Specialty Cookware - Shop Associate
Cookery is a specialty kitchenware store & cooking class studio in West Toronto's Roncesvalles neighbourhood, Bloor West Village, North Toronto's Yonge & Eglinton area, and in Westmount, Montreal. We have a beautiful selection of both everyday and heirloom items to offer passionate home cooks, and cooking-inspired gift givers in our neighbourhoods.
We offer a range of items that offer high performance and enduring quality to add quality tools and beauty to the kitchens of Canadian home cooks. In addition, we run a boutique cooking school in-store and online, providing classes in everything from basic foundational skills (knife skills, pastry making) to beautiful 3 course meals with wine pairings.
Cookery is an exciting place to work - every day is a bit different, the store teams are friendly and all love to talk about food, and we’ll help you build your own cookware collection with a healthy employee discount. While assisting our Instructor Chefs during cooking classes, you’ll be sure to learn new recipes and techniques from around the globe.
Job Description:
We are looking for both part-time positions supporting the retail operations of the shop and cooking class assistance, including evenings and weekends, about 20 - 35 hrs per week. We are currently hiring for our Yonge street shop at 2588 Yonge, as well as our new shop at 55 Bloor Street West, in Yorkville's Manulife Centre.
This role is ideally suited to an outgoing people-person who loves to cook and entertain, but also understands that organizing, dusting, and putting out the garbage are just things that come with daily life. There are a lot of stairs at Cookery, with frequent trips up and down carrying boxes and bags, this has to sound good for you, your knees, and your back! The ideal candidate will excel at customer service and strive to be helpful and thoughtful when dealing with our clients, as well as be detail oriented in caring for our boutique.
Role and Responsibilities
- Quickly become a content expert in product knowledge, features and benefits, pros and cons, of our selection of over 500+ products
- Engage with customers to understand their cooking and gifting needs, identify the right products to meet those needs, sharing culinary experience, expertise, and ideas as needed.
- Complete sales transactions and package merchandise, with gifting in mind where appropriate.
- Prepare packaging and shipments for online store transactions.
- Assist the manager with effective store merchandising & inventory management.
- Assist the manager with various opening and closing activities, including, but not limited to, sales reporting, opening/closing the store, store maintenance and cleaning.
- Assist the Instructor Chef in executing cooking classes, including, but not limited to:
- preparing the space prior to class
- preparing class materials and setup
- welcoming participants and representing Cookery during class
- assisting the Chef with tasks such as food prep, plating, organizing and cleaning
- cleaning up after class (in partnership with the cleaning team who arrives after class)
- preparing the space for morning retail post-class
Qualifications:
- RETAIL 'KITCHEN STORE' EXPERIENCE - A STRONG ASSET
- 2+ years in Retail Sales (ie. specialty foods, premium goods, other)
- Passionate about cooking and the great tools and wares available to enhance cooking & entertaining - a 'serious home cook'
- Enjoy discussing food and kitchen trends, reading and/or writing cooking and food blogs
- Have a flare for retail and great customer service - you enjoy talking to people about their cooking routines and kitchen needs - with patience, positive energy, and down to earth approachability
- Able to go up/down stairs many times per day as well as lifting and carrying inventory.
- Great with detail, highly organized, comfortable with iPad point-of-sale system, happy to troubleshoot a printer malfunction or wifi connection
- Food Handling Certification & Smart Serve an asset - to be completed upon hiring
- You are what your friends and family refer to as 'a really nice person' (this is critical!)
Job Type: Part-time
Pay: $18.00-$23.15 per hour
Benefits:
- Dental care
- On-site parking
- Store discount
Ability to commute/relocate:
- Toronto, ON M4P 2J3: reliably commute or plan to relocate before starting work (required)
Experience:
- Retail Store sales: 5 years (required)
- Retail Customer service: 5 years (required)
Work Location: In person
