Managing Director Restaurants jobs

Managing Director

Let's Go Padel & Let's Go Hydro

About Us

We started with one padel court and a simple idea — get people playing. That's grown into a multi-site network across Northern Ireland, plus a seasonal water park under Let's Go Hydro, and we're still opening new sites. We move fast, we back our people, and we're building something with real community at its core — while running it like the sharp commercial business it needs to be.

What We Are Looking For

This isn't a role for someone who wants a settled, steady-state operation to manage. We need a Managing Director who thrives on pace — someone who can make a good call quickly, stay ahead of the numbers rather than just react to them, remain calm under pressure when a site go-live date moves late notice.

You'll run the network day to day, lead & recruit a strong bench of site managers to drive profitability, occupancy, retention and growth across every site. You'll take on 12+ trading sites (more opening this year) plus the seasonal Hydro water park and be the driving force behind how it all scales — without ever losing the padel-first, community feel that got us here.

Role: Managing Director

Contract: Permanent

Hours of Work: Full Time, 5 days per week

Salary: £Attractive

Objectives & Responsibilities

You will hold overall responsibility for the daily operational and commercial performance of Let's Go Padel and Let's Go Hydro, including:

› Defining and driving the group's strategy, balancing an active site-expansion pipeline (new openings, fit-out, and launch readiness) with the performance of existing sites.

› A close, granular read on costs day to day —a real vision for where the business makes money and where it quietly loses it, across wages, rent, utilities and marketing spend. Out-of-the-box thinking that goes beyond the obvious line items and staying a step ahead of ownership's thinking.

› Owning commercial performance across every site — running weekly wage-to-sales and occupancy reporting against a group-wide wage-to-sales target and holding site managers accountable where sites run over target.

› Leading financial management for the group: budgeting, forecasting, cost control, and regular reporting to ownership on sales, wages and site-level profitability.

› Using booking and utilisation data via platforms Playtomic to track court occupancy, identify underperforming time slots or sites, and inform commercial decisions.

› Continuing to develop the management team — the General Manager and Commercial Marketing Manager, already part of the leadership team — to drive occupancy, retention and growth across every site. Setting commercial direction as a team, not working in a silo: coaching, sharing ideas & joint planning.

› Recruiting, developing and genuinely backing a strong bench of site managers — confident, commercially switched-on operators with real sales and leisure-business acumen, who run their site like it's their own business.

› Working hand-in-glove with the project team on new site go-live and mobilisation dates — timelines shift, sometimes at the last minute, and this role needs to flex with them and keep everything moving.

› Leading on health & safety and regulatory compliance across all sites, ensuring measures are inspected, documented, and actioned appropriately — with particular attention to the seasonal, higher-risk operating environment of the water park.

› Acting as the main point of contact between site-level operations and ownership, providing clear, regular reporting and flagging risks or opportunities early.

› Overseeing Let's Go Hydro Aqua Park operations throughout its season, including staffing, safety compliance, and commercial performance.

› Understanding what the business actually needs at each stage of scaling — building real community at site level while staying financially sharp on the numbers. Both matter; neither wins at the other's expense.

What You'll Need

› Minimum 5 years' senior operational or general management experience, ideally multi-site or a large estate/venue (e.g. shopping centre, retail park, visitor attraction) with multi-million-pound budget responsibility. A track record of managing business expansion — new site or location openings, from planning through to trading — and comfort with timelines that move at short notice.

› Genuinely nimble decision-making — comfortable acting on incomplete information at pace, rather than waiting for a full monthly picture before addressing a cost or performance issue.

› Strong commercial and financial acumen, with hands-on experience managing significant budgets — including cost control, service charge or P&L responsibility, and profitability — at a multi-site or large single-asset level.

› Proven people leadership — recruiting, developing, and performance-managing managers and contractor teams across multiple locations, including experience handling formal HR processes.

› Proficient IT skills with experience of using Microsoft packages

› Working knowledge of health & safety legislation, statutory compliance, and incident/crisis management in a customer-facing environment.

› Full clean driving licence and access to a vehicle.

› Legally eligible to work in the UK.

How to apply:

If you are experienced and looking for a new challenge, we would love to hear from you – please forward your CV and Cover Letter detailing how you meet the criteria to claire.barnes@letsgohydro.com

Candidates who are offered employment will be required to produce proof of identification and proof of eligibility to work in the UK

Argento uses the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) to assess applicants’ suitability to work in positions of trust; candidates therefore may be asked to obtain a basic disclosure from the DBS.

Closing Date: 14th September 2026 at 1200 midday

Pay: £50,000.00-£60,000.00 per year

Benefits:

• Casual dress
• Company events
• Company pension
• Free flu jabs
• Private medical insurance

Experience:

• Operations management: 5 years (required)

Licence/Certification:

• Driving Licence (required)

Work authorisation:

• United Kingdom (required)

Work Location: In person