“The only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle.” – Steve Jobs

Location: Midwest (low cost area)

Compensation: ~$150K (base + bonus)

A growing regional convenience store chain in the Midwest is seeking an experienced Director of Foodservice Development & Operations to strengthen, elevate, and optimize its foodservice program.

This hands-on leadership role will be responsible for improving current food and beverage offerings while developing new menu items that appeal to customers and deliver sustainable operational and financial results. Because store formats and available foodservice capabilities vary across the chain, the successful candidate must be able to create flexible programs that can be executed consistently in locations of different sizes and complexity.

The ideal candidate combines foodservice innovation with strong operational judgment. This person will understand how to translate menu concepts into practical, profitable programs that store teams can execute safely, efficiently, and consistently.

Key Responsibilities

• Evaluate the current foodservice program and identify opportunities to improve product quality, customer appeal, operational efficiency, and profitability.
• Develop and introduce new menu items based on customer demand, market trends, food cost, labor requirements, equipment needs, and store-level execution.
• Create scalable foodservice programs tailored to a range of store sizes, layouts, staffing levels, and operational capabilities.
• Establish clear performance expectations and financial targets for foodservice categories, products, and promotions.
• Analyze product mix, sales, margins, waste, labor, and other key performance indicators to optimize the overall program.
• Develop and maintain standardized recipes, preparation procedures, portion controls, product specifications, and operating guidelines.
• Strengthen quality-control and food-safety practices to ensure consistent execution across all locations.
• Create effective training programs, tools, and materials for foodservice employees and store leadership.
• Partner with field operations to coach store teams, address execution challenges, and improve accountability.
• Work closely with suppliers, distributors, equipment partners, and internal stakeholders to support product development and implementation.
• Lead product testing, store pilots, and phased rollouts, using performance data and team feedback to refine programs before broader deployment.
• Identify equipment and process improvements that can increase speed of service, reduce waste, simplify execution, and improve the customer experience.
• Serve as the organization’s subject-matter expert on foodservice development, operations, quality, and profitability.

Qualifications

• Significant experience in foodservice development and operations is required.
• Demonstrated success developing and implementing menu items or foodservice programs that achieved both operational and financial objectives.
• Strong understanding of food cost, labor, waste management, pricing, margins, and store-level profitability.
• Experience creating standardized operating procedures, quality-control programs, and employee training materials.
• Ability to design programs that can succeed across locations with varying footprints, equipment, sales volumes, and staffing models.
• Strong project-management, analytical, communication, and cross-functional leadership skills.
• Willingness to spend time in stores and work directly with field leaders and frontline foodservice employees.
• Experience succeeding in a comparable foodservice leadership role within the convenience store industry is highly preferred.
• Experience in quick-service restaurants, grocery prepared foods, travel centers, or another multi-unit foodservice environment may also be relevant.

Ideal Candidate Profile

The successful candidate will be an innovative but practical foodservice leader who understands that a strong concept must also be easy to execute, financially sound, and consistently delivered. This individual will be comfortable moving between strategy and store-level details—from building a long-term foodservice roadmap to evaluating preparation processes, coaching employees, and reviewing product-level profitability.

Relocation

Relocation assistance is available for the selected candidate.