Cafe and Retail Manager

Job Title: Cafe and Retail Manager, Chestnut
Hours: Full Time (40 hrs/week); including weekends, evenings, and holidays
Report: San Francisco District Manager
Wage: Starting at $86k
Location: 2072 Chestnut St San Francisco

 

About Us

Dandelion Chocolate is a bean-to-bar chocolate factory in San Francisco’s Mission District. We make chocolate from only two ingredients, cocoa beans and cane sugar, and travel to origins as often as we can to build good, trusting relationships with the producers who grow and ferment our beans. Our business is built upon trust and partnership, and now we’re looking for a seasoned manager who will run our Chestnut cafe. 

 

About You

Our ideal Chestnut Manager is an independent self-starter with an eye for excellence. You will oversee and develop a team while continually raising the bar for engaging guests and sharing the Dandelion story and bean to bar chocolate knowledge. We are known for having friendly guest service that shares the bean-to-bar story with the many cafe guests. This dynamic position requires a lot of face time with team members, guests, and other Dandelion Chocolate department heads. Our ideal candidate has a passion for connecting guests with quality, handmade products. We like to see that you have been able to work on projects within a team and produce measurable results.

 

About the Role

Our Chestnut Cafe is bustling with all kinds of guests eager to taste chocolate, pick out a special gift, or meet a friend for a hot chocolate. While there is no typical day at our cafe, your day might start by giving your team a morning daily report, for example, a description and tasting of a new product, operational focus areas for the day, or how to greet an out-of-state chocolate maker. In the afternoon, you look at your list of potential projects, create a 3-4 week plan with deliverables and metrics, and double-check that your top priorities feel right with the executive team. Later, you talk to your team about a new display layout so that guests can better engage with the products and then get to work developing requirements, plans, and milestones. 

Outside of the day-to-day tasks, you have a clear vision for how the cafe can continue to improve, broken into concrete quarterly milestones such as later hours, team greeters, better systems for tracking retail goods and inventory, and more community events. Even with ambitious plans and shifting priorities, you always make time to prioritize your team and guest service -- when a cafe regular who you haven’t seen in awhile shows up, you take the time to ask about their grandchildren and get them their favorite drink.  

Responsibilities

• Goal Setting -- Work with leadership to understand annual goals and set a compelling vision that inspires the team to raise the bar each year. 
• Team -- Hire, train, schedule, and foster a 5-6 person team that values excellence and proactively makes a customer’s experience better without prescriptive guidelines. Complete quarterly check-ins, annual reviews, provide timely day-to-day feedback, and develop a bench of leadership that is ready to rise to future growth opportunities.
• Daily Operation -- Develop checklists, SOPs, and research tools to ensure that merchandise is in stock, that the workspace is clean, that the retail shelves reflect a thoughtful, exquisite experience, and that orders are timely and accurate.
• Guest Engagement -- Proactively develop ideas to improve retail displays, experiment with menu items, and develop more authentic, thoughtful visitor experiences that lead to a deeper connection with bean-to-bar chocolate.
• Relationships -- Develop authentic rapport and working relationships with other managers, neighbors, and Ferry Building office management so that others feel comfortable approaching you with problems, suggestions, personnel issues, or to coordinate potential projects together.
• Reporting -- Monitor, track, and analyze sales data. Report quarterly goals and projects to the company, Director, COO, and CEO. 
• Facilities -- Ensure our space is operating at its best with humming equipment, well-lit spaces, up-to-date chalkboard menus, well-maintained infrastructure (e.g. plumbing, electrical, fire extinguishers) and emergency folders. Work closely with our Facilities Manager as needed.
• Other duties as needed. 

 

Requirements

• Proven ability to manage, train, and motivate small teams. You’ve made a long-lasting impact in previous team members’ professional careers.
• Technical know-how including Google Docs, spreadsheets, and the ability to track and report purchases, inventory, and cash reports with bookkeeping tools on a weekly basis. 
• Phenomenal soft people skills. You can work with even the most tricky guests to ensure that they feel heard, understood, and will want to visit Dandelion Chocolate again (and again and again). 
• Proven ability to connect bigger company goals to the performance of a team using measurable metrics. When a new location opens in one to two years, you have the documentation and systems ready to help a new manager get up-to-speed quickly and avoid the pitfalls you once encountered.
• The agility to think quickly on your feet and deal with each day’s inevitable surprises.
• Two years minimum management experience in a food service or service-related establishment.

 

Benefits

The benefits and perks continue beyond a robust chocolate education. Dandelion Chocolate constantly invests in our people and culture. All team members receive medical, vision, and dental benefits as well as the option to enroll in our 401k program. Team members receive paid vacation time, holiday pay, and paid sick time. In addition, our team members enjoy commuter benefits, FSAs, local gym discounts, chocolate tasting opportunities, the chance to travel to origin and our Japan locations, and a range of opportunities to grow and develop within the company. 

 

How to Apply

Dandelion is growing and we are invested in employees who take ownership over their role and are interested in contributing in a bigger way. You'll stand out from the crowd if you send your resume as well as a cover letter detailing your management style, your most rewarding chocolate/food experience, and why you’d be a great addition to our team. We do our best to respond to all serious candidates within 7-14 days.