Chief Operating Officer - Restaurant Group COO (Columbus)

ONPOINT Business Solutions is proud to partner with Columbus Tavern Group, the ownership group behind Yogi’s Bar & Grill, to identify a next‑stage Chief Operating Officer for their growing restaurant portfolio.

Chief Operating Officer – Columbus Tavern Group (CTG)

Are you the type of person who can take a growing business and engineer the operating system that brings order, consistency, and scale—naturally architecting the structure, cadence, and process behind it? Columbus Tavern Group, a profitable, founder‑led restaurant group, is looking for a COO who wants to build the scalable platform behind a thriving sports‑bar brand.

Columbus Tavern Group currently operates six locations in the Columbus market, with a seventh opening soon and a clear runway for additional growth. The flagship concept, Yogi’s Bar & Grill, is a high‑volume neighborhood sports bar and grill with strong local sports traffic (Ohio State, March Madness, NFL, etc.), and a young, community‑oriented culture. The founders are ready to elevate their operating platform and are seeking a true architect to help them expand and scale.

In this role, you will:

• Run the day‑to‑day operating platform across all current and future locations, ensuring consistent execution and strong unit performance.
• Architect systems, playbooks, and leadership cadence that turn the founders’ vision into clear, repeatable ways of operating.
• Lead and develop director‑level leaders across operations, development, culinary, analytics, and related support functions.
• Build and enforce accountability rhythms: 1:1s, leadership meetings, quarterly planning, and follow‑through that keep initiatives moving.
• Design scalable people systems around hiring, onboarding, development, and succession planning, in partnership with the founders and future HR/People resources.
• Support new unit growth end‑to‑end—from planning and staffing through openings and post‑opening stabilization.
• Partner with culinary, finance, and analytics to elevate menu, training, and decision‑making while preserving CTG’s authentic, non‑corporate feel.

This could be a strong fit if you:

• Have significant multi‑unit restaurant leadership experience (COO, VP Ops, Regional Director, or similar) in casual dining, bar‑and‑grill, sports‑bar, or other high‑volume, service‑oriented concepts.
• Love building and refining operating systems, not just inheriting them—you think in terms of structure, process, cadence, and clarity.
• Are comfortable in a founder‑led, entrepreneurial environment where trust is high, decision‑making is fast, and you are expected to be the “adult in the room” on operations.
• Can coach and develop a range of personalities while holding them to well‑defined standards.
• Know how to add discipline and professionalism without crushing the energy, community feel, and local personality that make a brand special.

Compensation will be competitive and commensurate with experience, including base salary, bonus opportunity tied to company performance, and participation in executive‑level benefits.

If you see yourself as the architect of a scalable restaurant platform—not just a maintainer of someone else’s playbook—and you are interested in helping a strong local brand grow the right way, we’d like to hear from you.

Serious candidates are encouraged to complete a brief Culture Index survey as part of the process: