Operations Manager – Café, Gelateria & Gallery
Molten, North Shields Fish Quay£30,500–£32,000 per year, depending on experience
37.5 hours per week | Permanent | Wednesday–Sunday
Molten is an independent café, gelateria and gallery overlooking the sea at North Shields Fish Quay.
We make our own gelato and food, serve speciality coffee, exhibit and make glass art, and have built a loyal community around a business that is deliberately a little different from a conventional café.
We are now looking for an Operations Manager to take genuine responsibility for the day-to-day running of Molten.
This is a hands-on management role in a small seasonal business. We are looking for someone who enjoys making a business work well: who can hold both sides of a small independent business: commercial discipline and human generosity. This also includes leading service, supporting a team, maintaining standards, understanding the numbers, and making sensible decisions without needing the owner beside them.
The role
You will be responsible for the day-to-day operation of Molten, including:
- leading café and gelateria service
- opening, closing and maintaining operating standards
- organising the weekly rota and responding to absence
- matching staffing levels to expected trading
- protecting service when busy while running leanly through quieter periods
- maintaining a calm, welcoming and efficient customer experience
- coordinating FOH, coffee, gelato and kitchen production
- managing routine stock and ordering
- supporting and managing team members
- dealing confidently with customer and operational problems
- monitoring sales, labour and waste
- identifying problems early and acting on them
- communicating clearly with the owner through a structured weekly management meeting
The role is practical as well as managerial. During service you will be part of the working team and will need to be comfortable moving between bar, floor and operational coordination.
What we are looking for
You may already manage an independent café, restaurant or hospitality business, or be an experienced assistant manager ready for substantially more ownership.
Hospitality experience matters, but judgement and responsibility matter more.
You should be comfortable:
- notices people and situations well, and uses warmth, judgement and proportion rather than scripts
- making routine decisions independently
- leading people clearly and fairly
- having difficult conversations when necessary
- adjusting staffing and priorities as trading changes
- understanding basic commercial measures such as sales, labour and waste
- keeping standards high without creating unnecessary fuss
- working in a small independent business where not everything arrives in a corporate manual
- taking responsibility for outcomes rather than simply completing a shift
Strong barista skills would be useful. Experience of food production, gelato or a creative/arts environment would be welcome but is not essential.
Working pattern
Molten is open Wednesday to Sunday, 9am–4pm.
The Operations Manager will normally work across those five trading days, including opening preparation and close-down.
Monday and Tuesday are primarily production days undertaken by other members of the team.
Molten is seasonal, and part of the role is to understand how to organise the team intelligently as trading changes through the year.
About Molten
Molten combines hospitality, making and place.
We care about good food and coffee, but also about how people feel when they are here: calm service, curiosity, conversation, the building, the view, art and the unexpected.
Hospitality at Molten is attentive rather than formulaic. We value people who notice what is happening around them, respond with judgement, and understand that sometimes a small act of appropriate generosity — a taste, an explanation, a little extra care — can matter more than a conventional service gesture.
The next stage of Molten is about becoming a business that can operate confidently without depending on the owner being involved in every day's decisions, while preserving the character that has made it distinctive.
We are therefore looking for someone who wants real responsibility for a small independent business, rather than simply the title of manager.
To apply
Please send your CV and a short note telling us:
Why does this particular role interest you, and what would you bring to a small independent business like Molten?
Pay: £30,000.00-£32,000.00 per year
Benefits:
- Employee discount
- Free parking
Application question(s):
- Please give indication when you can start a new role. Please see question in job description
Work Location: In person
