Area Catering Manager - Full Time - South Somerset

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 a confident, commercially-minded Area Catering Manager to oversee our Catering operations across several sites in South Somerset. It’s important that you are passionate about delivering outstanding customer service, and will welcome all of our visitors with a smile. If you share these values and are a hands-on leader who thrives on delivering high standards, great service and strong financial results, we’d love to hear from you.

Key Responsibilities:

• Staff rotas, appraisals, training, recruitment and development across sites
• Provide operational support as required, including serving Barista coffee and light meals
• Ensure compliance with food hygiene, Health & Safety and cleanliness standards
• Manage stock ordering, stock takes, and month-end processes
• Own P&L and drive commercial performance aligned with soft play / other site activities
• Deliver results drive Marketing, Promotion and Communication campaigns for the Catering offer
• Motivate and support teams to deliver excellent customer service, including up-serving

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

• Passionate about delivering outstanding customer service with a ‘customer-first’ attitude
• Strong hospitality/catering leadership experience (multi-site ideal)
• Commercially focused with proven P&L understanding
• Confident communicator and motivator
• Operationally involved management style
• Mobility to travel between sites
• Able to multitask and remain calm in a busy environment
• A proactive, flexible and reliable team player

Desirable

• Previous experience in a customer-facing role in leisure, fitness, or community service settings
• Barista experience

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: 14th July 2025

Salary: up to £26,500 per annum