Director of Operations, New Museum Openings

Museum of Ice Cream•New York, NY

3d•Remote

About The Position

Museum of Ice Cream is an inclusive & immersive brand, designed to captivate your sweetest fantasy and sugar-filled daydreams online and IRL. At the Museum of Ice Cream, we invite you to believe in the magic of creativity, to remind you that inclusive spaces do exist, and to show you that childlike wonder is worth savoring. In our world, ice cream is the agent of change and the vehicle to ignite the creative spirit that lives in all of us. Fueled by the power of imagination, MOIC is a universe of possibilities with tons of room for you to explore. Museum of Ice Cream is looking for a Director of Operations, New Museum Openings to lead how we bring new locations to life — from the moment a lease is signed, through design and build, into opening day and stabilization. This is a hands-on operator role with strong systems orientation. You bring multi-site openings experience and a working knowledge of design, construction, and development, and you partner with those teams from the earliest planning stages to ensure operational considerations are reflected in the build. You own the opening playbook end to end — readiness, training, SOPs, soft launch, and go-live — and you hand off cleanly to our Regional Directors of Operations, who carry the business forward into steady-state operations. At your core, you love what this work is for. You believe in play, in human connection, and in hospitality as a craft. You understand that what we build is not just a space — it is the stage for joy, wonder, and connection to show up every day. You take pride in handing over a new museum that is ready on day one — staffed, trained, stocked, safe, and operationally sound — and in turning every lesson learned into a stronger playbook for the next opening. You are equally passionate about systems, processes, and training, and you lead through ambiguity, pressure, and the complexity of an opening period with calm and focus.

Requirements

7 to 10+ years of operations experience in multi-site hospitality, entertainment, experiential retail, food and beverage, or high-volume guest-facing environments, with proven end-to-end openings experience (multiple openings strongly preferred).
Experience partnering with Development, Design, and Construction teams during the design phase of new locations.
Demonstrated partnership with People, HR, and Talent functions on hiring, onboarding, and training readiness for new sites.
Strong field operations background — you understand how strategy translates into daily execution, with deep working knowledge of staffing, training, guest flow, labor planning, BOH operations, safety, inventory, systems, and site-level readiness.
A genuine love of play, human connection, and hospitality as a craft — you see operational excellence as the foundation for guests to experience joy and wonder, not as an end in itself.
Ability to build clear operating tools, SOPs, launch plans, checklists, and scalable processes, with strong business acumen to assess performance, identify gaps, and drive improvement.
Calm, hands-on leadership in ambiguity and pressure, with strong written and verbal communication, organization, follow-through, and stakeholder management.
High ownership mindset with a strong bias toward action and accountability.
Ability to travel up to 70%, with surge to 85%+ during active opening windows.
Temporary relocation may be required during opening periods.

Nice To Haves

F&B operations background
experience opening experiential, attractions, or multi-unit consumer brand locations
Bilingual Spanish

Responsibilities

Lead the full opening lifecycle of every new MOIC location — from design-phase partnership through pre-opening readiness, into soft launch, go-live, and stabilization.
Align Development, Design, Construction, Facilities, Supply Chain, People, Training, Marketing, Ticketing, and Finance to deliver openings that are on time, on brand, and operationally ready.
Build and evolve the playbook that makes each opening better than the last and hand each new location off cleanly to the Regional Director of Operations who will carry the business forward.
Partner with Development, Design, and Construction from lease signing forward to represent operational inputs in the design process — guest flow, BOH layout, F&B and retail footprints, staffing zones, storage, cleaning paths, accessibility, and life safety.
Review architectural and design decisions against the labor model and collaborate on capacity, throughput, and safety implications before they are finalized.
Translate concept and brand intent into practical site-level operating plans that achieve company-wide goals, and establish a repeatable operational design review process so every future opening benefits from the lessons of the last.
Own the opening operating plan: timeline, readiness checklist, cross-functional workstreams, escalation paths, soft opening plan, and go-live readiness review.
Ensure each new location is ready across staffing, training, facilities, BOH, inventory, F&B, retail, ticketing, technology, guest flow, safety, and site leadership — and prepared to deliver strong guest experience, labor efficiency, cleanliness, revenue execution, and brand standards from day one.
Lead pre-opening walkthroughs, operational audits, mock service, and soft-launch execution; identify operational risks early and drive them to closure before doors open.
Co-own the pre-opening people plan with the People team, Talent Acquisition, and L&D — leadership hiring profiles, staffing plans, onboarding journeys, training calendars, and certification standards.
Ensure the GM, AGM, and site leadership team are hired, onboarded, and certified to MOIC standard before go-live.
Champion a field-first opening culture where the team feels prepared, supported, and equipped to deliver from day one.
Lead the post-opening stabilization window with a clear 30/60/90 plan and agreed-upon exit criteria.
Partner with the Regional Director of Operations on a clean handoff — open-issue log, training gaps, SOP variances, performance trajectory — and remain available to support post-handoff while giving the Regional DO full ownership of the business.
Track post-handoff performance to validate stabilization quality and feed lessons back into the playbook.
Serve as the central operational leader across opening workstreams, aligning Development, Design, Construction, Facilities, Product, Supply Chain, People, Training, Marketing, Ticketing, Finance, and Site Operations.
Drive clear ownership, timelines, decisions, and accountability across all opening stakeholders — including readiness with Supply Chain and Retail (product, inventory, equipment, uniforms, BOH workflows) and Ticketing, Marketing, and Revenue (guest flow, capacity, packages, sales channels).
Act as a key escalation point for risks to opening quality, timeline, budget, or guest experience.
Build and evolve the MOIC opening playbook — SOPs, checklists, templates, training frameworks, and readiness scorecards — with scalable frameworks that make every opening repeatable regardless of city or format.
Lead post-opening retrospectives and convert lessons into stronger playbooks.
Partner with HQ Operations and the Regional Directors of Operations so improvements found at opening propagate into the steady-state operating model — and steady-state learnings flow back into how we open.