Why GMs Leave Hospitality

Most GMs do not leave hospitality because of the hours. They leave because the hours stopped meaning anything.

I have sat across from a lot of operators in the last year. The story is almost always the same. They came up through the floor. They learned the room by touching every chair. Then somewhere around year nine or ten, the role flattened into a spreadsheet and a chain of group texts about call-outs.

The good ones do not leave for money. They leave for the chance to build something that still feels like a kitchen at 6:45 on a Saturday: focused, loud, alive.

If you run a venue and you are losing GMs, I would look at three things before pay. Are they making real decisions, or just executing yours. Do they have one full shift a week off, protected. And do you ever sit down with them about anything other than numbers.

When I started Ellie, this was the part I could not stop thinking about. The industry trains incredible people and then quietly burns them out. The hiring machine treats it as inventory churn. It is not. It is a person who knew the regulars by name walking out the back door for good.

Charles