300+ Hospitality & Food Service Jobs in Charlotte, NC

Government data shows the broad local occupation family paid a $33,530 annual median, with the 25th percentile at $27,430 and the 90th percentile at $57,410, while food preparation and serving roles averaged $17.29 per hour in Charlotte. Proxy posting data tells a different story: hourly ads center on about $15 to $17 / hour, while salaried ads center on about $62k to $70k, and Revelio Public Labor Statistics shows North Carolina's mean offered salary on new openings at about $33,834 in September 2026 (n=1,066).

Full September 2026 market report

Advertised pay

Across the 198 openings that disclose pay, the advertised range midpoint runs $31,200 at the 25th percentile, $35,620 at the median and $40,833 at the 75th. These are advertised ranges, not earned pay.

Active openings as of October 17, 2026

Senior roles | Entry level | Remote | Posted this week

Live from the Callings.ai index of over 13 million postings, refreshed hourly and re-checked here nightly. Roles that close are dropped at the next refresh.

Showing 30 of 250+ openings.

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What our analysts see this month

Balanced market | next 3-6 months

Charlotte is a usable but not easy hospitality market right now: metro leisure and hospitality employment reached 160.6 thousand in August 2026, up 1.4529% year over year, while metro unemployment was 3.7%. The local job sample still showed more than 600 postings across more than 200 companies over the last 90 days, so real openings exist across a wide set of employers. But statewide occupation signals are cooler than the Charlotte payroll picture, with North Carolina hospitality, food service & travel employment down 1.3% year over year and active postings down 16.1% year over year in September 2026 according to Revelio Public Labor Statistics.

Best positioned: Applicants with recent on-site restaurant, hotel, or food-retail experience plus food safety, sanitation, inventory, customer-service skills, and preferably ServSafe, have the best odds.

Main caution: Do not confuse manager-heavy posted salary ranges with typical pay: local food prep and serving work averaged $17.29 per hour in May 2025, while hourly postings center on about $15 to $17 / hour and the broader occupation median was $33,530 a year.

From the September 2026 market report

Who is hiring here

Counted across all 336 openings in this market. 10 of the employers below are hiring for more than one role right now.

1. Compass Group: 34 open roles
2. Healthcare Services Group: 11 open roles
3. Marriott International, Inc.: 10 open roles
4. Texas Roadhouse, Inc.: 10 open roles
5. Concord Hospitality Enterprises Co.: 8 open roles
6. Eurest USA: 8 open roles
7. TerraBella Senior Living, LLC: 8 open roles
8. Atlanta Swim Academy: 6 open roles
9. Compass Group: 6 open roles
10. White Lodging: 5 open roles

Where the openings are

• Charlotte: 197
• Concord: 31
• Matthews: 18
• Rock Hill: 13
• Gastonia: 12
• Pineville: 10
• Mooresville: 9
• Huntersville: 9

Work arrangement

on-site 299 (100%), hybrid 1 (0%)

Where the demand is

Real opportunity is concentrated in on-site service employers rather than remote travel work. In the local posting mix, hospitality accounts for about 35%, restaurants about 15%, food & beverage about 10%, retail about 10%, and food and beverage services about 10%, while about 95% or more of roles are on-site. Hiring is fragmented rather than dominated by one company, although Compass Group and Starbucks Corp. are the most consistently active named employers in the sample. The best near-term pockets are new-unit openings and food-led retail expansion. Wegmans said it was hiring more than 400 team members for Ballantyne, Texas Roadhouse projected 220 jobs for a Steele Creek opening, Cantina Louie tied about 40 jobs to a new South Charlotte location, and No Knife Chicken & Waffles was hiring front-of-house and back-of-house staff during its opening period. That means broader search terms like prepared foods, deli, bakery, banquet, catering, front desk, and guest services will surface more opportunities than only searching server or line cook.

• Large on-site operators (high): Contract dining and beverage-led service show up consistently; the sample is fragmented, but Compass Group and Starbucks Corp. are the most consistently active named employers.
• Expansion-driven openings (high): September brought near-term hiring around Wegmans in Ballantyne, Texas Roadhouse in Steele Creek, Cantina Louie in South Charlotte, and other new restaurant launches filling front- and back-of-house roles.
• Salaried leadership roles (moderate): Higher-paying openings exist, but they are narrower: posted salaried roles center on about $62k to $70k while most local postings are still entry level, and manager roles typically take longer to fill than hourly roles.

Where to focus: Focus first on on-site operators with repeat hiring plus September opening activity—especially food-retail, chain restaurant, hotel, and contract-dining employers—then use independent restaurants as a second wave.

Roles worth searching next

• Retail sales associate or grocery department lead: Customer service, cash handling, inventory management, and food merchandising transfer cleanly from this market.
• Customer service representative: Communication, problem-solving, customer service, adaptability, and time management are already core restaurant-developed skills.
• Bank teller or branch service representative: Cash handling and face-to-face service are direct transfers from front-of-house and coffee-shop work.
• Patient access representative or medical receptionist: Front-desk discipline, scheduling, customer calming, and documentation habits transfer well, and national education and health services employment was up 1.9% year over year in September 2026.

What postings ask for

• Food safety (table_stakes | immediate): Food safety appears in about 20% of local postings, making it one of the most repeated hard-skill signals in the market. Who: Anyone targeting prep, line, deli, bakery, banquet, or food-retail work.
• Sanitation (table_stakes | immediate): Sanitation shows up in about 20% of local postings and usually travels with food prep and cleaning expectations. Who: Back-of-house candidates, housekeepers, utility workers, and supervisors who want to look dependable.
• Customer service (table_stakes | immediate): Customer service appears in about 15% of local postings, and national restaurant career research also highlights customer service as a core transferable skill. Who: Servers, baristas, hosts, front desk agents, and career switchers from retail or call-center work.
• Cash handling (differentiator | immediate): Cash handling appears in about 20% of local postings, which makes it especially useful for front-of-house, coffee, concession, and food-retail roles. Who: Applicants moving into guest-facing roles or trying to bridge from retail into hospitality.
• Inventory management (differentiator | near-term): Inventory management appears in about 20% of local postings and is one of the clearest markers that separates leads and supervisors from basic hourly applicants. Who: Shift leads, kitchen leads, assistant managers, catering staff, and career switchers with stockroom or retail experience.
• ServSafe (differentiator | near-term): ServSafe is the certification most often required in local postings, even though it appears in only about 5% of the sample. Who: Anyone aiming for kitchen leadership, catering, prepared-food retail, or roles where employers need a quick trust signal.

Questions about this market

What do Hospitality, Food Service & Travel roles pay in Charlotte-Concord-Gastonia, NC-SC?

Government data shows the broad local occupation family paid a $33,530 annual median, with the 25th percentile at $27,430 and the 90th percentile at $57,410, while food preparation and serving roles averaged $17.29 per hour in Charlotte. Proxy posting data tells a different story: hourly ads center on about $15 to $17 / hour, while salaried ads center on about $62k to $70k, and Revelio Public Labor Statistics shows North Carolina's mean offered salary on new openings at about $33,834 in September 2026 (n=1,066). For most applicants, Charlotte hospitality is still a moderate-pay, high-presence market: local food prep and serving pay sits far below the metro's $33.13 all-occupation mean, so steady hours, tips, benefits, or promotion path matter as much as sticker wage.

Where is demand for Hospitality, Food Service & Travel roles in Charlotte-Concord-Gastonia, NC-SC concentrated?

Real opportunity is concentrated in on-site service employers rather than remote travel work. In the local posting mix, hospitality accounts for about 35%, restaurants about 15%, food & beverage about 10%, retail about 10%, and food and beverage services about 10%, while about 95% or more of roles are on-site. Hiring is fragmented rather than dominated by one company, although Compass Group and Starbucks Corp. are the most consistently active named employers in the sample. The best near-term pockets are new-unit openings and food-led retail expansion. Wegmans said it was hiring more than 400 team members for Ballantyne, Texas Roadhouse projected 220 jobs for a Steele Creek opening, Cantina Louie tied about 40 jobs to a new South Charlotte location, and No Knife Chicken & Waffles was hiring front-of-house and back-of-house staff during its opening period. That means broader search terms like prepared foods, deli, bakery, banquet, catering, front desk, and guest services will surface more opportunities than only searching server or line cook.

Which employers are hiring the most Hospitality, Food Service & Travel talent in Charlotte-Concord-Gastonia, NC-SC?

Recent postings show the most activity from Compass Group (None postings), Starbucks Corp. (None postings). See the full market report for the complete employer landscape.

How current are these listings?

Openings come from the Callings.ai live index of over 13 million jobs, refreshed hourly. This page searches postings from the last 30 days; run the search yourself to filter by anything else in plain language.

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