The full example
Everything below is fictional. The venues are described rather than named, and the achievements are the kind of thing a real restaurant manager does — written the way they should appear on a CV, not inflated.
Restaurant manager CV — example
Header
[Full Name] [Town, UK] · [phone] · [email]
Professional summary
Restaurant manager with seven years in casual dining and hotel restaurants, currently running a 140-cover site with a team of 24. Accountable for the rota and labour cost, food and drink GP, and the compliance paperwork behind both. Personal Licence holder. Looking for a general manager role, or a site with a bigger events and functions side.
Core skills
Rota writing and labour cost control · Weekly P&L review · Food and drink GP Stock counts and supplier ordering · Covers and spend per head tracking Recruitment, induction and training · Appraisals and development plans Health and safety and HACCP oversight · Licensing and Challenge 25 Allergen procedure ownership · EPOS reporting (Zonal, Lightspeed)
Experience
Restaurant Manager — 140-cover site, casual dining group, Nottingham
May 2023 – present
· Run the weekly rota for a team of 24 against a labour cost target, and
explain the variance at the Monday trading review.
· Hold food GP to the group target through portion checks, weekly stock
counts and a standing conversation with the head chef about spec.
· Track covers and spend per head by session, and use it to set the
staffing pattern for the following week.
· Took the site through its last environmental health inspection, owning
the HACCP records, temperature logs and allergen matrix.
· Promoted three team members to supervisor, each with a written
development plan and a review at 30, 60 and 90 days.
Assistant Manager — hotel restaurant, 120 bedrooms, Derby Aug 2021 – Apr 2023
· Ran breakfast, lunch and dinner service across a 90-cover restaurant plus
room service and function dining.
· Wrote the front-of-house rota and signed off holiday against forecast
occupancy from the reservations team.
· Held the duty manager phone on late shifts, including guest complaints
and fire alarm procedure.
Supervisor — independent restaurant, Derby Jun 2019 – Jul 2021
· Ran shifts of up to eight staff, opened and closed the site and banked
the takings.
· Inducted new starters on service standards, allergens and the till.Education and certifications
Personal Licence (APLH Level 2) — 2021 Level 3 Award in Supervising Food Safety in Catering — 2022 Level 3 Award in Health and Safety in the Workplace — 2023 Level 2 Award in Allergen Awareness — 2022 First Aid at Work (3-day) — 2024 BTEC Level 3 in Hospitality Supervision — 2019
Additional
Systems: Fourth Hospitality (rotas and stock), Zonal EPOS, ResDiary Availability: full flexibility including weekends and bank holidays
Templates that suit this example
- Executive — Competency groups instead of a skills list, which suits a CV led by numbers and team results.
- Classic Formal — Each role set in its own card — built for supervisors and managers applying inside a group.
- Essential One-Page — Dates in a left gutter, so a long management history still fits one page.
Want this structure with your own experience in it?
Build your restaurant manager CVWhy each section is written that way
Professional summary
- Why it matters.
- At management level the reader is usually an area manager or an owner, and they are pricing you against a P&L. Give them the size of the site, the size of the team and what you are accountable for, immediately.
- A strong version.
- Covers, team size, what sits on your number — labour, GP, or both — and the move you are making. Four sentences at most.
- Common mistake.
- A paragraph of management adjectives: "dynamic, results-driven leader with a proven track record". It could describe anyone, and it uses the space where your numbers should be.
Core skills
- Why it matters.
- A restaurant manager CV without commercial vocabulary reads like a senior supervisor CV. Rota, labour cost, GP, stock and compliance are the words that place you at the right level.
- A strong version.
- The controls you actually hold, named plainly, plus the systems you hold them in — rota and stock software, EPOS reporting, the booking system.
- Common mistake.
- Only listing service and people skills. They matter, but a group hiring a manager is checking first that you can be handed a labour budget.
Experience
- Why it matters.
- Two restaurant managers can be doing entirely different jobs — one runs a 40-cover independent, the other a 200-cover site inside a group with an area manager above them. Scale and reporting line are what distinguish you.
- A strong version.
- Covers, team size, the sessions you run, and what you own on the numbers. Where a figure is a target you worked to, say that — it is more credible than an unexplained percentage.
- Common mistake.
- Headline percentages with nothing underneath them. A reader who cannot see what you changed will discount the number, and an interviewer will ask you to reconstruct it.
Compliance and certifications
- Why it matters.
- Licensing and food safety are not optional at this level. A Personal Licence and Level 3 food safety are often a condition of the role, and an environmental health inspection is a story only a manager can tell.
- A strong version.
- Personal Licence, Level 3 supervising food safety, health and safety, allergen awareness and first aid, each with a year. Mention an inspection you took a site through.
- Common mistake.
- Treating compliance as background paperwork and leaving it off. For a group with an area manager and a legal duty, it is one of the first things they look for.
If your experience looks different
Most people are not the candidate in the example. Three common situations, and what to change for each.
First management role — moving up from supervisor
Your summary. Name the step openly: "Restaurant supervisor with four years on the floor, looking for a first assistant manager role." A reader will assess you on responsibility held, not on the title you had.
What to emphasise. Everything you already do that is management work — rotas, cash, ordering, inductions, holding the keys, running a shift without a manager on site.
Bullets you could adapt
- ·Wrote the weekly rota for a team of ten and adjusted it against booking levels.
- ·Opened and closed the site as keyholder, including banking and the end-of-day report.
- ·Inducted six new starters on service standards, allergen procedure and the till.
Certifications. Personal Licence (APLH) and Level 3 Supervising Food Safety. Together they remove the two most common reasons a supervisor is passed over for a manager role.
Experienced manager — going for general manager or multi-site
Your summary. Shift the emphasis from running a shift to running a business. Lead with the P&L lines you own and the managers you have developed, not with service detail.
What to emphasise. Full P&L accountability, recruitment and retention, opening or refitting a site, covering other sites, and anyone you promoted into management.
Bullets you could adapt
- ·Held accountability for the site P&L, presenting the weekly trading figures to the area manager.
- ·Covered a second site for a full quarter during a management vacancy, running both rotas.
- ·Developed two assistant managers into restaurant manager roles within the group.
Certifications. Level 4 Food Safety or an operations qualification if the group funds one, plus mental health first aid — increasingly asked for at GM level.
Moving into restaurant management from another industry
Your summary. Lead with the commercial spine — budgets, rotas, teams, compliance — and be specific about what is new to you. A retail store manager is closer to this job than the wording of either job title suggests.
What to emphasise. P&L or budget responsibility, team size, rota writing, stock and shrinkage, and any health and safety duty you already hold. Then say what hospitality training you have taken.
Bullets you could adapt
- ·Managed a retail unit with a team of 18, accountable for the wage budget and weekly stock loss.
- ·Wrote rotas around trading patterns and adjusted staffing week to week against forecast.
- ·Held health and safety responsibility for the site, including risk assessments and incident reporting.
Certifications. Personal Licence (APLH) and Level 3 Supervising Food Safety before you apply — they answer the obvious objection to a career changer at this level.
Next steps
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