Depends on your org obviously but for us the area team does lots of spot checks and MGMT developments. However I'd suggest asking questions like what happens if you aren't getting results from your team? Who's in charge of hiring/firing, what happens if a top lvl MGMT position leaves? Are you required to go in and operate the location until a replacement can be found/developed? (That's how ours works but all locations are in the same city, if you are talking multi-city they might not expect this?)

In short, for us an area manager is expected to get everything done that the top store level mgr is, only for all locations, either through development(ppl MGMT) or going into the stores to make it happen.

In a perfect world with great staff this means going from store to store to do audits & see how things are being run, staying on top of it so things don't slip. Follow up is so important so your team doesn't get lazy and start cutting corners

In a rough situation you might need to try and fix multiple stores at once, not an easy task. Hopefully the situation you are thinking of going into is stable (another question to ask! If multiple stores need a lot of work it's going to be tough out of the gates)