Derby City Council Careers – Catering Assistant

Directorate: Museums
Hours: 37 hours a week. (Shared nights off every week, frequently shared weekend days off, structured work/life balance)
Contract type: Permanent
Location: Derby Museums, Museum of Making

The Museum of Making has completed a five-year £17.5m programme on the site of the world’s first factory. Celebrating the area’s rich history of innovation, the Museum of Making is a contemporary space telling Derby’s 300-year history of making to inspire new creativity. A variety of galleries and exclusive events spaces as well as a bustling fresh-food café are available to create a high standard, expectation-exceeding guest experience, so we need a talented front of house team to make that happen!

We are seeking an enthusiastic and passionate Catering Assistant to join our growing front of house team, based at the Museum of Making but often working at any of our 3 sites in the centre of Derby. As a catering assistant, you will be entrusted to look after a fantastic on-site restaurant at The River Kitchen where you will be working with high quality and locally sourced produce inspired by our Derbyshire heritage within a busy site, from making the perfect flat white to our in-house recipe, to serving the best cream tea in town!

As well as operating as a café, we also host events alongside during the day, our catering assistants are the face of our events, from setup, meet and meet & greet, to close-down and reset, no day will be the same.

We operate as a busy restaurant and corporate venue by day and transform to a unique events venue by night, hosting gala dinners, awards ceremonies, weddings, and special events from small groups to large numbers of 120+ guests, and our diary is forever growing with new enquiries! Specific duties outside of our café shifts may be dressing a wedding in the Italian Mill, stocking the bar, preparing arrival drinks stations or laying tables and folding napkins into butterflies! Or you may be working a later shift and coming in to serve a 4-course menu to the guests, close-down the kitchen and then jump on the bar for the night.

Derby Museums is registered with The Hospitality Charter, meaning we share a passion for breaking the stigma on Hospitality not being an amazing place to work, we strive to offer an excellent work/ life balance and believe in working fair hours for all, that’s why we work a variety of shifts so everyone can enjoy a fair few nights off and weekend days off, we all do our bit.

You will have a very strong eye for detail and a good understanding of what it takes to balance and prioritise multiple responsibilities in a busy site and events venue. Our catering teamwork a variety of hours, so you need to be able to reliably commute to the centre of Derby as rotad. A passion for quality food and drink, high service level and guest experience is essential. You will also be a good team player who enjoys the pressures of a busy workplace.

We love to develop our team, so we will offer you all compliance training as standard and we are happy to discuss development in any areas of the Hospitality sector after a period of employment. 1 years’ experience as waiting staff, food & beverage assistant or similar is preferable, but not essential.

Employee Benefits: 20 days (pro rata) + bank holidays (if not working), fantastic pension, Christmas close-down, mileage allowance payable on authorised business travel.
We believe that diversity and equality within our workplace, programmes and in our outlook is crucial. We therefore particularly welcome applications from candidates that are under-represented at Derby Museums and within the heritage sector, including black and minority ethnic candidates and/or candidates with a disability.

For further details and how to apply please visit https://www.derbymuseums.org/about/jobs/

The closing date for this vacancy is Friday 14th October 2023
Any application forms received after the closing date will not be accepted.

Interviews will be held at the Museum Of Making, Derby Silk Mill, 32 Full Street. DE1 3AF week commencing 17th October 2023.