The full example
Everything below is fictional. The venues are described rather than named, and the achievements are the kind of thing a real front of house manager does — written the way they should appear on a CV, not inflated.
Front of house manager CV — example
Header
[Full Name] [Town, UK] · [phone] · [email]
Professional summary
Front of house manager with seven years on restaurant floors, currently running service for a 180-cover independent restaurant in Glasgow with a private dining room and a floor team of 20. Owns the booking book, the pre-shift briefing, the service standards and the training matrix, and is the person a guest complaint comes to. Personal Licence holder. Looking for a front of house manager role in a bigger restaurant, or a general manager role in an independent.
Core skills
Running service from the floor · Booking pacing and table turns (SevenRooms) Host stand and walk-in management · Pre-shift briefings and menu tests Steps of service and standards audits · Training matrix and section sign-off Guest complaints and recovery · Guest notes and returning-guest preferences Private dining and events up to 40 · Front of house rota (Harri) Allergen procedure on the floor · Licensing and Challenge 25 · Lightspeed
Experience
Front of House Manager — 180-cover independent restaurant, Glasgow
Apr 2023 – present
· Run lunch and dinner service from the floor, with two supervisors and a
team of 20 across the dining room, the bar and the private dining room.
· Set the booking pacing in SevenRooms with the head chef each week, so the
kitchen is never sent more than 40 covers in any 15-minute slot.
· Hold a ten-minute pre-shift briefing before every service: the bookings,
allergens, dishes that are off, and one service point to work on.
· Own the training matrix for the floor, with sign-off on steps of service,
the wine list and the allergen procedure before anyone takes a section.
· Handle guest complaints at the table and answer every online review within
48 hours, with the pattern reported at the weekly management meeting.
· Run private dining for up to 40 guests, from the menu and floor plan to
the staffing and the bill.
Head Waiter / Floor Supervisor — 90-cover neighbourhood bistro, Glasgow
Jul 2020 – Mar 2023
· Ran the floor on the manager’s days off, including cashing up and the
close-down.
· Trained new starters on steps of service and the EPOS, and signed them off
before they took a section.
· Took the bookings phone and managed walk-ins against the book on Friday
and Saturday nights.
· Wrote the notes for the weekly staff wine tasting with the owner.
Waiter — 140-cover restaurant, casual dining group, Paisley Sep 2018 – Jun 2020
· Ran a section of up to eight tables through peak service, and covered the
host stand when needed.Education and certifications
Personal Licence (SCPLH, Scotland) — 2022 WSET Level 2 Award in Wines — 2022 Level 2 Award in Food Safety in Catering — 2021 Level 2 Award in Allergen Awareness — 2023 First Aid at Work (3-day) — 2024 Level 2 Fire Safety — 2023 HND Hospitality Management — 2018
Additional
Systems: SevenRooms, OpenTable, Lightspeed EPOS, Harri (rotas) Availability: full flexibility including evenings, weekends and bank holidays
Templates that suit this example
- Classic Formal — Each role set in its own card, which suits a floor career with a clear step up at each venue.
- Floor — Built for front-of-house roles, with the Personal Licence and food safety certificates visible near the top.
- Modern Duo — A two-column layout that keeps systems and certificates to one side and service leadership in the other.
Want this structure with your own experience in it?
Build your front of house manager CVWhy each section is written that way
Professional summary
- Why it matters.
- An owner or general manager reading this wants to know whether they can hand you the floor and walk away. Covers, team size, what you own — the book, the briefing, the standards, the training — and who complaints come to.
- A strong version.
- Covers, team size, private dining if you have it, the parts of service you own by name, your licence and the move you are making. Four or five sentences.
- Common mistake.
- A paragraph of leadership adjectives — "dynamic, guest-focused, passionate about service". It could describe any head waiter, and it uses the space where the scope of the job should be.
Core skills
- Why it matters.
- Booking pacing, pre-shift briefing, steps of service, training matrix, recovery — these are the words that place you at front of house manager level rather than senior waiter. The block is where a reader checks for them.
- A strong version.
- The parts of service you own, the systems you run them in by name, the training and sign-off you control, and the licensing and allergen duties that sit with you.
- Common mistake.
- Only listing people skills and "attention to detail". They matter, but a restaurant hiring a floor manager is checking first that you can run the book and the briefing.
Experience
- Why it matters.
- A front of house manager and a restaurant manager can share a floor and do different jobs. Your bullets have to show the scope that is yours — service, bookings, standards, training, recovery — at a scale the reader can picture.
- A strong version.
- Covers, team and supervisors, the pacing you set, the briefing you run, the training you sign off, and how complaints and reviews are handled. Where there is a number, make it one you can explain.
- Common mistake.
- Writing "managed the front of house team" and stopping. Say how many, what service looked like, what you changed and what the kitchen would say about you.
Certifications
- Why it matters.
- Licensing and food safety are conditions of running a floor that serves alcohol, and a wine qualification is often what separates a floor manager from a supervisor when the venue takes its list seriously.
- A strong version.
- Personal Licence — the Scottish one if you work in Scotland — Level 2 Food Safety, allergen awareness, WSET at whatever level, first aid and fire safety, each with a year.
- Common mistake.
- Burying the Personal Licence at the bottom, or leaving the wine qualification off a CV for a venue with a list that runs to several pages.
Systems
- Why it matters.
- A group moving you between sites, or an independent replacing a manager who built the book, wants to know you can run the booking system and the EPOS from the first shift.
- A strong version.
- Booking, EPOS and rota systems by name, in one line, and a bullet in the experience that shows what you did with one of them.
- Common mistake.
- Naming a booking system without showing you used it for anything but taking bookings. The pacing bullet is what makes SevenRooms mean something.
If your experience looks different
Most people are not the candidate in the example. Three common situations, and what to change for each.
First front of house manager role — moving up from supervisor or head waiter
Your summary. Name the step openly: "Head waiter with four years on the floor, looking for a first front of house manager role." The reader will assess you on responsibility already held, not on the title you had.
What to emphasise. Shifts you have run without a manager on site, starters you have trained and signed off, the bookings phone and the walk-in book, complaints you resolved at the table, and cash-ups and close-downs you have done.
Bullets you could adapt
- ·Ran the floor for a team of [X] on the manager’s days off, including the pre-shift briefing and the close-down.
- ·Trained and signed off [X] new starters on steps of service, the wine list and the allergen procedure.
- ·Managed walk-ins against the book on Friday and Saturday nights for a [X]-cover restaurant.
Certifications. Personal Licence and WSET Level 2 if the venue has a wine list worth the name. Together they answer the two most common reasons a head waiter is passed over for a floor manager role.
Experienced front of house manager — going for general manager
Your summary. Shift the emphasis from running service to running the site. Lead with the rota and labour line, the recruitment you own, the private dining revenue you have built, and the supervisors you have developed.
What to emphasise. Labour cost against forecast, recruitment and retention, private dining and events growth, the relationship with the kitchen on GP and pacing, and anyone you have promoted into a supervisory role.
Bullets you could adapt
- ·Wrote the front of house rota against forecast covers and held labour to the target through [X] quarters.
- ·Grew private dining to [X] events a month through a set-menu package built with the head chef.
- ·Developed two supervisors into assistant manager roles, each with a written development plan.
Certifications. Level 3 Supervising Food Safety, a health and safety award at Level 3, and WSET Level 3 if the list justifies it. Mental health first aid is increasingly asked for at GM level.
Moving into front of house management from another industry
Your summary. Lead with the transferable spine — leading a customer-facing team at pace, rotas, standards, complaint handling — and be specific about what is new. A retail or events floor manager is closer to this job than either title suggests.
What to emphasise. Team size, rota writing, standards audits you have run or passed, complaint handling and recovery, any licensing or food safety you already hold, and the hospitality training you have taken since deciding to move.
Bullets you could adapt
- ·Led a customer-facing team of [X] through peak trading, writing the rota and running the daily briefing.
- ·Handled escalated complaints and refunds to a documented standard, with the pattern reported weekly.
- ·Completed the Personal Licence and Level 2 Food Safety, and worked [X] weekend shifts on a restaurant floor ahead of applying.
Certifications. Personal Licence and Level 2 Food Safety before you apply. They answer the obvious objection to a career changer, and the floor shifts answer the rest.
Next steps
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