Take Filmhouse Bar Café into the Next Chapter
Filmhouse reopened its doors last year to a fantastic reception. With over 250,000 people having visited the venue since June 2025, our Bar Cafe is once again becoming a thriving hub for eating, drinking and socialising in Edinburgh. Now, we are looking for a passionate, ambitious, creative Head of Hospitality who can bring together great service, cultural energy and community spirit, guiding a dedicated team to realise the full potential of Filmhouse’s food and beverage offer.
About the Role
Focused on creative development and the big picture, you’ll take on overall responsibility for shaping an experience for a broad clientele for an iconic independent cinema in the heart of Edinburgh, with a bar café offering a fresh, delicious and locally sourced food menu alongside an excellent range of drinks from local and Scottish suppliers. You will be working with and supporting a talented and dedicated team, including our Bar Manager, Head Chef and wider staff, to make sure every detail is taken care of, ensuring the Bar Cafe runs beautifully from the first coffee of the day until the end of the night, whilst developing the ideas that will take the venue to the next level, both financially and in terms of cultural impact.
The Filmhouse Bar Cafe has a long and beloved history, with a loyal and substantial regular clientele, and a history of being a place for everything from morning coffees to busy working lunches, meetings of clubs and community groups, cinema goers eating before and after screenings, pre-theatre diners, and late-night revellers enjoying Edinburgh’s festival and cultural scene.
You’ll have the space to innovate with new ideas, partnerships, and events, with a view to serving both regular visitors and new customers as we cement our Bar Café as a food and beverage destination in its own right. In doing so, you will add to a Filmhouse that’s welcoming, inspiring and commercially strong, staying true to our community mission whilst driving revenue that supports our charitable work.
Who You Are
You’re a natural leader who thrives in fast-paced environments and loves creating enjoyable, memorable experiences for people. You know how to balance creativity with consistency, and warmth with professionalism. You bring experience in hospitality and food and beverage management, menu and business development, and confidence in financial and operational performance and reporting thereon.
Crucially, you are passionate about what Filmhouse does and represents, with an understanding of what makes the venue unique. With a commitment to our shared mission, and a genuine care for your team and customers, you’ll be energised by the way Filmhouse brings people, community and culture together, committed to values like fair pay and sustainability, embracing that great hospitality and food can be part of trying to create something inclusive and meaningful for everyone who visits Filmhouse.
Why Join Us
Filmhouse is an iconic independent cinema in the heart of Edinburgh, with a bustling bar cafe. A cornerstone of Edinburgh’s cultural life, the venue has been recently renovated, reopening in June 2025 and performing well during its first year.
With a base of loyal customers, great facilities, and prime placement within Edinburgh’s cultural quarter, we now have an opportunity to deliver something even better, elevating our existing operation whilst driving a major expansion of our nighttime and dining offer, and maximising opportunities around the busy film and events programme taking place across our four state of the art screens. As Head of Hospitality you’ll be part of that journey, as we continue to build a vibrant, welcoming space where film, food and conversation come together.
We’re a Real Living Wage Employer, and are committed to Fair Work principles. Committed to being a great place to work for our team, inclusivity, professional growth, creativity, kindness, and integrity are core values for Filmhouse.
If you’re looking for a role that blends commercial challenge with cultural purpose, this is it.
Job title: Head of Hospitality
Location: Lothian Road, Edinburgh
Contract: Full-time, 37.5 hours per week. with flexible working (e.g. evenings, weekends, bank holidays) to effectively deliver the Filmhouse Bar Café operation
Benefits: Free cinema tickets, free meals whilst on shift, substantial F&B discounts, staff screenings and other benefits are offered alongside Filmhouse’s salary and holiday provisions.
Reporting to: Executive Director, FEL Trading Ltd (FEL-T) Board.
Management of: Bar Manager,Head Chef, Kitchen Team, Hospitality Duty Managers, Hospitality Assistants.
Direct relationship with: Marketing Manager, FOH Manager, Programme Manager, Financial Controller, Technical Manager.
Functional relationships with: Various.
Salary: £38,000-40,000 (dependent on experience)
Context: Filmhouse cinema is run by Filmhouse (Edinburgh) Ltd. This company, which has charitable status, has run Filmhouse since its reopening in June 2025, and is distinct from the entity that ran Filmhouse on the same site from 1979–2022. The charity operates a subsidiary trading company, FEL-Trading Ltd (FEL-T) which runs the Filmhouse Bar Cafe with a view to generating revenue for the charity.
Person Specification
Essential:
- Experience in food and beverage management
- Confidence in improving and reporting on financial and operational performance
- Ambitious, imaginative and commercially astute
- A belief in the importance of community culture, fair working practices and inclusivity
- An understanding of what makes Filmhouse unique
Desirable:
- Experience in the cultural sector
Key Responsibilities:
· To lead on the strategic planning, operational delivery and financial management of the Filmhouse Bar Café, cementing the venue’s place as a culinary and social destination serving a wide variety of filmgoers and communities from morning until night.
· To deliver a hospitality offer based on an excellent food and drink offer emphasising freshness, quality, and locally sourced produce and products, as well as quality bar service, unique dining experiences, and a warm, friendly atmosphere that balances operational efficiency with a sense of inclusion and community.
· To deliver demonstrable growth in the Filmhouse Bar Café’s popularity from an already high level, delivering both strong, sustainable financial performance and memorable experiences for guests that complement the cultural mission of Filmhouse.
· To ensure the financial health of the Filmhouse Bar Café, including budgeting, forecasting, financial planning, and the close monitoring of costs, stock takes, cash flow and profit margin, establishing the correct processes, reporting structures and controls, ensuring the business contributes to the Filmhouse parent charity.
· To devise and deliver clear performance overviews to the Executive Director, FEL-T Board and wider Filmhouse team, based on organisational KPIs.
· To work closely with the Filmhouse Bar Manager, Head Chef and wider hospitality team to grow a dynamic, welcoming hospitality offer, demonstrating an aptitude for successful commercial delivery alongside an understanding of Filmhouse’s cultural ethos and community values.
· To develop and maintain relationships with key suppliers, clients and partners of Filmhouse, including working closely with the Filmhouse Bar Manager and Head Chef to ensure robust processes are in place for monitoring supplier arrangements and contracts, ensuring that the Filmhouse Bar Café is getting the best value for money.
· To oversee the resourcing and development of the infrastructure of the Filmhouse Bar Café, including the sourcing, purchasing and maintenance of catering and bar equipment, furniture and fittings; including coordination with commercial contractors.
· To oversee the processes for hiring, training and managing the full Filmhouse Bar Café team, making sure that the Head Chef, Bar Manager and wider Duty Manager team are supported to oversee day to day to operations, supporting a well-trained, confident team capable of delivering maximum financial return alongside a welcoming, community atmosphere. This work will include strategies for driving improved performance, providing professional development opportunities, and achieving excellent levels of staff retention.
· To ensure that the Filmhouse Bar Café team are equipped to maximise menu delivery, food and drink service, the sale of cinema tickets and memberships, and the provision of refreshments and concessions to take into the cinema.
· To support the Head Chef and Bar Manager with menu planning (both and food and drink), including devising menus and their pricing, food and drink selections, and sourcing of stock and ingredients, negotiating and locking in deals with suppliers, feeding this planning into the Bar Café’s wider business plan.
· Ensuring the Filmhouse Bar Café follows all health and safety, licensing and statutory protocols, with robust systems in place to support these areas
· Ensuring the venue has robust cash taking, record keeping, and financial reporting procedures.
· To work closely with the Head Chef, Bar Manager and Hires & Events Coordinator to further develop a delivery model for drinks receptions and other catered events that can be utilised for both Filmhouse events and private hires.
· Close collaboration with the Front of House Manager to ensure a seamless and excellent experience for all customers, whether they are engaging with the Filmhouse programme or hospitality offer; as well as working closely with the Filmhouse Executive Director, Front of House Manager, Team Coordinator and other staff to ensure that there is a shared ‘one team’ approach to strategic develpment and staffing at Filmhouse.
· To work with the Filmhouse General Manager, Bar Manager and Front of House Manager to contribute towards the management of Filmhouse’s Point-of-Sale system (INDY), ensuring it is used to maximum effect, and that it is being effectively utilised to drive Filmhouse Bar Café business, monitor costs and report effectively on financial performance.
· Working alongside the Bar Manager as well as other senior colleagues to oversee the management of key building functions and building security, including (but not limited to) risk assessments, policy development and incident logs, keyholding, alarm function and maintenance, building closure, cashing up, cleaning, waste management and building maintenance, including the management of any specific staff where applicable.
· To work closely across the organisation to help drive the cinema’s sales alongside F&B, including the sale of cinema tickets and memberships, raising donations, and concessions sales.
· To foster an inclusive workplace culture that promotes collaboration, creativity and respect for diversity, as well as ensuring compliance with legal, regulatory and ethical standards.
· To lead, support and develop the organisation’s staff, promoting a positive and inclusive work environment, and following fair and equitable HR practices in recruitment, performance management and professional development, helping to deliver on Filmhouse’s commitment to Fair Work principles.
· To act as the key representative of the organisation to the public and stakeholders, where appropriate, upholding Filmhouse’s reputation in all circumstances.
· Promoting and supporting diversity, inclusion and environmental sustainability.
· Performing any other duties as may be reasonably required.
How to apply:
Please send your CV and covering letter via Indeed. We will consider applications on a rolling basis – we would encourage early applications. Applicants must also fill out our Equal Opportunities Monitoring form: https://forms.office.com/e/5W2yvw50p4
Pay: £38,000.00-£40,000.00 per year
Benefits:
- Casual dress
- Company events
- Discounted or free food
- Employee discount
- Health & wellbeing programme
- Sick pay
Ability to commute/relocate:
- Edinburgh EH3 9BZ: reliably commute or plan to relocate before starting work (required)
Experience:
- Hospitality management: 3 years (required)
Work authorisation:
- United Kingdom (required)
Work Location: In person
