The Groves, Bridge House, 26 Ducie Street, Piccadilly Basin, Manchester M1 2DQ Full time · Opening Q1 2027 · £45,000 per annum
About The Groves
The Groves is a new workspace in Piccadilly Basin for professional firms that introduce work to each other: architects, designers, agents, surveyors, lawyers, lenders and advisory firms, among others. Twelve private office suites sit around a ground-floor coffee and wine bar, run in-house. The bar is the first thing everyone sees: it's our reception, our meeting place and the heart of the building.
Above us are around 200 apartments. Our customers are the businesses in the building, the people who live upstairs, and anyone in Piccadilly Basin who cares about a properly made coffee or a good glass of wine.
The role
We want the coffee and wine bar at The Groves to be one of the best in the city, and to be built around its community.
You'll lead the bar from day one: opening it, shaping it and running it. Coffee to the standard of Manchester's best specialty coffee shops. Wine and cocktails to the standard of its best bars. And a room that the office tenants and residents think of as theirs.
You'll bring excellent barista skills and a real network in the Manchester coffee scene. You'll lead a small team, including a bar lead who focuses on cocktails and wine.
Opening hours
Monday to Saturday, 8am to 8pm. Closed Sundays.
What you'll do
Coffee
- Set and hold a specialty coffee standard that puts us alongside the best in Manchester
- Choose roasters and suppliers, and use your network in the Manchester coffee scene to build those relationships
- Dial in, train the team and keep quality consistent from the first cup to the last
- Own the coffee menu, equipment care and seasonal changes
Wine and cocktails
- Work with the bar lead to build a wine list and cocktail menu to the standard of the city's best bars
- Make sure the shift from coffee to evening drinks feels natural, with the same care at 7pm as at 8am
Community
- Get to know the 12 office tenants and the residents in the 200 apartments above, by name
- Help run our monthly social and business events, and the events tenants host in our event space (up to 50 guests)
- Look after catering for meetings and events in the building
- Make the bar a place where introductions happen: our whole idea is that the businesses here win more work because they are here
Running the bar
- Recruit, train, schedule and lead the team, including the bar lead (cocktails and wine) and baristas
- Own the numbers: sales, margins, stock, wastage, labour and supplier costs
- Keep licensing, food hygiene and health and safety in order
- Act as the friendly front door of The Groves, welcoming visitors and tenants' guests
About you
- Excellent barista experience in high-quality specialty coffee
- An established network in the Manchester coffee scene
- Experience running or managing a bar, café or restaurant, including people and P&L
- A strong working knowledge of wine and cocktails, or the appetite to lead a specialist who has it
- Warm, organised and community-minded: you remember names, and people come back because of you
- A personal licence holder, or willing to get one
What we offer
- The chance to open and shape a new venue from the start
- A central location beside Piccadilly Basin, a short walk from Manchester Piccadilly station
- Sundays off
- A salary of £45,000 per annum
How to apply
Send your CV and a short note on your favourite coffee in Manchester and why to hello@thegroves-mcr.co.uk, with "General Manager" in the subject line.