positions from entry level to top management are well balanced amongst the fleet. Assists human resources with scheduling and recruiting.

• Leads and is directly involved in development of new, as well updating existing: SOPs, Restaurant guidelines, Culinary Guides, Training programs and Operational supporting documents available on homeport. Ensures online training requirement for every restaurant position is followed on every vessel. Monitors weekly reports sent by Restaurant Operations Managers, including but not limited to: Utilization reports, food productivity tool report, Specialty & Beverage Revenues, ROM, MD and AMD dashboards and appraisal tracker. Provides timely feedback to ships once reports are received.

• Cooperates and closely works with the Shoreside Dining Coordination team on all aspects of dining coordination responsibilities, such as fleet Main Dining Room dining time and limits, Specialty Restaurants and Culinary Events set-up and inventories, My Time Dining online reservation inventories, implementation of new products, group dining requests, as well any special requests for large groups and charters.

• Works closely with IT, to develop the new dining management system X-Dining to replace the existing system called Silverwhere.

• Supports My Time Dining and other flexible dining seating and flexible dining products necessary to remain in a position of leadership within the industry. Oversees inventory for MDR and Specialty Dining Venues.

•  Continually supports shipboard ROYAL Way standards for Restaurant Operations in all venues, partnering with Shipboard to drive continuous improvement and to take corrective action when and where necessary, communicating as necessary with shoreside Directors and shipboard.

• Provides leadership, guidance, coaching, support, and supervision to the Manager of Restaurant Operation, Senior Traveling Restaurant/F&B Operations Managers (STRM/TFBD) and other F&B operations Management to help accomplish department and brand goals, objectives, and to maximize output and business effectiveness.

• Provides leadership, guidance, support, coaching to the Shoreside Dining Team.

• Supervises and participates in developmental reviews and annual reviews of Senior Traveling Restaurant Managers (STRM) and all MD & ROM shipboard including, workplace safety, ILO and Time & Attendance, SQM, USPH compliance, managing hiring, terminations, and disciplinary actions as necessary.

• Works closely with all members of the shore side Food & Beverage Operations Management Team to evolve Dining concepts, service styles, menus and any other work associated with Restaurants. Partners closely with the Senior Corporate Executive Chef and the Traveling Corporate Chef Team to ensure alignment in philosophies and direction, as well as establishing a strong support mechanism for all culinary/food production initiatives.

• Supports all new building and Revitalization projects as well as new concept development and implementation in all capacities that involve Restaurant Operations including the development of new menus.

• Manages all financial aspects of Restaurant Operations with a particular focus on fostering a culture of fiscal responsibility and accountability with our shipboard Leadership Teams. Develops budgets and forecasts for the departments and identifies product and operational efficiencies that drive cost reductions and product enhancements.

• Works closely with shipboard management teams to actively place qualified management to the appropriate assignments, coordinates fleet leadership schedule and satisfies career development needs based on shipboard feedback on suitable candidates.

• Provides oversight of Fleet-wide Restaurant Operations operational expenses, such, overtime payroll and consumable / replaceable expenses. Assists with expense reduction within Restaurant Operations.

• Drives revenue platforms, sets and manages onboard revenue for Specialty restaurant targets. Monitors fleet Specialty revenue standing according to set targets. Reviews individual ships’ revenue achievements on a regular basis. Maintains a good overview of specific venues and products for overall achievements and looks for possible adjustments towards better success.

• Seeks operator feedback, visits ships and / or attends Operational Meetings to gain insight into potential enhancements of the operations and assists on developing future restaurant leaders.

• Maintains a positive attitude for continuous improvement and imparts this culture on team members as well as other departments that touch F&B. 

How to achieve success:

• Possess a minimum of a master’s degree in a relevant field of study.

• Minimum of 10 - 15 years in a professional or supervisory position within the hospitality industry, including dining services or restaurant operations, where a quality standards program existed, was reviewed, and enforced.

• Must have demonstrated a high level of proficiency in hospitality management general business management.

• Speaks and writes English and demonstrated a high level of interpretative skills for oral, written, schematic, or diagrammed instructions.

• Must have a working knowledge of personal computers within a Windows environment with e-mail, Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint and related printers and equipment.

• Excellent interpersonal skills required with strong ability to communicate in a multicultural environment with all levels of employees and management.

• Ability to work in a fast-paced environment and manage multiple projects and priorities.

• Ability and willingness to travel internationally (up to 50% of the time) on trips of 2-14 days depending on itinerary.

• Ability to read, analyze, and interpret general business periodicals, professional journals, technical procedures, or governmental regulations.

• Ability to write reports, business correspondence, and procedure manuals.

• Ability to effectively present information and respond to questions from groups of managers, clients, customers, and the general public.

• Ability to calculate figures and amounts such as discounts, interest, commissions, proportions, percentages, area, circumference, and volume. Ability to apply concepts of basic algebra and geometry.

• Ability to solve practical problems and deal with a variety of concrete variables in situations where only limited standardization exists.

• Ability to interpret a variety of instructions furnished in written, oral, diagram, or schedule form.

• An understanding of FF&E direction and physical layout for restaurant operations.

We know there's a lot to consider. As you go through the application process, our recruiters will be glad to provide guidance, and more relevant details to answer any additional questions. Thank you again for your interest in Royal Caribbean Group. We'll hope to see you onboard soon!

It is the policy of the Company to ensure equal employment and promotion opportunity to qualified candidates without discrimination or harassment on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, age, national origin, disability, sexual orientation, sexuality, gender identity or expression, marital status, or any other characteristic protected by law. Royal Caribbean Group and each of its subsidiaries prohibit and will not tolerate discrimination or harassment.

We are committed to providing equal employment opportunities and to providing reasonable accommodation to support candidates with disabilities during our hiring process. If you need a reasonable accommodation, please reach out to us at hraccess@rccl.com. This email is for disability-related accommodation requests only.