| Field | Detail |
| Role title | General Manager |
| Location | 14 Clubs, Unit 11, The Whiteley, Queensway, London W2 4BJ |
| Reports to | James Chapman, Founder |
| Direct reports | The hospitality team |
| Works alongside | Andrew Hurley, Director of Golf. Golf sits in parallel with this role, not under it. Both report to the Founder. |
| Employment type | Full time, permanent, salaried |
| Salary | Competitive, dependent on experience |
| Start date | October 2026 |
| Website | 14clubs.co.uk |
About 14 Clubs
14 Clubs is a private Members golf club opening at The Whiteley in Autumn 2026. Four Trackman iO simulators, a team of in house PGA coaches and a premium clubhouse where Members eat, drink and spend time either side of playing.
We are a Members club that happens to have simulators in it, not a simulator venue with a bar attached. Our Members are time poor professionals who take their golf seriously and expect the hospitality around it to match anywhere else they spend their money in central London.
Core trading hours are Tuesday to Saturday, 10am to 10pm, and Sunday 10am to 4pm. Mondays are reserved for corporate and private hire. We also expect to open some mornings from 7am for Members playing before work, so the operating day is likely to run longer than core hours on a number of days each week.
You can see more about the club at 14clubs.co.uk.
Purpose of the role
You run the club. Day to day ownership of the site sits with you, from the systems underneath it to the standard of what a Member experiences when they walk through the door. When the Founder is not in the building, you are the club.
That means two things at once, and we want both. You own the machinery, which is the technology stack, stock, compliance, cost control, rotas and suppliers. You also own the room, the team and the Member relationship, with our Lead Front of House reporting to you and the wider hospitality team under him.
The Director of Golf runs the golf and coaching side and sits in parallel with you. You work closely together on the Member experience, the bays and the events calendar, but neither of you works for the other.
Your instinct should be to open the P and L, the stock sheet and the rota and find the problem before it becomes one. That is the core of the job and it is what we will hire on.
One thing worth being straight about before you apply. Nobody here has built this technology stack before and we are not going to pretend otherwise. The Founder and the Lead Front of House both learn fast, but neither of us is the right person to be configuring a booking system or wiring an EPOS into a Membership database. We need you to be that person, to do it yourself rather than delegate it, and then to teach the rest of us to run it once it works.
Equally important. This is not a back office role. You are the most senior operator in the building on most shifts and you are the person our Members deal with. The service instinct has to be there alongside the systems brain. Both, not one or the other.
We are a small team with no layers in it. The Founder, the Director of Golf, you and the Lead Front of House carry this club. Everyone works the floor, everyone clears tables, and nobody is above doing either.
Core responsibilities
Running the club
Take day to day operational ownership of the site across every trading day, including opening, closing, service standards and the feel of the room.
Deputise for the Founder. Represent 14 Clubs with Members, corporate clients, the landlord, suppliers and contractors, and make the call when a call needs making.
Own the Member experience end to end alongside the Director of Golf. Know the Members by name, understand how they use the club and act on what they tell you.
Lead, develop and hold to account the hospitality team through the Lead Front of House, including performance standards, training and progression.
Own the events and private hire operation, including Monday corporate hire, from enquiry handling through to delivery on the day.
Commercial ownership
Take accountability for the site P and L. Revenue by stream, gross profit, labour cost percentage and controllable overheads.
Build the annual budget with the Founder and then hold the club to it, with a clear explanation whenever a line moves.
Produce weekly trading and cost reporting covering revenue, gross profit, labour, stock variance and Membership numbers, and bring solutions rather than only figures.
Drive secondary spend across food, drink, coaching, retail and events, and work with the Founder on pricing, packages and the corporate offer.
Support Membership growth and, more importantly, Membership retention. Renewal rates are a shared number and you own the operational half of it.
Systems, technology and integration
Own the technology that runs the club and, critically, the joins between the parts of it. Ownership here means doing the work, not sponsoring it.
Select, configure and integrate the stack from a blank page. Booking, EPOS, Membership management, payments, Member app and coaching software all have to talk to each other, and getting those joins right is the single most important technical job of the pre opening phase.
Write the system documentation and train the Founder, the Lead Front of House and the wider team on it, so the club is never dependent on one person to run its own software.
Work with the Director of Golf on the operational side of the four Trackman iO bays. Uptime, software updates, calibration, ball and mat replacement schedules, fault escalation and vendor support.
Own AV, sound, lighting and screens across the clubhouse and bays, including presets for corporate hire and event days.
Manage IT, networking, Wi Fi and data. Ensure Member data is handled in line with UK GDPR.
Maintain a planned preventative maintenance schedule for the whole site and manage contractors, the landlord relationship at The Whiteley and reactive repairs.
Food and beverage systems and stock control
Own the EPOS setup and ongoing maintenance, including product hierarchy, pricing, modifiers, tabs, Member accounts and bar credit against the Founding Membership scheme.
Build and run stock control end to end. Par levels, ordering, deliveries, goods in, cellar management, monthly stocktakes and variance investigation.
Manage gross profit by category and hold it to target. Recipe and pour costing, yield, wastage tracking and menu engineering alongside the Lead Front of House.
Own supplier relationships, negotiate terms and manage the ordering calendar across drinks, food and consumables.
Manage the interface with any third party food suppliers and kitchen partners, including specification, delivery windows, quality control, service levels and commercial terms.
Compliance, licensing and safety
Act as day to day custodian of the premises licence and ensure every condition attached to it is met and evidenced.
Own food safety management, including HACCP documentation, temperature records, allergen matrices, Natasha’s Law labelling and supplier due diligence.
Maintain health and safety, fire safety and first aid compliance. Risk assessments, fire log, evacuation procedure, accident reporting and contractor permits.
Keep the club permanently inspection ready for Environmental Health, licensing officers and the landlord, and target and hold a five star food hygiene rating.
Own age verification, Challenge 25, refusals log, CCTV retention and incident reporting.
People and rota operations
Build and publish rotas that cover trading hours across seven days while holding labour cost to target.
Own time and attendance, holiday, absence and payroll submission for the hospitality team.
Run onboarding administration, right to work checks, contracts and the training matrix, and keep certification records current.
Write, maintain and enforce the standard operating procedures for opening, closing, cash handling, banking, deliveries and incident response.
Lead recruitment for the hospitality team end to end. Write the adverts, sit the interviews, run the trial shifts, make the call and keep the paperwork airtight.
Own the HR process and the paper trail underneath it. Probation reviews, one to ones, absence and lateness management, disciplinary and grievance procedure, all documented to a standard that would stand up if it were ever tested. UK employment law has tightened considerably and we are not willing to be exposed on it.
Pre opening priorities
You will join before we open. The first phase is about building the operation rather than running it, and it will move quickly.
Configure and test the EPOS, booking and Membership management systems and the integrations between them, and document how all of it works.
Set up stock control, supplier accounts and the ordering calendar from scratch.
Build the compliance framework and documentation pack from a blank page.
Write the standard operating procedures with the Lead Front of House and Director of Golf.
Recruit and train the opening hospitality team alongside the Lead Front of House.
Commission the venue alongside the fit out team and sign off snags before Members walk in.
Shape of the week
Around 45 to 48 hours a week across five days, including evenings and weekends. Roughly half of that is on the floor, deliberately dovetailed with the Founder so that one of us is always in the room. The rest sits behind the scenes on systems, stock, compliance, people and the numbers.
The club trades Tuesday to Sunday and Mondays are held for corporate and private hire, so the week does not look like a normal Monday to Friday. Early starts and late finishes come with the territory and we will be straight with you about that from the first conversation.
About you
Essential
Three or more years running or deputising on a premium single site operation in London, whether as a General Manager, Assistant General Manager or a strong number two in a Members club, hotel, restaurant group or private venue. If you are ready to run your own site for the first time, we are more interested in that than in somebody already comfortable.
Ownership of a P and L, or a substantial part of one, with the numbers to show what you moved and how.
Demonstrable ownership of stock control and gross profit.
Properly comfortable with systems. You have configured an EPOS rather than only used one, you can see where two pieces of software fail to talk to each other, and you enjoy that work rather than tolerate it.
Experience leading a hospitality team, including people who manage other people. You can set a standard, hold it and have the difficult conversation when it slips.
Strong working knowledge of licensing, food safety and health and safety in a UK venue, and the paperwork discipline to evidence it.
Rota building and labour cost management across a seven day trading pattern with early starts and late finishes.
A real service instinct. You are happy on the floor, you can host a room of Members and corporate guests, and you are comfortable being the most senior person in the building.
Organised to the point of being slightly annoying about it. You write things down, you follow up, and nothing quietly falls off the list.
Interviewing and hiring experience. You will be on the other side of the table for most of our hospitality hires.
Current First Aid at Work certification and Level 2 Food Safety as a minimum, or both in place before we open.
Desirable
Personal Licence held, or willingness to obtain one immediately.
Level 3 Food Safety and IOSH or NEBOSH.
Pre opening or new site launch experience.
Familiarity with golf, whether as a player or through working in the sport. Not essential, but it will help you talk to Members and to the coaching team.
Experience with Trackman, simulator technology or similar sports technology.
What we offer
Salary discussed openly at first interview, dependent on experience and reviewed annually.
The chance to build and then run the operating model for a club from nothing, rather than inherit someone else’s.
Direct access to the Founder. Short decision chains and no layers to push ideas through.
Full use of the facility and coaching from our PGA team.
A real route to broader operational leadership as the club and the group grow. We are being honest about the shape of that. The first two years are about getting this site right rather than chasing a second one.
How to apply
Send a CV and a short note to careers@14clubs.co.uk. In the note, tell us about one operational problem you found before anyone else noticed it, and what you did about it. That will tell me more than a covering letter will.
James Chapman, Founder and Operations Director, 14 Clubs, The Whiteley, London. 07946 398 067. 14clubs.co.uk
