Job Description

Browns of Brockley is a neighbourhood coffee shop established in 2009, with two other shops opening in the last 6 years – St David Coffee House in Forest Hill, and Bon Coffee in Dulwich. We also operate a mobile coffee van at Brockley Market on Saturdays, and started our own bakery in 2022 which supplies our shops with fresh bread and pastries 7 days a week.

We are looking for another member of management staff to take on a chunk of the duties that are currently shared between a few of us as the business has grown. The role, which will be spread between all sites, will encompass a multitude of business operations; such as systems, ordering software and communications between shops and bakery; staffing, including advertising and interviewing, some HR, training and welfare alongside an external third-party company; assistance with deliveries and drivers; stock ordering and management; and scheduling of maintenance and repairs using dedicated external companies and engineers. This list is certainly not exhaustive, and may be shared between different people depending on experience and skill set.

While we are open to meeting people from different hospitality backgrounds, it would be advantageous to have good experience within speciality coffee – and being able to make coffee to a high standard, with great latte art, would put you in better stead for the position. However, a strong interest in speciality coffee and quality customer service is imperative.

Managers at Browns of Brockley spend the bulk of their time in the shops, working alongside the staff, making coffee and speaking to the customers. While there will be a decent chunk of work to be done on a computer, such as weekly rotas and managing a few backend systems, our priority is being on our feet and making things better in the real world. We rarely use social media, and you will never see us taking up a table with a laptop. It will be the same with this advertised position. We need someone with personality who can lead and motivate a team on a busy shift.

As the role is based across several sites across South East London, applicants must have recent/current driving experience with a clean UK licence. We have a small electric van, for which we have insurance for anyone over 25, which you would need to use several times a week to get from site to site.

Working times will vary depending on what needs to be done that day or week. The shops close at 2pm but often there are matters to address after hours, so you must be flexible within reason, and able to respond to someone calling in sick at 8pm, which will mean either organising cover or covering the shift yourself. We don't encourage working out of hours, but having someone else on hand to respond to urgent matters is important to us.

Your availability has to be wide open across the whole week. It's likely that one of your days off each week will be a weekend day, but you'll need to be able to switch days off on a weekly basis. It's unlikely we can accommodate set working days for this reason. The contract will be for 40 hours a week, which leaves a few hours outside of opening times to complete any extra-curricular duties.

Unfortunately we can't really consider someone living somewhere that requires a long commute – we're only looking for someone who lives South East, and hopefully knows about our shops and the areas we operate in; and an interest in other local food and drink businesses would be great.

Please apply with a decent cover letter outlining any relevant experience that puts you in a good position for this role. Due to the volume of applicants we are only able to respond to promising candidates.

Job Requirements

People management – we have 30 employees, who you will be in close contact with from week to week
Coffee – this role may work for someone without coffee experience but it would put you in good stead to have worked in speciality coffee, whether you're fixing a grinder or training a new starter on latte art
UK drivers licence – you will need to drive our small electric van from site to site
Please have a good read of the advert before applying, we really want to meet the right candidates for this role!
We won't be replying to applicants who don't have a relevant CV or a decent cover letter specifially written for this job