Area Catering Manager - Full Time - South Somerset

Description

Join the Energy at Freedom Leisure – Do Good Feel Good!

At Freedom Leisure, we’re all about positive vibes, great people, and making a real impact. Yes, we run leisure and cultural facilities, gyms, and swimming pools—but at the heart of it all, it’s our people who make the difference.

As one of the UK’s leading charitable leisure trusts, we’re proud of our mission: Improving Lives Through Leisure. We’re here to help communities live healthier, happier lives by making our centres welcoming, inclusive, and accessible to everyone—because everyone deserves to feel good. We’re all about delivering amazing customer service with a smile—every single day. We create spaces where people feel at home, supported, and inspired. If you’re passionate about helping others and love creating great experiences, you’ll feel right at home with us.

With over 130 centres across England and Wales, you have the freedom to grow. Many of our team have built amazing careers doing what they love, helping customers day-to-day and making people feel good.

We’re proud to be a workplace where everyone is welcome, valued, and supported to thrive—because when our team reflects the communities we serve, we all grow stronger together.

This is your place, this is where you matter.

We’re looking for someone confident to take the lead on all things catering across a few of our sites in South Somerset.

If you’re a people-person who enjoys keeping things running smoothly you might be just who we need. You will be involved, great with the team, and not afraid to jump in when it gets busy.

This role’s perfect for someone who’s organised, up for a challenge, and loves making customers happy.

What you’ll be doing:

• Sorting staff rota’s, hiring, training and helping your team grow
• Getting involved day-to-day — from making barista coffee to serving light bites
• Keeping everything safe, clean and up to standard
• Handling stock, orders and monthly numbers
• Owning the catering budget and helping the sites hit their goals
• Working with other teams to promote catering alongside soft play and other activities
• Running fun and effective promotions and helping spread the word
• Keeping your teams motivated and focused on delivering great service (and a bit of up-selling)

In the event that a high volume of suitable applications are received, the post may close prior to the specified closing date. Please apply as soon as possible if interested.

Hours: 37 hours a week - Monday to Sunday

Requirements

• You love giving great customer service and making people feel welcome
• You have got some experience supervising or managing a team
• You have experience or are happy to learn about how to manage targets
• You’re a clear communicator and a natural motivator
• You're involved and like to get stuck in
• You’re happy to travel between a few different sites
• You stay cool under pressure and can juggle a few things at once
• You’re reliable, flexible and a true team player

Desirable

• Have previous experience managing a team in a Catering, Hospitality or Retail
• Have worked in leisure, soft play, fitness or community centres
• Know your way around a coffee machine

Benefits

We want you to love coming to work, feeling healthy, happy and valued. That's why we've developed a benefits package with you in mind, so what can we offer you?

• My Staff Shop, our very own staff benefit scheme, gives employees access to a great range of benefits. Get discounts on cinema tickets, travel bookings, high street e-vouchers, gift cards, days out, leisure activities and your day to day spending.
• Discounted Staff membership (including family members)
• Incremental holidays
• Employee Assistance Programme - 24/7 confidential, independent and professional counselling.
• Company pension
• Various insurance and saving schemes
• Financial advice
• Cycle-to-work and Car Leasing tax-efficient schemes (salaried staff only, depending on earnings)
• All this as well as fully funded training and career progression opportunities in a team working environment

Closing date: 29th July 2025

Salary: up to £26,500 per annum