Cafe Manager

Café Chef/Manager

The Bar Convent Living Heritage Centre Café, York

The Role

We seek an Experienced Café/Chef Manager (Full Time) to manage our Café, following the retirement of a colleague.

The successful applicant will enjoy managing a well-established independent Café/Conference Catering business, supported by experienced supervisors, a front of house team and a small chef/kitchen team.

The role would ideally suit a person with commercial catering experience who wants to manage their own Café, but without the personal financial commitment that this requires.On a day-to-day basis the role holder will manage the kitchen and cook dishes for the Café and Conferences, create dishes and arrange occasional menu changes, undertake FSA checks and oversea procedures and many other items, such as food ordering.

On a strategic basis, the Café/Chef Manager will be refining an already successful business to be sustainable in a saturated York Café market.This will require an understanding of customer audiences, our core values and strengths, and then working with others to adjust the ambience, menus, pricing and presentation to continually improve, building upon the shoulders of a thriving and successful operation.

Background

The Bar Convent Living Heritage Centre is home to the UKs oldest living convent, founded in secrecy in 1686 when it was illegal to be Catholic. It is still home to The Sisters of the Congregation of Jesus (CJ) and managed by the Congregation of Jesus Trust (COJT), a registered charity No. 298970.

The Sisters pioneered womens education in York and ran a school inside the convent for almost 300 years.Now the Centre is a beautiful Historic Living Heritage Centre, with an Interactive Exhibition and Shop, an award-winning Café, a boutique Guest house, and modern conference facilities.

The Bar Convent Café has an excellent reputation for food, service and a 5-star FSA rating.The dining area is informal and spread across several unique spaces including a beautiful historic Victorian atrium, an attractive tearoom (that we wish to develop further) and a hidden garden (when weather allows).We bake daily and offer a selection of scones, cakes, bean-to-cup coffee, soup of the day, contemporary specials, and traditional hot meals.We are currently well known for homemade scones and cakes, breakfast, lunch and Christmas meals.We also hold a prestigious breakfast award, and an alcohol license selling a range of good (but affordable) wines and a selection of international and locally produced bottled beers.

Main Responsibilities (not exhaustive)

• Manage the Café and Kitchen, including overseeing staff rotas and holidays (with assistance).
• Support Supervisors and the Team, developing and motivating colleagues.
• Prepare and cook food supplied to customers and conference delegates (with assistance).
• Bake a range of cookies, scones and cakes to supplement wholesale sourced items (with assistance).
• Ensure a high level of food quality and consistency, both in the Café and to conference delegates, and act on customer feedback.
• Ensure that preparation of dietary needs foods (e.g. Gluten Free/Vegetarian) meets the required standards, avoiding cross contamination and being accurately labelled and communicated to customers in information guides.
• Constantly review suppliers and be responsible for purchasing, receiving and stock-taking to achieve an acceptable Gross Profit (GP).
• Continuous menu evaluation and planning to meet customer expectations.
• Maintain kitchen and storage facilities to meet FSA and H&S requirements (including HACCP record-keeping).
• Provide appropriate paperwork to support purchasing, stocktaking and invoicing.
• Recruit suitable staff for Bar Convent café in liaison with the General Manager.
• Liaise with the General Manager regularly and attend monthly staff meetings.

Essential Skills/Experience

• Commercial catering experience managing a Café or Restaurant kitchen.
• Managing a team of people.
• Financial and budgetary management with support from our Accountant (pricing menus, staffing, reducing waste, controlling costs).
• Flexible to occasionally work extra hours and Saturdays on a rota basis.
• Excellent planning and preparations skills to cook and freeze items for future conference events and seasonal occasions (e.g. Christmas).
• Entrepreneurial, but with good common-sense wisdom to retain what currently works but adjust to changing dining needs and competition.
• Accepting of people of faith or none.
• Preferred Skill/Experience
• Excellent communications skills, robust but with a friendly, calm, demeanour.
• Experience of front of house service.
• Previous chef proprietor.
• Appreciation of the culture of the Centre and Trust, sharing similar values.

Hours Of Work

• Total: 40 hours per week with an annual salary of £33.5k.
• Hours are usually Monday to Friday 6.30am 2.30pm, however you will be required to work the occasional Saturday on a rota basis or should an event or a staff absence require it on a Saturday or Sunday.

Other Benefits

• Paid Breaks.
• Holiday Allowance of 22 days a year + Bank Holidays.After 5 years, this increases to 27 days + BHs.
• Workplace Pension Scheme.
• Food and drinks allowance (non-alcoholic) at work.
• Optional car parking space nearby at a reduced rate of £25 per month.
• Optional free bicycle storage (enabling cycling to work).
• Opportunity to build additional lieu time and take time off for holidays/family occasions.

Contact

General Manager: James Foster

Recruitment Timescales

Advertising of Role 15/10/24 29/10/24.

Shortlisting and Interviewing Arrangements By 31/10/24.

Interviewing Day Thursday 7thNovember 2024.

Role Start Date TBA.Likely to be New Year 2025, with familiarisation days beforehand to facilitate a smooth transition.