How to Hire a Food & Beverage Director

A food and beverage director can make or break a hotel, resort or private club. F&B is often one of a property's largest departments and its most complex P&L: several outlets, banquets and catering, a beverage program, and a guest experience that members and guests judge every day. Hire well and revenue, margins and reviews all move. Hire wrong and you'll feel it within a quarter.

Here's how to hire a food and beverage director who delivers, from defining the role to closing the offer.

What an F&B director actually owns

Before you write a job description, be precise about the scope. In most hotels, resorts and clubs, the F&B director is responsible for:

Revenue and profit across restaurants, bars, in-room dining, pool and banquets
Cost control, especially food, beverage and labor cost against budget
Banquets and catering, often the most profitable part of F&B
People leadership, including outlet managers, the executive chef partnership, and hiring and training
Standards, from brand or club service standards to food safety and alcohol compliance
Guest and member satisfaction, measured through scores, reviews and complaints

What to pay a food and beverage director

$82,113

average base pay for F&B directors (379 profiles, June 2026)Source

$54k–$124k

base pay range, 10th to 90th percentileSource

$2k–$22k

typical annual bonus rangeSource

Those figures line up with federal data. The BLS puts the May 2025 median for food service managers working in hotels and other traveler accommodation at $82,170. Expect to pay toward the top of the range for full-service resorts, high-volume banquet operations and luxury properties, and plan for relocation help if your market has a thin local bench. See our full food and beverage director salary breakdown.

Where the best candidates come from

Sitting F&B directors at comparable properties. The safest hires, and almost never on job boards.
Assistant F&B directors and outlet managers ready to step up. Strong choices for a smaller operation, with coaching.
Restaurant group GMs and area managers. Great operators, but test their banquet and catering experience carefully.
Club F&B directors and clubhouse managers. Strong service instincts and experience working with boards and members.

Most of these people are employed and not looking. Reaching them takes direct outreach and a clear reason to move, not a posting.

A simple F&B director hiring scorecard

Competency	What great looks like	How to test it
Financial control	Knows their cost percentages cold and can explain how they moved them	Ask for last year's F&B P&L results and walk through one line
Banquets and catering	Has grown group revenue, not just executed events	Ask for the largest event they ran and what it earned
Leadership	Develops outlet managers and keeps them	Ask who they promoted and where those people are now
Chef partnership	Works with the executive chef as a peer, not a rival	Ask how they settled a menu or cost disagreement
Service standards	Sets clear standards and holds teams to them	Have them critique a meal in one of your outlets

Interview questions to ask

Walk me through your F&B P&L last year. What did you change, and what happened?
Your beverage cost is running two points over budget. What do you look at first?
Tell me about the biggest banquet or catering account you grew. How did you do it?
Which outlet manager did you develop the most, and how?
Describe a disagreement with an executive chef. How did you resolve it?
How would you staff a 300-person event the same weekend two managers call out?

Mistakes to avoid

Hiring the best restaurant operator for a banquet-heavy role. Group sales and event execution are their own skills.
Skipping reference checks with former chefs and outlet managers. Peers and direct reports tell you how someone really leads.
Moving too slowly. Strong candidates usually have options. Line up decision makers and interview dates before you start.
Underpricing the role. An offer below market quietly shrinks your pool to people who are available, not people who are great.

If you're weighing whether to recruit in-house or use a firm, our guide to direct-hire hospitality recruiting walks through the trade-offs.