Role: Farm Shop & Café Manager
Location: Longtown, Cumbria
Salary: Up to £40,000 per annum
Contract: Full Time, Permanent
Realise HR is working exclusively with Netherby Hall Limited to recruit a Farm Shop & Café Manager for Haithwaite Farm.
Haithwaite Farm is the third and brand-new site for Netherby Hall Ltd. This is a broader leadership opportunity with responsibility across both the Farm Shop and Café, bringing the two customer-facing operations together under one manager.
Role overview
The purpose of this role is to lead and develop both the Farm Shop and Café operations, ensuring an excellent customer experience, strong commercial performance and consistently high operational standards across both functions.
This is a hands-on leadership role requiring someone who can move comfortably between retail and hospitality operations, develop and motivate teams, understand the numbers behind performance and ensure both areas work effectively together.
You will take an overview of the complete customer journey across the Farm Shop and Café, identifying opportunities to grow sales, improve performance and develop Haithwaite Farm as a destination business.
You will be responsible for:
Operational Leadership
- Lead the day-to-day operation of both the Farm Shop and Café.
- Ensure both areas deliver consistently high operational and customer service standards.
- Create a joined-up approach across the Farm Shop and Café, ensuring both operations work effectively together.
- Maintain high standards of presentation, organisation and customer experience across both areas.
- Support the ongoing growth and development of Haithwaite Farm as a destination business.
Commercial Performance
- Drive sales, profitability and customer satisfaction across both the Farm Shop and Café.
- Monitor performance across both functions and identify opportunities for commercial growth.
- Use operational performance and customer insight to support decision-making and improve results.
- Deliver seasonal promotions, events and commercial initiatives.
- Identify opportunities to increase customer spend and strengthen the overall Haithwaite Farm offering.
Stock, Purchasing & Suppliers
- Oversee stock management and purchasing across the Farm Shop and Café.
- Manage supplier relationships and ensure appropriate stock availability across both functions.
- Maintain effective inventory control while balancing availability, quality and commercial performance.
People Leadership
- Lead, develop and motivate the Farm Shop and Café teams.
- Manage staffing, rotas and workforce planning across both operations.
- Create a positive working environment with clear expectations around customer service, performance and operational standards.
- Support the development of team members and encourage effective working across both areas.
Compliance & Standards
- Maintain food safety, health & safety and compliance standards.
- Ensure appropriate procedures and operational standards are maintained consistently across the Farm Shop and Café.
About you
You will be an experienced retail or hospitality manager who is comfortable taking responsibility for more than one operational area and balancing customer experience, people leadership and commercial performance.
You will be a visible, hands-on leader who can build strong teams while maintaining oversight of the wider operation. Commercially aware, you will understand how staffing, stock, purchasing, service standards and customer experience influence sales and profitability.
You will be organised, adaptable and confident managing competing priorities, with the ability to move between the detail of day-to-day operations and the wider development of the business.
Most importantly, you will recognise the opportunity to bring the Farm Shop and Café together as one customer experience and play an important role in establishing Haithwaite Farm as a destination.
What you’ll bring:
Experience & Skills
- Management experience within retail, hospitality, food retail, café, restaurant or a comparable customer-facing environment.
- Strong leadership and people-management capability.
- Experience managing day-to-day operations and multiple priorities.
- Commercial awareness with an understanding of sales, profitability and operational performance.
- Experience managing staffing, rotas and workforce requirements.
- Experience of stock management, purchasing and supplier relationships.
- Strong customer service and communication skills.
- Good organisational and problem-solving abilities.
- An understanding of food safety, health & safety and operational compliance.
Personal Qualities
- A confident and hands-on leader.
- Commercially minded and focused on results.
- Passionate about delivering an excellent customer experience.
- Organised, proactive and able to manage competing priorities.
- Professional, approachable and supportive.
- Comfortable working across both retail and hospitality environments.
- Adaptable and enthusiastic about joining a growing business.
- Motivated by the opportunity to help develop Haithwaite Farm as a destination.
Realise HR
Don’t meet every single requirement? At Realise, we are dedicated to helping our clients build diverse, inclusive and authentic workplaces, so if you're excited about this role but your past experience doesn't align perfectly with every requirement, we would encourage you to apply anyway! You might be just the candidate we're looking for!
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