Catering Manager - Full Time - London

We are Company of Cooks , and we believe brilliant food and drink starts with brilliant people. For over 25 years, we’ve been part of some of the UK’s most loved cultural destinations, from historic palaces and botanical gardens to buzzing galleries and performance spaces, running the cafés, restaurants, bars and events that bring these incredible places to life.

Our values - Craft, Creativity and Community - guide everything we do. They shape how we work together, how we support our partners, and how we make each guest feel welcome. If you care about food, people and doing things properly, you’ll feel right at home here.

Wherever we are, we do more than serve. We bring places to life through food, service and creativity and we’re looking for a Catering Manager to join our team in London .

Location: London EC3N 4AB

Rate of Pay: £35,000 per annum

Working Pattern: 40 hours per week, 5/7, 8:30am - 5:00pm

Key Responsibilities:

Guest Experience & Service:

• Lead a warm, fast, and consistent service culture across all outdoor points of sale.

• Be a visible floor leader during peak trading; handle guest feedback and recover service on the spot.

• Ensure clear, attractive menus/price points and signage suitable for high-footfall, outdoor trading.

Food Safety, Quality & Compliance:

• Ensure 100% compliance with HRP/Company of Cooks/Compass standards and EHO requirements.

• Maintain accurate product specifications, allergen matrices and matching labels at every unit; no service without correct labelling.

• Enforce strict separation and handling for vegan/NGCI items; monitor hot-holding, probe temps, date coding and cleaning schedules.

• Keep outdoor units “EHO-ready” at all times; lead corrective actions and verification checks.

Commercial & Results:

• Own daily/weekly sales, GP% and labour targets for outdoor units; build action plans when off-track.

• Plan menus/price architecture with GM/Chef for seasonality, weather and events; reduce waste via tight forecasting.

• Use Lolly Move reports for mix, voids, promos and basket insights; drive upsell (meal add-ons, drinks, desserts).

• Control disposables (target ~7% cost for takeaway) and stock losses; complete weekly stock counts and variance reviews.

People Leadership:

• Recruit, train and rota outdoor teams in line with agreed minimum structures (non holiday and peak).

• Deliver on-shift coaching (service speed, product knowledge, allergen confidence, cashless/till).

• Manage performance, welfare and conduct fairly; celebrate wins and maintain high morale in all-weather trading

Operations & Logistics:

• Build efficient rotas in Ubeya aligned to forecast and footfall; manage breaks and peak cover.

• Coordinate set-up/pack-down, cleaning and secure movement/storage of carts and equipment.

Health, Safety & Security:

• Conduct and record daily H&S checks, equipment pre-use checks and dynamic risk assessments for outdoor trading.

• Enforce PPE, slip/trip controls, manual handling for cart moves, safe hot-drink service and knife policy.

Stakeholder & Site Management:

• Guest: Compliments/complaints ratio; service time at peak; mystery/brand audit scores.

• Safety: EHO outcome; internal audit pass rate; zero critical allergen incidents.

• Commercial: Sales vs forecast; GP% on outdoor units; labour % to plan; waste %; disposables cost %. • People: Retention; training completion; absence; engagement pulse results.

• Compliance: Label/spec alignment 100%; temperature/cleaning record completion 100%.

Skills & experience:

• Proven supervisor/manager experience in high-footfall, outdoor or quick-service F&B.

• Strong food safety knowledge (Level 3 Food Hygiene preferred) and allergen management confidence. • Commercially sharp: forecasting, labour planning, GP drivers, waste control.

• Systems: Lolly Move (or similar POS), rota/HR platforms (e.g., Ubeya), MS Office/Sheets.

• Physically capable of outdoor trading requirements (weather exposure, safe manual handling of carts/equipment).

• Calm, clear communicator; leads from the front and coaches in the moment.

What's in it for you?

Working with Company of Cooks has its perks! People are at the heart of everything we do, so we've developed a range of benefits to keep you happy. 

• Personal Development and Training opportunities 
• Life assurance scheme 
• Pension scheme 
• Holiday allowance 
• Private medical eligibility 
• Eye care 
• A great wellbeing strategy – including access to our Employee Assistance Programme, salary finance 
• Family friendly support 
• Regular social events and communication with our leaders 
• A holiday purchase scheme 
• Volunteering days 
• Professional subscriptions 
• Recognition schemes and people awards 
• Long service awards 
• Access to some great high street discount vouchers