Cafe Manager

About Maggie’s

Maggie’s is built around great coffee, matcha, thoughtful food, natural wine and sincere, generous hospitality.

We care deeply about the quality of what we serve and the craft behind it — from collaborating with our house roaster, Colonna Coffee, to specially sourced matcha. We make as much as we can in-house, working with carefully sourced local produce to create a considered food and drinks menu.

We try to be purposeful in what we do and bring our own identity to every part of the experience. We’re curious and always looking to learn and improve, but we don’t chase trends for the sake of them. We’d rather be led by our craft, our own ideas and a commitment to doing things exceptionally well. We’re not interested in doing everything; we’d rather do a smaller number of things really well.

The same thinking applies to hospitality. We want Maggie’s to feel warm, relaxed and effortless to the guest, while being thoughtful and well run behind the scenes. The details matter, and we want the people leading the business to genuinely care about them.

The Role

We’re looking for a Café Manager to take genuine ownership of the day-to-day operation of Maggie’s and build a team capable of delivering that experience consistently.

This is a hands-on management role with real responsibility and autonomy. You’ll lead the café day to day, overseeing the team, service, training, rota, recruitment, stock, ordering, suppliers, compliance and the systems and processes that keep everything running properly.

You’ll be present on the floor and work alongside the team, particularly across important trading periods. Mornings and weekends can be fast-paced, so you’ll need to be comfortable leading a team through busy service while maintaining quality, pace and a great guest experience.

You should be comfortable behind a coffee bar and have a solid grounding in espresso-based drinks. You don’t need to be the best barista in the building, but you should understand the craft and be able to confidently work alongside and lead the team during service.

More importantly, you’ll be responsible for the overall standard of service at Maggie’s. That means building and training a strong team, setting clear expectations and ensuring our processes, product standards and approach to hospitality are understood and upheld — whether you’re personally on shift or not.

Ownership & Autonomy

We’re looking for someone who sees a problem and naturally starts thinking about the solution.

You’ll be trusted to take problems through to resolution, make decisions and improve the operation rather than simply passing issues upwards. When something genuinely requires the owner’s involvement, we’d expect you to bring context, what you’ve already done and what you recommend we do next.

In return, you’ll have meaningful freedom over how you run the operation.

Your success won’t be measured by how many hours you spend in the café. The role is based around a 40-hour, five-day week, with flexibility when the business genuinely requires it.

A great Manager builds a great team. If you recruit well, train people properly, develop capable shift leaders and create strong systems, the café shouldn’t depend on you being there every minute. As the operation becomes stronger, that should create greater flexibility for you too.

Regular weekend working will be part of the role, particularly while you’re getting established and developing the team.

Beyond Running the Shift

We want someone interested in the business of hospitality, not just the service in front of them.

You’ll monitor things such as sales, labour, wastage, stock and product performance, helping us understand what’s happening in the café and why.

You’ll work with the owner to develop a straightforward reporting structure, collating and presenting key performance information alongside your own observations and recommendations.

If something isn’t working, we want you to notice. If something is working particularly well, we want you to understand why.

Who We’re Looking For

We’re less interested in an impressive CV or job title than we are in competence, judgement and capacity.

You may already run a great independent café or hospitality business, or you might be an experienced Assistant or Deputy Manager ready to take proper ownership of your first site.

We’re particularly interested in people from independent, smaller or relationship-led hospitality businesses — environments where you’ve had to think, make decisions, build relationships and solve problems rather than simply execute systems designed elsewhere.

You’ll be someone who:

- Is proactive, resourceful and comfortable taking responsibility

- Knows how to lead, train and develop a team

- Can build genuine relationships while still holding people to high standards

- Understands great front-of-house and counter-service hospitality

- Has solid barista experience and is comfortable working behind the bar

- Has a genuine interest in great coffee, matcha, quality produce, food and natural wine — and cares about the craft behind what we serve

- Notices the details that shape a guest’s experience

- Is organised and follows things through

- Is commercially curious and wants to understand the numbers behind the operation

- Can make sensible decisions when there isn’t an obvious answer

- Takes pride in creating an operation that works properly even when they’re not there

You don’t need to arrive knowing everything. Curiosity matters to us. We’d rather work with someone who wants to learn, asks good questions and cares about getting things right than someone who thinks they already have every answer.

Salary: £32,000–£35,000 depending on experience, plus tips and a KPI-linked performance bonus.