Coffee Shop Lead

Coffee Shop Lead

TreeHaus Waterloo  · Reports to the founding team  ·  Start: immediately — ahead of opening

ABOUT TREEHAUS

TreeHaus is a specialty coffee café and community space opening in downtown Waterloo. We're building the kind of place a city uses as its living room: excellent coffee, a warm room, and programming that gives people a reason to come back. Downtown Waterloo is our first location.

THE ROLE

You are the face of TreeHaus in Waterloo — the person who knows every regular by name, sets the tone of the room, runs the café day to day,  and helps to  build the programming that makes this more than a coffee shop. You hold the bar to the highest coffee standard and help make great coffee approachable to everyone who walks in. You'll help open the shop with us and own the floor from day one. You are not just leading a coffee shop — you are building a community institution that happens to serve excellent coffee.

WHAT YOU'LL DO

• Lead the opening — equipment setup, training, soft-launch events, and opening day.
• Run the floor day to day — open and close, assist in building the schedule, and keep daily and weekly tasks done to standard. Handle cash: drawers, change, and deposits.
• Own coffee quality and knowledge — hold every drink to the highest standard, and know the coffees and teas inside out (origins, processing, flavor) so you can guide customers and teach the team.
• Keep the bar running — daily cleaning and upkeep on the espresso machine, grinders, and brewer; basic troubleshooting; and flagging issues early so we're never down mid-rush.
• Manage inventory — daily stock and bean counts, ordering, a tidy and rotated retail shelf, and current knowledge of the bakery and food offerings.
• Be the public face — regulars, social media, press, and community relationships.
• Own the numbers that matter — daily sales, labor, waste, and the regulars roster.

WHAT YOU BRING

• Hospitality leadership — 2+ years of front-of-house leadership in a café, restaurant, bar, or hotel.
• A real love of coffee — and the drive to keep learning it. 
• Cedar Valley roots — or a clear plan to build them fast.
• Community-building experience — you've planned and pulled off a market, popup, or event series.
• Comfort being public-facing: press, social, and a hundred first names.
• Operational baseline: scheduling, ordering, POS, cash handling, Google Drive, and basic reporting.
• An entrepreneurial streak — you've built something, or you want to.
• The physical reality of the job: you're on your feet through a shift, lifting up to ~50 lbs, in a busy, happy, sometimes loud room.

WHAT WE OFFER

• Competitive pay
• PTO after first 90 days
• Full coffee-program training
• A real seat at the table — your input shapes this location and the TreeHaus model

HOW TO APPLY

Send a short note about yourself (a resume helps but a good note matters more) to [email protected] with the role in the subject line. We read everything.