Job Description

About Maggie’s

Maggie’s is a soon-to-launch independent neighbourhood café in South West London, built around great coffee, matcha, thoughtful food and natural wine.

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 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 role with real responsibility and autonomy. You’ll take ownership of:

Leading, training and developing the team
Service standards and the overall guest experience
Rotas, recruitment and day-to-day people management
Stock, ordering, suppliers and wastage
Operational systems, processes and compliance
Coffee and product standards
Sales, labour and key café performance metrics

Mornings and weekends can be fast-paced, so you’ll need to be comfortable leading from the floor through busy service while maintaining quality, pace and a great guest experience.

You’ll also be comfortable behind a coffee bar. You don’t need to be the best barista in the building, but you should understand the craft and confidently work alongside the team.

Above all, you’ll be responsible for building an operation that delivers consistently — whether you’re personally on shift or not.

Ownership & Autonomy

We want someone who sees a problem and naturally starts thinking about the solution.

You’ll be trusted to make decisions, take problems through to resolution 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 café.

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

A great Manager recruits well, develops people and creates strong systems so the operation doesn’t depend on them being there every minute. As the team and operation become 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.

The Business of Hospitality

We want someone interested in the business behind hospitality as well as the service in front of them.

You’ll monitor 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 straightforward reporting around key performance indicators, bringing 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.

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

Job Requirements

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.