Position Summary:
Our client is a well-established Central Coast winery at a pivotal moment of growth. They are expanding operations and investing in the next chapter of their hospitality and guest experience.
Reporting to the VP of DTC Sales Operations, the Director of Hospitality is a customer-first leader who owns operations, team performance, guest experience, and financial results across direct-to-consumer venues. They lead multi-location execution, raise service standards, accelerate revenue growth, and build strong, scalable teams and systems.
The ideal candidate is both strategic and operationally minded—comfortable analyzing performance, driving business results, and partnering cross-functionally with marketing, wine club, events, inventory, and leadership teams.
Core Responsibilities:
Hospitality & Venue Operations:
- Oversee all daily hospitality operations for multiple locations and tasting rooms.
- Partner with venue managers to ensure smooth execution of tastings, events, and seasonal experiences.
- Ensure SOPs, policies, reservation standards, and service procedures are consistently followed and improved.
Revenue & Business Performance:
- Drive hospitality and tasting room revenue performance across all locations, supporting DTC sales goals and profitability targets.
- Monitor key KPIs—including guest acquisition, club conversion, average order value, repeat visitation, and reservation utilization—to identify opportunities and improve performance.
- Partner with the leadership on strategic planning, pricing, staffing, and growth initiatives.
Leadership & Team Development:
- Lead, coach, and develop hospitality leaders and Outbound Sales Department, fostering accountability, professionalism, and strong team communication.
- Support recruiting, onboarding, performance management, and employee development while building a positive, high-performing culture.
- Mentor managers to become proactive business leaders focused on exceptional guest experiences and revenue growth.
Guest Experience & Brand Standards:
- Ensure every guest interaction reflects brand standards and hospitality philosophy, championing an elevated guest experience aligned with brand storytelling and campaign initiatives.
- Oversee service execution for VIP visits, trade guests, allocation members, and special hospitality experiences.
- Maintain presentation standards for all guest-facing spaces.
Operational Excellence:
- Drive operational improvements that enhance efficiency, guest experience, and team performance while ensuring compliance with company policies and regulations.
- Partner cross-functionally and optimize hospitality systems, reservations, staffing, and service execution to support business goals.
Qualifications:
- 5+ years of progressive leadership experience in winery hospitality, luxury hospitality, DTC wine operations or similar environment.
- Proven success leading teams and driving revenue performance.
- Strong understanding of DTC wine sales, club conversion strategies, hospitality operations, reservation management, guest recovery and staffing and labor management.
- Experience managing leaders and developing high-performing teams.
- Strong analytical and operational thinking skills.
- Excellent communication, organizational, and leadership abilities.
- Ability to remain calm, professional, and solutions-oriented in fast-paced environments.
- Passion for hospitality, wine, team culture, and guest experience.
Preferred Qualifications:
- Experience with multi-unit tasting room management or similar environment.
- Familiarity with Commerce7, reservation systems, POS systems, and reporting platforms.
Compensation & Benefits:
- Salary Range: $120k - $140k.
- 100% of health and dental paid.
- Paid time off, sick leave and holidays.
- 401(k) with company match.
Employee Perks:
- Wine and hospitality industry benefits.
- Wine allocation and employee discounts.
- Leadership development opportunities.
- Business cell phone provided.
Work Environment & Requirements:
- Culture: Supportive, people-first culture built on collaboration, where leaders invest in their teams and employees take pride in their work, growth, and contributions.
- Environment: In office Monday - Friday, May be required to work some occasional evenings and/or weekends with as needed.
- Physical Requirements: This role primarily operates in an office environment. Occasional lifting of materials for events or content production may be required, up to approximately 40 pounds (such as cases of wine).