Café Manager – Hands-On Role
The Nest – New Romney, Kent
Full-time | PermanentPay: depending on experience
The Nest is looking for an experienced, enthusiastic and hands-on Café Manager to take responsibility for the day-to-day running of our independent café and community space in New Romney.
This isn’t a management role where you’ll spend your day in an office. We’re looking for someone who is happy to get involved in every part of running the café – from cooking and preparing food to making coffee, serving customers, managing the team and maintaining excellent standards throughout.
Kitchen experience is particularly important, as a significant part of the role is likely to involve preparing and cooking food.
The role
As Café Manager, you’ll lead by example and be willing to turn your hand to whatever needs doing.
Depending on the day, you could be:
- Preparing and cooking food
- Running the kitchen during service
- Making coffees and other drinks
- Taking orders and serving customers
- Greeting customers and creating a welcoming atmosphere
- Clearing tables and washing up
- Managing stock and ordering
- Organising staff and rotas
- Maintaining food hygiene and cleaning standards
- Opening or closing the café
- Supporting and training team members
- Monitoring stock, waste and costs
- Helping develop new dishes, specials and ideas
- Supporting events and activities at The Nest
- Cleaning all areas of the café, including toilets
We’re a small independent business, so everyone gets involved.
We’re looking for a manager who notices what needs doing and takes responsibility for making sure it happens, whether that’s dealing with a busy kitchen, helping a customer, restocking something that’s running low or picking up a cloth and cleaning a table.
About you
You’ll ideally have previous experience in a café, restaurant or similar hospitality environment.
You should be:
- Confident preparing and cooking food
- Friendly and confident with customers
- Comfortable leading and supporting a small team
- Reliable and organised
- Proactive rather than waiting to be given jobs
- Able to remain calm during busy periods
- Proud of maintaining high standards
- Comfortable working independently and making decisions
- Willing to work across both the kitchen and front of house
- Interested in helping an independent business grow
Previous management or supervisory experience would be an advantage, but we’re also interested in hearing from experienced hospitality staff who feel ready to take the next step.
Food Hygiene Level 2 and barista experience would be advantageous, although training can be provided where appropriate.
About The Nest
The Nest is an independent café and community space situated within Romney Warren in New Romney.
Alongside our café, we host regular groups, activities and events and have developed a lovely community of customers over our first year.
We’re looking for someone who wants to become an important part of the business, bring their own ideas and work with the owner to continue developing The Nest.
If you’re someone who enjoys being busy, takes pride in what you do and believes a good manager should be prepared to lead from the front, we’d love to hear from you.
Please apply with your CV and a short introduction telling us about your hospitality and kitchen experience.
The Nest
Dymchurch Road
New Romney
TN28 8AY
Pay: From £29,000.00 per year
Benefits:
- Free parking
- On-site parking
Licence/Certification:
- Food handling level 3 (required)
Work Location: In person
