Barista
Blacks Corner at Culture House Sunderland
Are you passionate about coffee? Do you want to take your barista experience to the next level?
We’re looking for a Barista to join the team at Blacks Corner, creating exceptional coffee and delivering outstanding customer service at our new location within Culture House Sunderland.
We’re looking for someone who can work weekday daytime shifts as well as weekends.
☕ Recruitment Evenings
If your application is successful, we're hosting two recruitment evenings for our new team:
Wednesday 19th August – 6pm
Monday 24th August – 6pm
Come along to meet the Blacks Corner team, find out more about the Barista role and discover what it’s like to be part of our new Culture House location.
If you’re interested in joining us, we’d love to meet you at one of the evenings above.
About Blacks Corner
Culture House is a brand-new cultural destination in the heart of Sunderland, bringing together creativity, learning, exhibitions, events, digital experiences and a wide range of visitors in one exciting new city-centre destination.
Blacks Corner will bring the energy and character of a traditional British delicatessen to Culture House, championing exceptional artisan food and drink from across the British Isles.
Coffee will be a big part of that experience.
We’re passionate about artisan coffee and independent British producers, and we want our baristas to share that enthusiasm. We’ll be working with carefully selected independent roasters to create a coffee offering that reflects the same quality and attention to detail as our food.
About the role
As a Barista at Blacks Corner, you’ll be responsible for producing consistently excellent coffee while creating a warm, engaging experience for every customer.
You’ll be working in a busy, customer-focused environment where quality, speed and personality all matter.
You’ll be expected to:
- Prepare and serve high-quality espresso-based coffee
- Demonstrate excellent knowledge of coffee preparation and extraction
- Produce consistent, beautifully presented drinks
- Create quality latte art and use presentation to create a sense of theatre
- Maintain excellent standards of cleanliness and organisation
- Work efficiently during busy periods
- Engage positively with customers and deliver genuinely friendly service
- Learn about our coffee beans, roasters and the origins of the coffee we serve
- Talk confidently to customers about our coffee offering
- Support the wider Blacks Corner team when required
- Help maintain the high standards of our food and drink service
We want someone who takes genuine pride in every coffee that leaves the counter.
Coffee is only part of the story
We’re also passionate about British-grown loose-leaf tea.
We work closely with a British tea grower to showcase an exceptional range of loose-leaf teas and introduce customers to something very different from the usual tea offering.
Our team will have the opportunity to develop their knowledge of the teas we serve, where they come from and what makes them special.
You’ll be encouraged to share that knowledge with customers and help us create an experience that celebrates both British-grown tea and artisan coffee.
About you
We’re looking for someone with at least two years’ barista experience who is confident working in a professional coffee environment.
You should be comfortable working with espresso equipment, understand the importance of extraction and milk texture, and be able to produce consistently high-quality drinks during busy service.
Our ideal candidate will be:
- Experienced and confident behind the coffee machine
- Passionate about speciality and artisan coffee
- Experienced in producing latte art
- Interested in coffee origins, roasting and brewing
- Curious about tea and its origins
- Positive, friendly and naturally engaging
- Reliable and well organised
- Comfortable working at pace
- A great multi-tasker
- Passionate about presentation and attention to detail
- A strong team player
- Happy working early starts and busy daytime services
You should also enjoy talking to customers and sharing your knowledge. We want our baristas to be coffee people who can also deliver exceptional hospitality.
Why Blacks Corner at Culture House?
This is an opportunity to join us at the beginning of an exciting new chapter for Blacks Corner and to become part of Culture House Sunderland, one of the city's newest cultural destinations.
With exhibitions, events, learning, creativity and a constantly changing mix of visitors, this will be a lively environment in which no two days are necessarily the same.
We want our coffee offer to become an important part of the Culture House experience — somewhere customers can enjoy an exceptional coffee, discover something new and feel genuinely welcome.
If you’re passionate about artisan coffee, British-grown tea, great produce and great hospitality, and you’re ready to take your barista skills to the next level, we’d love to hear from you.
Must be available to work weekday daytime shifts and weekends.
Good luck — we look forward to hearing from you!
Work Location: In person
