General Manager — [Restaurant Name]

Compensation
Overview

Your earnings are tied directly to your performance. This document walks you through every component of your package, what each one rewards, and what you need to hit to maximize your income. Use the calculators to model your own scenarios.

Conservative
$150,000
Solid performance, still ramping
On Target
~$190,000
Hitting the plan as designed
Aggressive
$225,000
Outperforming on every metric
Section 01

What you earn and how

Your compensation has four performance-based components on top of your base salary. Each one rewards a specific dimension of your role. Hit all four and you're at the aggressive target.

Conservative
$150,000
Solid year — still finding your footing, margin above threshold, modest events volume, two guest experience quarters.
Aggressive
$225,000
Every metric firing. Margin fully optimized, events at target volume, perfect guest scores, exceptional year-end review.
Your four bonus components
FOH Controllable Margin
up to $60,000
Events Commission
up to $48,000
Guest Experience
up to $20,000
Annual Discretionary
up to $22,000
Section 02

The Margin Bonus

Your primary lever. It measures how efficiently you run everything within your control — bar costs, FOH labor, operating expenses, and G&A. Hit all your individual cost targets and you earn $15,000 that quarter.

How it works: Your threshold is 67.5% FOH Controllable Margin. Every point above that earns $3,000 that quarter. Your individual cost targets — beverage at 6%, FOH labor at 8%, direct operating at 7%, G&A at 5% — produce exactly 72.5% margin when all hit. That's 5 points above threshold = $15,000 for the quarter, $60,000 for the year.
FOH Margin Calculator Live calculator
Adjust your controllable costs — see your bonus instantly
Beverage / Bar Pour Cost (as % of total revenue)
Target: 6% — based on 20% pour cost on 30% of revenue
6.0%
FOH Labor incl. bar (% of revenue)
Target: 8% of revenue
8.0%
Direct Operating Expenses (% of revenue)
Linen, glassware, décor, uniforms, bar supplies. Target: 7%
7.0%
Marketing & G&A (% of revenue)
OpenTable, credit card fees, POS, software. Target: 5%
5.0%
Your GM costs
27.5%
FOH Margin
72.5%
Quarterly bonus
$15,000
Progress toward on-target quarterly bonus 100%
Dollar breakdown at $1,250,000 quarterly revenue
Food cost 30% — chef-owner
BOH labor 10% — chef-owner
Beverage COGS $75,000
FOH labor $100,000
Direct operating expenses $87,500
Marketing & G&A $62,500
GM base salary $18,750
Your quarterly margin bonus $15,000
Period Threshold Full bonus at $ per point above threshold
Months 1–3No bonus
Months 4–1267.5%72.5% (all targets hit)$3,000
Year Two+67.5%72.5% (all targets hit)$3,000
Section 03

Events Commission

You own private events from first inquiry to final follow-up. Every dollar of net event revenue pays you 5 cents — from the very first dollar. The on-target figure is $80,000/month in net event revenue.

Net event revenue = total event booking value minus direct food, beverage, and labor costs tied to that event. At $80,000/month net: $960,000/year × 5% = $48,000 annually.
Events Commission Calculator 5% of net revenue · on-target $80K/month
Monthly net event revenue
$80,000
Annual net event revenue
$960,000
Your annual events commission
$48,000
Section 04

Guest Experience Bonus

Up to $5,000 per quarter — $20,000 annually — for maintaining a 4.5-star average across Google, Yelp, and OpenTable. Hospitality is a core pillar of this restaurant, and this bonus reflects that.

How it's measured
Platforms Google, Yelp, OpenTable
Rating target
★★★★½
4.5 stars — rolling 90-day average
Per quarter Up to $5,000
Annually — all four quarters $20,000
Anomalous reviews Evaluated in context
Four quarters of sustained excellence = $20,000. The rolling 90-day average means one bad week won't tank you — but one great week won't carry you either. This bonus rewards a culture of consistent hospitality.
Section 05

Build your annual number

Model your total annual compensation based on your own assumptions. The defaults reflect a solid on-target scenario at approximately $190,000. Adjust any slider to see how your year stacks up.

Annual Compensation Builder Interactive
Average quarterly FOH margin
Below 67.5% = $0 · 72.5% = full $15,000/quarter · aggressive target: $60,000/year
71.0%
Monthly net event revenue
5% commission · on-target $80,000/month · aggressive target: $48,000/year
$60,000
Quarters hitting 4.5-star guest experience target
$5,000 per quarter · 4 quarters = $20,000/year
3 of 4
Annual discretionary bonus
Chef-owner's discretion · up to $22,000
$18,000
Your projected annual compensation
Base salary $75,000
FOH Controllable Margin bonus
Events commission
Guest experience bonus
Annual discretionary
Total compensation
Performance tier