Cat Houlberg

• Lead hospitality strategy for Old Young's ensuring that venues deliver on brand promise and values.
• Maximized cost-effectiveness by complying with budget, labor and revenue benchmarks.
• Lead for ‘safety first’ culture across business through implementation of daily safety conversations, safety wall in each site and initial of incident reporting, monthly safety walks and hazard reports.
• Cultivated and strengthened lasting client relationships using strong issue resolution and dynamic communication skills.
• Observed each employee's individual strengths and initiated mentoring program to improve areas of weakness, whilst fostering healthy work environment with proven track record of high employee retention.
• Recruited, hired, and trained initial personnel, working to establish key internal functions and outline scope of positions for new organization.
• Curated experiences for on average 2500+ guests monthly with consistently positive reviews and level of returning guests.

Accomplishments:

• Recruit and nurture talent, enabling our hospitality footprint to flourish through competent, professional humans and enthusiastic culture, with long lasting staff retention.
• Maintain 24% FOH wage cost for high end full table service hospitality model
• Curate and mentor team to deliver Restaurant of Year nomination for 2024, and be listed as one of the top 5 best restaurants in the state according to WA Good Food Guide

• Managed daily operations, orchestrating forward-thinking strategies to accomplish profit and expansion goals.
• Organised, coordinated and executed social, corporate and in house events while focusing on delivering superior customer service.
• Developed marketing content such as promotional materials and advertisements for social media.
• Maximised cost-effectiveness by complying with budget, labor and revenue benchmarks.
• Developed and optimised organisational systems to boost efficiency and keep operations scalable and agile for changing demands.
• Worked directly with management team, Bar Manager, Beverage Manager, and Kitchen department to brainstorm, discuss strategy and mitigate issues to keep Venue innovative, progressive and relevant in very competitive industry.
• Supported top-level decision-making and strategy planning, forging productive relationships with owners and serving as key advocate for various personnel issues.

Accomplishments:

• Fine tuned menu offering to increase spend per head
• Streamlined daily operations to reduce wage cost
• Achieved 30% revenue increase during weekend trade

• Over see all aspects of restaurant and bar operation.
• Hiring and training of staff to uphold service standards.
• Developing and mentoring team to cultivate staff satisfaction and better staff retention.
• Stock-take, inventory and stock control.
• Budgeting and wage cost control.
• Creation of events and marketing strategies.
• Assisting Venue Managers where necessary, including opening or closing of whole venue.

Achievements:

• Overhaul sequence of service to achieve 23% increase on beverage spend
• Maintain FOH wage cost of 16% for full table service hospitality model

• Creating seasonal cocktail lists that are practical for restaurant service.
• Creating Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for bar and beverage service and ensuring those procedures are adhered to.
• Assisting with stock-take, inventory control and ordering.
• Overseeing daily restaurant service and ensuring all aspects run smoothly and all SOPs are adhered to.
• Assisting with hiring, interviewing and ongoing training of all staff to maintain service standards..

• Ensuring highest level of customer service.
• Designing new cocktails lists, beverage promotions and updating product range.
• Working alongside Head Chef in designing new food menus.
• Designing marketing strategies to promote venue.
• Hiring and training of new staff in all aspects of bar and floor service.
• Function and events coordination.
• Ensuring all licencing regulations are upheld.
• Cash handling, counting/balancing tills.
• Inventory/cost control.