Hospitality and Catering

Head of Catering and Events

Head of Catering & Events

Job Title Head of Catering & Events
Department Catering & Events
Reporting To Managing Director
Direct Reports Head Chef, FOH Supervisors, Bar Staff, Kitchen Assistants, Seasonal Staff
Peer Relationships Sales & Marketing Manager; Heads of Department
Contract Type Full-Time, Permanent

ABOUT LOCH INSH

Loch Insh Outdoor Centre is an award-winning holiday destination in the Cairngorms National Park. Set in 15 acres of mature woodland on the shores of Loch Insh, the business encompasses a 20-room main lodge, 13 chalets, two apartments, an events venue, and The Boathouse Restaurant, alongside a thriving watersports and ski sports activity centre. See www.lochinsh.com.

WHAT ARE YOU HERE TO DO?

As Head of Catering & Events, you are the face, voice, and operational backbone of all dining and events experience at The Boathouse Restaurant. You are responsible for everything the customer sees, hears, tastes and smells from the moment they arrive to the moment they leave — in a venue that is open 365 days of the year, adjusting its offering with the seasons.

You are tasked with designing menus, leading your team, and delivering excellent service and profitability across:

• A core offering of a breakfast and lunch café that transitions into evening table service, operating year-round but accommodating a midweek school group canteen service for breakfast and dinner for seven months of the year.
• Catering for groups, from family gatherings to corporate and academic retreats, where healthy and active lifestyles demand nutritious, filling menus to match.
• Statement events such as weddings, where your culinary background and operational experience combine to deliver a flawless guest experience.

The exceptional guest experience is built around the four pillars of the Loch Insh vision: Inspire, Nurture, Master, Sustain. Your role is pivotal in shaping a positive culture in the Catering and Events team that is legally compliant, commercially profitable, and consistently excellent.

You report directly to the Managing Director and attend Head of Department meetings as the senior Catering & Events representative. You line-manage the Head Chef directly; they carry day-to-day kitchen leadership and are accountable to you for food production, kitchen compliance, and food cost performance.

PERSON SPECIFICATION

Essential
• Proven track record as Head Chef or Senior Chef who has progressed into front-of-house or General Management responsibility OR Events & Guest Experience Management.
• Demonstrable experience delivering multiple service formats: café, à la carte, group catering, and large-scale events including weddings.
• Strong financial acumen: food cost management, GP accountability, Pay-to-Sales monitoring, and budget participation.
• Comprehensive allergen and nutritional knowledge, including group and school catering requirements.
• Thorough working knowledge of CookSafe, HACCP, COSHH, EHO requirements, and Licencing (Scotland) Act 2005.
• Proven ability to lead, develop, and performance-manage a mixed kitchen and FOH team.
• Comfortable communicating at all levels: kitchen team, floor staff, senior management, wedding clients, and group coordinators.
• Rigorous administrative discipline: compliance records, ordering, documentation, and reporting completed to deadline without prompting.
• Full driving license and access to own transport.

Desirable
• Experience in a destination leisure, outdoor activity, or rural hospitality setting.
• Hold or willing to obtain a Personal Licence under the Licencing (Scotland) Act 2005.
• Formal culinary qualification (HND, SVQ Level 3 or equivalent). Applied intelligence and proven track record are valued equally.
• Familiarity with EPOS systems, reservation platforms, and property management software.

Café Supervisor

Seasonal (until 31 October 2026)

What we do? In the Scottish Borders, winding glens and enchanting forests lead to Bowhill House & Estate, where visitors can enjoy walking trails, an adventure playground, House tours, seasonal events and snacks and light lunches in our Old Kitchen Café or Horsebox coffee outlet. Our Visitor Services & catering team play a key role in delivering a warm welcome and high-quality experience for all our visitors.

The role? You will lead front-of-house operations in the Old Kitchen Café and Old Horsebox outlets at Bowhill House throughout the summer and autumn seasons. Responsibilities include supervising front of house colleagues, preparing food and beverages, serving customers and clearing tables, and maintaining stock/catering supplies. In addition, you will work closely with the management team to support wider events and activities and provide duty management cover on a rota basis. This is a full time role, working 40 hours per week over five days including weekends.

The person? With proven supervisor and front of house experience, you will bring practical food preparation skills, and have sound knowledge of food hygiene standards. Candidates must demonstrate excellent communication skills, a strong commitment to customer service, a hands-on approach, and will enjoy working in a fast-paced visitor attraction. Access to your own transport is essential due to our rural location.

Why work for us? We offer excellent benefits including six weeks of pro-rata holiday, gym and shopping discounts, and wellbeing related support and resources.

How to apply? Please visit our website at www.buccleuch.com/work-with-us/ and click on ‘download information pack’ under the relevant job title for more detail on the role and how to apply. If you decide that this is the role for you, click on ‘Apply Now’ and remember to include a covering letter along with your CV.

The closing date for applications is 5 June.

Please view our privacy policy at https://www.buccleuch.com/privacy-cookies/

Waiting Staff

Join the Fruitmarket team!

We are looking for friendly, attentive and reliable waiting staff to join our team. We pride ourselves on creating a fair and friendly workplace with an attractive package of staff benefits. This role will be a floor service role with no bar skills required.

We will only consider applications from people with a minimum of 6 months’ restaurant table service experience.

The Fruitmarket’s café is popular with our exhibition audiences and with busy commuters, local residents, and tourists. Working hours will largely be during our regular opening hours (which are 9am to 6pm, 7 days a week) but the role also involves working events outside of these hours. We are seeking a team member who will be passionate about table service and maintaining and improving the guest experience in the cafe.

This post is paid at Real Living Wage, currently £13.45 per hour, plus tips.

The ideal candidate will be seeking between 14-28 hours per week and available for a minimum of 4 days out of 7.

Application Process
For an informal discussion about the role please contact Craig on 0131 226 8195.
 
Please visit our website https://www.fruitmarket.co.uk/recruitment/ to download the job description and equalities monitoring form.  
 
Please read the job description and submit a CV with a statement outlining that you have the skills for the post, and complete the equalities monitoring information. 

We will also accept a CV and statement in video or audio file.

The application should be emailed to jobs@fruitmarket.co.uk with Waiting Staff as the email subject heading. 

The application deadline is Monday 01.06.26 at 12 noon. If you have not heard from us by 23.06.26 then your application has not been shortlisted.

Visitor Services Supervisor – Food & Beverage

JOB PURPOSE
To provide operational coordination and supervision of food, beverage & hospitality at the Robert Burns Birthplace Museum in line with the Trust’s policies, priorities, performance standards and targets to contribute to the enjoyment of the property by visitors and members, and help ensure commercial, financial, and conservation objectives are achieved.
The Visitor Services Supervisor at a Trust property plays a pivotal role ensuring that the management objectives are achieved through excellent customer service, and, with delegated responsibility for food & beverage, hospitality & duty management is very often the “face” of the Trust to visitors and suppliers. As such, s/he directly influences public perceptions of the Trust and is crucial to developing and maintaining the property’s local/national reputation.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES AND ACCOUNTABILITIES
Supervising/undertaking the day-to-day operation of the property and environment to ensure an excellent customer/visitor experience. This includes supervision of:
• Visitor services, F&B, (including ordering, merchandising, sales targets)
• Line management of Visitor Services Assistants and volunteers to deliver an exceptional visitor experience for all guests
• Overseeing and ensuring that the sale of alcohol legislation is adhered to.
• Being visitor/ customer focused by being visible, approachable, and quick to exceed expectations in fulfilling customer needs.
• Working closely with other managers across the Property to deliver a programme of visitor events, which increase visitor numbers, drive secondary spend and support overall Property targets.

• Working with the Functions & Events Supervisor to deliver the F&B offer for weddings, hospitality, and corporate events
• Duty management and oversight/maintenance of the property
• Deputizing for the Visitor Services Manager / Operations Manager and providing cover for other Visitor Service Supervisors on-site and off-site as required

• Visitor services, functions, events, admissions, and retail offer when acting as Duty Manager
• Ensure the property social media is managed to generate interest, engagement and help drive visitors
• Promoting the National Trust for Scotland as a memberships organization and the benefits of becoming a member to all visitors.
• Security of the Property.
• Health & Safety procedures, emergency procedures, and environmental procedures.
• Instil a Health & Safety culture across the property, ensuring the teamwork within the property’s ‘Safe System of Work’ to reduce risk of incidents and accidents to volunteers, employees, and visitors.

REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS, SKILLS, EXPERIENCE & KNOWLEDGE
Qualifications
• No formal educational qualification required (but see “Experience” below);
• A full, clean driving license for driving in the UK.

Skills, Experience & Knowledge
Essential
• Significant previous experience of working in an operations role in the hospitality industry – including experience managing, leading, coordinating and developing a team with varying remits and professional competences
• Significant previous experience in a customer facing, service environment
• Excellent interpersonal and communication skills and confidence in dealing with a wide range of staff, visitors, and other stakeholders, with a friendly, confident manner
• Excellent organisational, administrative, and time-management skills with the ability to prioritise and re-prioritise workload to meet changing demands.
• Proven sales skills with the ability to achieve targets.
• The ability to think and act quickly when confronted with emergencies.
• To hold, or, have the ability and willingness to hold a Scottish Personal Licence Holder’s Certificate and Personal Licence
• To hold, or, have the ability and willingness to achieve an Intermediate Food Hygiene Certificate
• Access to own transport.
• A full clean driving license valid for the UK and access to a vehicle suitable for use on Trust business (with appropriate business insurance)

Desirable
• A genuine understanding of, and belief in, the work of the National Trust for Scotland
• Previous event coordination/management experience
• An understanding and experience of food and beverage operations within an historic/heritage environment
• A formal qualification in Hospitality, Tourism or Event Management.
• Strong knowledge of Microsoft Office applications: Access, Excel, PowerPoint, Word

Visitor Services Assistant – Food & Beverage

JOB PURPOSE

We are looking for enthusiastic, motivated and talented customer focused individuals to join our team at Castle Fraser.

Castle Fraser is a fabulous place for tourists and locals to soak up the atmosphere of old Scotland. Staff should be passionate about delivering outstanding customer experiences to our visitors and guests and able to maximise opportunities to generate income. Furthermore, we’re looking for team workers who are also able to use their own initiative and are driven to make a difference.
This role is about creating a 5 star visitor experience and providing outstanding customer service.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES AND ACCOUNTABILITIES

• To provide a consistently high standard of visitor care at all times when:
• Welcoming all visitors to the site and processing their catering purchase in a friendly, efficient and knowledgeable manner; supporting visitors with special needs / impairments and providing a high level of service in accordance with the Equality Act.
• Answering visitors’ queries about the catering offer, deals, seating, and ingredients.
• Checking on how visitors are enjoying their experience of catering at and enquiring whether all their needs are met.
• Consistently presenting high quality plating of food.
• Promoting the National Trust for Scotland and the benefits of membership of it.
• To maintain excellent standards of site and personal presentation at all times
• The general ongoing operational cleaning of all areas as necessary
• Wearing correct uniform, name badges, or PPE as required.

SCOPE OF JOB

Customer Service

• Regular interaction with members of the public of all ages and abilities.
Teamwork

• Regular interaction with employee and volunteer colleagues to share daily tasks and support a smooth visitor operation

Sales, stock and financial processes

• Help achieve sales targets and membership recruitment targets
• Operate tills and share end of day cash reconciliation duties, as appointed by Visitor Services Supervisor

Tools/equipment and cleaning chemicals

• Occasional user of cleaning chemicals.
• Expected to become familiar with and comply with the property’s Health and Safety policies or ‘ Safe Systems of Work’

REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS, SKILLS, EXPERIENCE & KNOWLEDGE

Essential:

• Ability to work within a team or independently, with minimal supervision, to a high and safe standard.
• Ability to be flexible and adapt working patterns and tasks to meet day-to-day variations in property needs.
• Ability to adjust pace to match customer flow without compromising quality of service.
• Excellent front of house persona – warm, welcoming, patient and understanding.
• Excellent selling skills.
• Ability to do basic cooking or willingness to learn.
• Genuine belief in the value of good customer service.
• Ability to be proactive and to take the initiative.

Desirable:
• Access to own transport
• Basic Food Hygiene Qualification
• Demonstrable experience in sales with experience of EPOS systems and cash handling/reconciliation.

The current duties of this job do not require a criminal records (Disclosure Scotland) check to be carried out.

Cook

PURPOSE OF ROLE

To assist in the day-to-day management of the Food & Beverage offer at Leith Hall, Garden and Estate, to ensure that all targets are met, and all visitors receive the highest level of visitor experience standards.

Key Responsibilities
• Assist with the development of the Menu Cycle/Specification
• Contribute to food production as per the Menu Cycle/Specification and event Food Production (corporate, hospitality, meetings etc.)
• Keeping up to date HACCP, COSHH checklists and temperature sheets as well as allergen measures/controls
• Ensure high Standards of Kitchen hygiene, cleanliness, tidiness, and related schedules
• Use fresh produce and ingredients whenever and wherever is possible and minimise wastage.
• Maintain a high standard of food presentation to the customer
• Share in the common responsibility of implementing the Trust’s “Health & Safety Policy”, being mindful at all times of the health and safety of self, staff, volunteers, and visitors.
• Share in the common responsibility of working in a manner mindful of the Trust’s obligations to minimise impact on the environment, through e.g., efficient use of water/heat/light, recycling and the disposal of waste, considered use of transport
• Help to reduce occurrences where Health or Safety of yourself and other employees may be put in jeopardy
• Adherence to the COSHH Training provided and control of substances covered by COSHH
• Involvement in the upkeep and maintenance of both the entire department site and, specifically, the Catering Outlets
• Involvement in assessing and preserving the safety of utensils and equipment used within the Catering Outlets.

Dimensions and Scope of Job

• The role works with several departments: retail, catering, and admissions, assisting with special events and functions when required.
• The role requires the post holder to work flexible working patterns and hours including evenings, weekends, and public holidays.

People Management

• The Post Holder does not have direct line management responsibilities
• Will work closely with other property colleagues and will have regular interaction with other technical/specialist advisory colleagues based in other locations and departments
• Will have regular (daily) interaction with suppliers and members of the public of all ages and abilities

Finance Management

• Is not a budget holder
• Responsibility for day-to-day management of stock

Tools/ equipment/ systems
• Will use catering equipment including cooking equipment. coffee machines and dishwashers.
• Will use a wide range of ICT equipment including land-line phone, two-way radio, email, scanner, laptop/PC, printer etc.

Skills, experience & knowledge

The above outlines the key skills and behaviours the job holder will need to possess and exercise. In addition, either knowledge of or experience in the following is required:

Essential
• Demonstrable experience as a cook in preparing and producing food to a consistently high standard using fresh products and ingredients
• Demonstrable baking experience
• Level 2 Food Hygiene
• Highly developed organisational skills, deployable in a multi-tasking environment.
• Good communication skills (written and oral), including influencing/persuasion.
• Ability to work as part of a team and the ability to foster and motivate a team.

Desirable:
• Preferably a recognised formal qualification in culinary arts (e.g., HNC Professional Cookery, NC Bakery)
• Intermediate Food Hygiene Certificate
• First Aid at Work certificate

The current duties of this job do not require criminal records (Disclosure Scotland) check to be carried out.