Operations Manager – Bean & Bread

Operations Manager – Bean & Bread

£38,000–£42,000 per year

Full-time, permanent

Based across Abergavenny and Rogerstone

Bean & Bread is an independent café business with two lovely, but very different locations.

Our Abergavenny café is busy, established and fast-paced. Rogerstone is our newer, quieter site with plenty of potential to grow. We’re now looking for an experienced Operations Manager who can bring the two cafés together, strengthen our teams and turn both sites into consistently well-run, profitable and genuinely lovely places to visit.

We’re looking for more than somebody to simply maintain what is already there. We need an experienced hospitality operator who can take ownership, introduce proper structure and make a noticeable difference to the performance of the business.

But Bean & Bread isn’t just about rotas, labour percentages and spreadsheets. The atmosphere matters enormously to us. From the music being played and the way the tables are presented to the seasonal menus, displays and overall feeling customers experience when they walk through the door.

We therefore need somebody who combines strong commercial and operational experience with creativity, attention to detail and a natural understanding of what makes a café feel special.

This isn’t a role for someone who wants to sit behind a desk sending emails about coffee. You’ll be highly visible across both cafés, supporting the teams, developing people, solving problems and making sure every part of the operation runs brilliantly, even when the owner isn’t there.

What you’ll be doing

• Taking responsibility for the day-to-day performance of both cafés
• Driving sales, increasing turnover and improving profitability across each location
• Reviewing labour, food costs and other key figures and taking practical action where improvements are needed
• Supporting, motivating and holding our teams accountable
• Bringing the two café teams together and creating a positive, consistent working culture
• Improving staff morale, communication and engagement
• Reducing staff turnover by creating a workplace where good people feel supported and want to stay
• Identifying each team member’s current capabilities and making sure they receive the right training and development
• Introducing clear roles, responsibilities and progression opportunities so employees can see how they can grow within the business
• Developing supervisors from within the existing teams
• Ensuring standards remain consistently high across food, coffee, service, cleanliness and presentation
• Taking ownership of the finer details that shape the Bean & Bread experience from music, lighting and table presentation to signage, displays and the overall atmosphere
• Working creatively to ensure both cafés continue to feel fresh, welcoming and interesting to customers
• Making sure seasonal food and drinks menus are planned, developed, launched and updated consistently
• Identifying new ideas, products, events and experiences that can attract customers and encourage them to return
• Ensuring seasonal changes are delivered properly across menus, team training, café presentation and customer communication
• Creating sensible, commercially sound rotas and making sure staffing levels reflect the needs of each café
• Recruiting great people and delivering thorough, consistent inductions and training
• Introducing clear systems and accountability without taking away the personality that makes Bean & Bread special
• Overseeing stock control, ordering and supplier relationships
• Handling escalated staffing and customer issues calmly, fairly and confidently
• Spotting problems before they become bigger issues and taking ownership of resolving them
• Helping Rogerstone grow while keeping Abergavenny performing at its best
• Giving the Director clear and honest updates without needing constant direction

What success will look like

You’ll create two cafés with strong, settled teams who understand their roles, feel properly supported and consistently deliver excellent standards.

You’ll bring greater control over staffing, costs and day-to-day operations while identifying genuine opportunities to grow sales and profit.

Just as importantly, you’ll ensure Bean & Bread never becomes stale or purely functional. Both cafés should look and feel cared for, with seasonal menus, thoughtful details and a consistently warm atmosphere that gives customers a reason to keep coming back.

The cafés should operate confidently and consistently without relying on the owner to manage every decision, notice every detail or solve every problem.

In short, we need somebody capable of taking a lot of moving parts and turning them into one strong, happy, creative and commercially successful operation.

Who we’re looking for

You’ll be an experienced hospitality operator with a strong track record of leading teams and improving business performance.

You must be able to demonstrate experience in areas such as:

• Growing turnover and identifying new revenue opportunities
• Improving profitability and controlling labour and operating costs
• Managing, motivating and retaining hospitality teams
• Raising standards and addressing underperformance
• Creating effective training and development programmes
• Building stronger workplace culture and staff morale
• Introducing clear systems, structure and accountability
• Maintaining excellent brand, presentation and customer-experience standards
• Developing seasonal menus, promotions or customer experiences
• Leading independently in a busy, fast-moving environment

You’ll be confident making decisions, having honest conversations when something isn’t working and following through until improvements are firmly embedded.

You’ll also be:

• Organised, practical and solutions-focused
• Commercially aware and confident working with sales, labour and profitability figures
• Creative, with a strong eye for detail and presentation
• Naturally aware of atmosphere and how a space looks, feels and sounds to a customer
• Full of ideas, but equally capable of turning those ideas into practical and profitable results
• Warm and approachable, while being comfortable holding people accountable
• Calm and level-headed under pressure
• Genuinely passionate about hospitality and customer experience
• Able to balance the very different needs of two café locations
• Capable of bringing structure to a growing independent business without making it feel corporate

Multi-site management experience would be a real advantage, but extensive senior hospitality management experience and a proven record of delivering results are equally important.

This role requires regular travel between Abergavenny and Rogerstone, so you must be comfortable and able to work consistently across both locations.

Opportunity to grow with us

For the right person, there is genuine scope for this position to develop beyond Bean & Bread.

We also operate Little Oaks Town, a children’s role-play centre with its own Bean & Bread café. Once strong systems and leadership are established across our two main cafés, we would like the successful person to have the opportunity to expand their operational oversight across Little Oaks Town too.

We’re looking for somebody who wants to build a long-term future with the businesses and play an important part in their continued growth.

Why Bean & Bread?

We’re an independent business, which means you’ll have the freedom to make a genuine difference. There are no endless layers of approval and no head-office rulebook telling you where every teaspoon should live.

You’ll work closely with the owner, have real influence over how the businesses develop and be trusted to make meaningful decisions.

This is a substantial role for somebody who enjoys creating order, developing people, delivering measurable results and making places look and feel brilliant. There is plenty to get stuck into but also a real opportunity to shape the future of an independent and much-loved local business.

If you love great hospitality, strong teams, good coffee and the satisfying feeling of turning organised chaos into a brilliant operation, we’d love to hear from you.

To apply, please send your CV along with a short introduction explaining why you believe you would be a great fit for Bean & Bread.

Pay: £38,000.00-£42,000.00 per year

Work Location: In person