Front of House Shift Lead + Barista -- MUST HAVE WEEKEND AVAILABILITY.
The Happy Tart | Falls Church, VA
The Front of House Shift Lead + Barista is a hands-on café leadership position responsible for creating an exceptional guest experience while providing active supervision, coaching, and support to our junior Front of House team members.
This person is first and foremost a strong barista and hospitality professional. They work alongside the team during service while also serving as the responsible, experienced person on the floor — keeping junior staff focused, productive, supported, and operating to The Happy Tart's standards.
This is a great role for someone who enjoys working with younger or less-experienced employees and is comfortable giving clear direction, correcting mistakes in the moment, and helping people build confidence and good work habits.
Core Responsibilities
Junior Team Supervision & Coaching
A major responsibility of this role is providing active supervision and structure for junior FOH team members.
The Shift Lead will:
- Serve as the primary point person for junior staff during assigned shifts.
- Assign stations, tasks, side work, cleaning responsibilities, and priorities.
- Make sure junior staff always know what they should be doing next.
- Keep the team engaged and productive during slower periods.
- Coach proper customer service, register, barista, food-handling, cleaning, and closing procedures.
- Demonstrate tasks rather than simply telling someone what to do.
- Correct mistakes promptly, calmly, and respectfully.
- Reinforce expectations around professionalism, attendance, phones, uniforms, cleanliness, and workplace behavior.
- Identify when someone needs additional training and communicate those needs to management.
- Help junior employees develop independence while recognizing when they still require supervision.
- Ensure junior employees do not perform tasks they have not yet been trained or authorized to perform.
- Escalate significant performance, behavioral, safety, or customer-service concerns to management.
The goal: Junior employees should leave every shift more capable than when they arrived — and management should be able to trust that standards are being maintained even when they aren't standing on the floor.
Barista & Beverage Service
This is a working barista position. You must be coffee confident.
Responsibilities include:
- Prepare espresso drinks, coffee, tea, seasonal beverages, and other café drinks according to Happy Tart recipes and standards.
- Properly dial in and monitor espresso throughout the shift.
- Steam milk consistently and correctly.
- Execute beverages accurately during high-volume service.
- Understand dairy-free substitutions and allergy/celiac-safe procedures.
- Maintain beverage presentation and quality standards.
- Train and coach junior employees on beverage preparation.
- Maintain a clean, organized, stocked bar.
- Complete opening, closing, and cleaning procedures for beverage equipment.
- Identify equipment problems and notify management promptly.
- Help maintain appropriate beverage ingredient and supply levels.
Guest Experience
The Shift Lead helps set the tone for hospitality on the floor.
They will:
- Greet and assist guests warmly and confidently.
- Help customers navigate our menu and dietary options.
- Maintain strong knowledge of our products and café offerings.
- Answer questions accurately rather than guessing.
- Model thoughtful, inclusive, professional customer service.
- Step in when junior employees need assistance with a guest interaction.
- Resolve routine guest concerns and escalate larger issues appropriately.
- Monitor the dining room, service counter, pastry case, and pickup areas for cleanliness and presentation.
Register & Order Accuracy
- Operate Square POS accurately and efficiently.
- Ensure junior staff understand proper order entry.
- Monitor modifier and allergy-note accuracy.
- Help prevent missed items, duplicate orders, and incorrect handoffs.
- Verify orders when needed.
- Understand online, pickup, and third-party ordering workflows.
- Assist with opening/closing register procedures as assigned.
Food Safety & Gluten-Free Standards
The Happy Tart is a dedicated gluten-free bakery and café serving many guests with celiac disease and food allergies. Following established food-safety procedures is essential.
The Shift Lead will:
- Model proper handwashing, glove use, food handling, storage, labeling, and sanitation.
- Ensure junior staff consistently follow food-safety procedures.
- Understand and reinforce Happy Tart's allergen protocols.
- Never make assumptions or promises regarding allergens outside established company guidance.
- Monitor FOH cleanliness throughout the shift.
- Correct food-safety concerns immediately.
- Communicate potential contamination, product-quality, or safety concerns to management.
Shift Operations
During assigned shifts, this person helps keep FOH running smoothly.
This includes:
- Complete opening and/or closing procedures.
- Review staffing and assign stations.
- Monitor breaks and shift flow.
- Restock cups, lids, milks, syrups, coffee, tea, serviceware, packaging, and other FOH supplies.
- Maintain pastry case and retail presentation.
- Monitor cleanliness of the café, counters, beverage station, dining room, and guest-facing areas.
- Make sure side work is actually completed — not simply checked off.
- Conduct a final walkthrough before shift change or closing.
- Communicate shortages, equipment issues, unusual customer situations, and staffing concerns to management.
Training Responsibilities
Shift Leads are an extension of our training program.
They are expected to:
- Train new and junior employees using Happy Tart's established procedures.
- Reinforce training consistently from shift to shift.
- Observe employees performing tasks before considering them independently proficient.
- Provide specific, actionable feedback.
- Help maintain training checklists and competency sign-offs.
- Identify gaps in procedures or training materials and communicate them to management.
What This Role Is NOT
This position is not simply the most senior person working the register.
A Shift Lead is expected to lead the floor while actively working on it.
That means noticing when:
- Someone is standing around.
- A junior employee doesn't know what to do.
- A drink is being made incorrectly.
- The pastry case needs attention.
- The café is getting messy.
- Side work isn't being completed.
- A guest needs help.
- Someone is skipping a procedure.
- The team is falling behind.
…and stepping in without waiting for a manager to notice first.
What We're Looking For
Required:
- Strong barista skills or meaningful café/coffee experience.
- Excellent customer-service skills.
- Comfortable supervising and coaching teenagers and/or junior employees.
- Ability to give clear, respectful direction.
- Strong attention to cleanliness and detail.
- Reliable and punctual.
- Able to stay calm and organized during busy service.
- Comfortable holding others accountable to established standards.
- Willingness to work hands-on throughout the entire shift.
- Ability to learn and consistently follow food-safety and allergen procedures.
Especially Valuable:
- Previous shift lead or keyholder experience.
- Experience training new employees.
- Experience working with teen employees or first-time workers.
- Specialty coffee experience.
- ServSafe or food-handler certification.
- Experience in a high-volume café, bakery, restaurant, or hospitality environment.
The Person Who Will Thrive Here
You're warm but not passive.
You like helping younger employees succeed, but you also understand that good supervision means providing structure and holding people accountable.
You notice things.
You don't walk past a dirty table because "that's someone else's section." You don't watch someone make a drink incorrectly and fix it yourself without teaching them. You don't wait for management to create a task list every time business slows down.
You're comfortable saying:
"Let me show you how we do that."
"Try that one again."
"Before you start that, let's finish this."
"Great — you've got it. You can handle the next one."
You're able to be both the safe person to ask for help and the person who maintains the standard.
Success in This Role Looks Like
At the end of a successful shift:
- Guests received warm, accurate, efficient service.
- Drinks were made correctly.
- Junior staff were actively supervised.
- Employees learned something instead of simply being corrected.
- Cleaning and side work were completed thoroughly.
- Food-safety and allergen procedures were followed.
- The café was stocked and organized for the next shift.
- Problems were communicated to management.
- The FOH team operated confidently without requiring constant intervention from senior management.
Most importantly: when this person is leading the floor, management can trust that the café — and the junior team — are in good hands.
Pay: From $22.00 per hour
Application Question(s):
- Are you at least 18 years old?
- Do you have weekend availability?
- Do you have at least 1 year of professional barista or café experience?
- Tell us briefly about your experience training, supervising, coaching, or working alongside younger or less-experienced employees.
- When business is slow and the junior employees you're supervising have finished their immediate tasks, what would you do?
- A junior employee makes the same drink incorrectly for the second time after you've already shown them the correct method. What would you do?
- You're supervising three junior employees. One is on their phone, one is chatting instead of completing closing work, and one is doing exactly what they're supposed to be doing. What do you do?
- Why are you interested in working at The Happy Tart?
Work Location: In person
