Assistant Manager
We’re looking for a specialty coffee barista, with leadership skills and excellent communication to work alongside our manager to run the daily operations of our Ballina venue - the café where it all started, a short walk from our green bean warehouse and roastery.
You'll work alongside our Venue Manager and take full ownership of the venue on their days off. When you're on, you're the leader. The team looks to you; the standard is yours to hold, and the experience our guests have that day is yours to shape.
Day to day, you'll be running floor operations, leading the team, dialling in coffee to taste, and making sure every guest leaves knowing they've had something genuinely special. You'll also handle banking, daily wages, weekly ordering, staff training, and onboarding.
But the bigger picture matters too. Our venues exist to showcase Southeast Asian specialty coffee to future wholesale and online customers - and to deliver what we call Daily Happy to our community. You're not just making coffee. You're telling a story that changes lives.
What you'll own
* Daily Team leadership and operations
* Quality & cleanliness standards
* Guest experience from first hello to last goodbye
* Training and onboarding of new staff
* Daily timesheets, banking and ordering
* Venue presentation and systems
WHO WE'RE LOOKING FOR
You're a dedicated coffee professional, or an ambitious front of house operator with a genuine passion for coffee who wants to keep learning. We can teach you specialty coffee. We can't teach work ethic, genuine warmth, or living a growth mindset.
You'll be someone who:
* Loves fast paced environments and a great team
* Holds yourself and others to a high standard without making it feel heavy
* Builds real connections with guests - not just transactions
* Enjoys making people feel good (hospitality!)
* Solves problems without needing to be told twice
* Wants to grow within an organisation that's growing fast
* Flexible and adapbtible
* Can dial in to taste across espresso and filter brew methods (can teach this!)
* Understands extraction variables and can articulate why a coffee tastes the way it does (self learning required)
WHO WE ARE
Old Quarter is proudly Australia’s only specialty coffee company sourcing, roasting and serving 100% Southeast Asian green beans direct from smallholder farmers in Vietnam, Indonesia, Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, India and Yunnan, China.
Our goal is to change lives through coffee and to pioneer Southeast Asian specialty coffee in the Australian coffee industry. We showcase exceptional and rare coffees from emerging growing regions for everyone to enjoy.
Our venues are specialty coffee destinations, not cafés. We educate, we connect, and our goal is to do more for our customers than anyone else in the industry.
WHAT'S ON OFFER
* Permanent position
* 20-35 hours available
* $65,000–$70,000 FTE (dependent on experience)
* Real career progression in a rapidly growing organisation
* Education, training and upskilling from our coffee team
* Free coffee (obviously) and staff discount
* Monday to Sunday daytime hours - finsish no later than 230pm
* Rosters done 4 weeks in advance.
TO APPLY
Please include a cover letter and references with your resume. Shortlisted applicants will be contacted and taken through an interview process.
Before you apply, we'd love you to spend five minutes on our website — particularly About Us, How We Source Coffee, and Our Impact. We look forward to hearing from you!
Job Types: Part-time, Permanent, Casual
Pay: $65,000.00 – $70,000.00 per year
Benefits:
* Employee discount
* Free drinks
Application Question(s):
* Explain your coffee experience, including with manual brew methods, cold brew and espresso as well as experience dialing in to taste.
* Tell us about a time you were responsible for a team or a shift without a manager present. What did you take ownership of and what was the outcome?
* Describe how you'd handle a situation where a team member isn't meeting the standard, in the moment, on a busy shift.
* What is your most memorable coffee or dining experience and what made it so special?
* Why are you interested in working at Old Quarter? What attracted you to apply?
Work Location: In person