Cafe Chef - Heritage Centre

Groundwork NE & Cumbria; North East; On-site; GBP 20,000 - 24,000; Full time

Job summary

A community-focused charity in North East England is seeking a passionate Café Chef to join their team at the Land of Oak & Iron Heritage Centre. This role provides a unique opportunity to work with locally sourced ingredients, ensuring the delivery of high-quality seasonal dishes. With shifts typically from 8:30 AM to 5:00 PM, this position offers a balance of work and life without regular late-night shifts. Join a friendly team dedicated to providing excellent customer service and community engagement.

Benefits

Excellent work-life balance

Staff discounts

Friendly team environment

Opportunity for creative menu development

Qualifications

• Experience in a kitchen environment, cooking fresh, seasonal food.
• Ability to manage a kitchen and lead by example.
• Organised and hands-on approach to cooking and food presentation.

Responsibilities

• Support the Lead Chef in planning and developing menus.
• Prepare and cook food to order, ensuring quality and consistency.
• Maintain high standards of hygiene and food safety.

Skills

Excellent knife skills

Strong communication skills

Ability to work under pressure

Creativity in menu development

Job description

Café Chef Heritage Centre
Salary: National Living Wage (negotiable depending on experience)
Hours: Minimum 35 per week, typically 8:30am 5:00pm including weekends (with occasional evening/event work)
Location: Land of Oak and Iron Heritage Centre, Winlaton Mill, Gateshead

About Us

Our café is a vibrant, welcoming space where we serve delicious food and drinks to our loyal customers. We pride ourselves on being a close-knit team of friendly and kind individuals who make every customer feel special. The café has become a local favourite, and we re proud to see so many return customers who value our high-quality service. All the profits from our café go towards supporting the fantastic charity, Groundwork Northeast and Cumbria, which helps improve communities and the environment.

Role overview

We are looking for a creative, passionate, and enthusiastic chef to join our kitchen team at the Land of Oak & Iron Heritage Centre. As part of the team, you will be responsible for delivering freshly made to order dishes while ensuring the highest standards of food hygiene, presentation, and customer care.

We are looking for someone with a real passion for preparing and cooking fresh, seasonal food using locally sourced ingredients, someone keen to experiment and innovate with menus, has excellent knife skills, can work well under pressure, and has hands on experience with a range of kitchen equipment. Strong communication skills, a proactive attitude, and the ability to lead and work as part of a team are essential.

With regular daytime hours usually 8:30am 5:00pm (kitchen operating 9:00am 3:00pm), this role offers a rare work-life balance in catering, with no late-night shifts and only occasional evening catering for events.

What you’ll do

• Support the Lead Chef to plan and develop fresh, seasonal menus (breakfasts, lunches, cakes, children s meals and event specials)
• Prepare and cook food to order, ensuring quality, consistency, and speed of service
• Maintain high standards of hygiene, food safety, and allergen management
• Cater for occasional evening events and contribute to seasonal offers
• Work closely with the Lead Chef and centre team to deliver a great experience for all visitors

What We Offer

• Excellent work-life balance typically 8:30am 5:00pm shifts, with the kitchen operational 9:00am 3:00pm
• No regular evening work only occasional event catering with advance notice
• Staff discounts in the café and shop
• Supportive, friendly team environment within a beautiful riverside heritage setting
• Opportunity to be creative and shape the kitchen offer
• A role that contributes to sustainability, local heritage and community engagement

About you

You ll be an organised, creative, and hands-on chef or cook, confident in managing a kitchen and leading by example. You ll take pride in producing quality well-presented food and enjoy the buzz of working in a busy café environment.

We look forward to welcoming you to our team!

Closing Date and application

Closing Date: September 26, 2025
We reserve the right to close this advert at any time.

Interested?

If you would like to find out more, please click the apply button. You will be directed to our website to complete your application for this position.

Make yourself at home

We want you to be yourself at Groundwork and we value everything that makes you unique. We recognise and celebrate your difference and together we make Groundwork a special and great place to work. As a Disability Confident employer we offer a guaranteed interview to applicants with a disability who meet the essential criteria for the role.

At Groundwork we ensure that we provide a safe environment for adults, children and young people to take part in any activity or service that we organise. We are committed to creating a culture that promotes safeguarding and the welfare of all children, young people and adults at risk. Our safer recruitment practices support this by ensuring that there is a consistent and comprehensive process of obtaining, collating, analysing and evaluating information from and about candidates to ensure that all the people we appoint are suitable to work with our children, young people and adults.

This role is not eligible for UK Visa Sponsorship the successful applicant will need to have a pre-existing Right to Work in the UK in order to be offered an employment contract.

No agencies please.