Cafe Team Member

Tesco Plc; Reading; On-site; GBP 40,000 - 60,000; Part time

Job summary

An established grocery retailer is seeking a Team Member for their café in Reading. You will share cooking tasks and engage with customers, ensuring food safety and quality. The role offers flexible working hours with a guaranteed minimum of 16 hours per week. Join a supportive team and enjoy benefits like a colleague discount, retirement plan, and free wellbeing services. Ideal candidates have a strong commitment to hospitality and can work efficiently under pressure.

Benefits

Colleague Clubcard discount

Flexible working options

Retirement savings plan

Life Assurance

Access to free wellbeing services

Exclusive deals and discounts

Uniform provided

28 days holiday including Bank Holidays

Qualifications

• Comfortable working in a team.
• Great communicator with a proactive attitude.
• Confident using initiative to improve ways of working.

Responsibilities

• Keeping kitchen equipment and utensils clean and tidy.
• Serving customers quickly, efficiently and with care.
• Following food safety and hygiene regulations while keeping daily records.

Skills

Commitment to hospitality and excellent customer service

Knowledge of Health and Safety standards

Ability to multitask and work well under pressure

Job description

Overview

Tea is brewing. Café doors are opening. The day is about to start, and so are our café team members. They’re the talented people making every day a little better for our customers. Join them.

As a Team Member in our café, you’ll be part of everything – a bit of cooking, a bit of chatting with customers, and a lot of impact. You’ll make sure that every dish you prepare and serve lives up to the promise of our menu and meets all safety standards. Along with this, you’ll help keep everything, from kitchen equipment to customer tables, tidy and clean.

It’s a lively role, full of everyday challenges, but that’s just one of the reasons it’s so exciting. A few other reasons include flexible working hours, opportunities for progression and so much more.

We offer new colleagues a minimum of 16 guaranteed hours each week, but you can work as few as 12 hours if that suits you better.

Our availability windows are listed in the table below. We schedule your contracted hours within these times and provide at least 3 weeks’ notice of when your shifts will be. We support flexibility; if your availability closely matches our advertised windows, we’ll still consider you.

Please note that you need to be 18 or over to apply for this role.

Responsibilities

• Keeping kitchen equipment and utensils clean and tidy.
• Serving customers quickly, efficiently and with care.
• Following food safety and hygiene regulations while keeping daily records.
• Practising first‑in, first‑out (FIFO) stock rotation to keep our food fresh.
• Accepting deliveries and handling the safe storage of food.
• Being aware of and following all operational policies and procedures.
• Preparing, cooking, and serving food according to our café’s menu.
• Ensuring all food products are available and maintained to our standards.
• Knowing our menu inside and out and serving food exactly as intended.
• Resolving customer complaints and passing on information to the Café Manager.
• Staying up‑to‑date with business communications and new initiatives.
• Clearing and sanitising tables so our café stays clean.

Requirements

• A commitment to hospitality and excellent customer service.
• Knowledge of Health and Safety standards.
• The ability to work efficiently and maintain a clean environment.

Personal Qualities

• Comfortable working in a team.
• Great communicator with a proactive attitude.
• Ability to multitask and work well under pressure.
• Confident using initiative to improve ways of working.
• Good at planning and keeping things organised.
• Adaptable to working in the buzz of a fast‑paced environment.

Benefits

• Colleague Clubcard after 3 months service – 10% increasing to 15% after every pay day for a four‑day period, off most purchases at Tesco.
• Request flexible working from day one.
• Retirement savings plan.
• Life Assurance.
• Access to free wellbeing services with a range of resources to support your mind, body and life.
• An exclusive deals and discounts website saving you money on everyday purchases, treats for the family, eating out and utility bills for the home.
• Uniform provided and policies to support you for all of life’s moments, big and small.
• Holiday starting at 28 days (including Bank Holidays).
• Access to our colleague networks providing a space for colleagues to come together from a range of backgrounds.

About Us

With 329 Cafes across the country and counting, our teams work closely to make sure that the customer experience is to the best standard and service; no two days are ever the same! Tesco Cafes are a great place to work, with a genuine family feel – truly a place to get on.

Diversity, equity and inclusion (DE&I) at Tesco means that whoever you are and whatever your background, we always want you to feel represented and that you can be yourself at work. In short, we’re a place where everyone’s welcome.

We know life looks a little different for each of us. That’s why at Tesco, we always welcome chats about flexible working. Some people are at the start of their careers, some want the freedom to do the things they love. Others are going through life‑changing moments like becoming a carer, nearing retirement, adapting to parenthood, or something else. So, talk to us throughout your application about how we can support.

We’re proud to have been accredited Disability Confident Leader and are committed to providing a fully inclusive and accessible recruitment process. For further information on the accessibility support we can offer, please click here.

Additional Information

On the occasions where we have high volumes of applicants, some roles may close earlier than the advertised end date in order for us to manage all of the applicants appropriately. We will only be able to offer individual feedback to those candidates who attend an interview.