Company description

Family owned. Seasonally fresh. Always local first. The Curb Market is for folks who prefer ethically-grown, natural foods that sustain the future of our local food supply.

The market was founded in October 2015 on Cooper St. as a small grocery store, focused primarily on locally sourced produce, dry goods, crafts, and a small offering of meats and prepared foods. In June 2017, the market moved to Crosstown Concourse in Midtown and expanded its offerings to that of a full-service grocery store. The market includes the sale of meats, produce, beer, wine, and other locally sourced products, as well as a kitchen dedicated to fresh, high quality prepared foods.

Peter Schutt opened the Curb Market in an effort to stimulate a struggling local food economy, and to provide a retail outlet for Winchester Farm, his cattle, pork, and produce operation. Winchester Farm strives to give its cattle, chickens and hogs the best life possible. No pesticides, herbicides or chemicals are used; and free-ranging animals are raised without the use of steroids, growth hormones or antibiotics. The soil that has been rejuvenated over the past decade in Dancyville, Tennessee, serves as the foundation for all healthy animals and quality produce. All meat is locally processed at a USDA inspected facility and butchered in a butcher shop adjacent to Winchester Farm. Winchester Farm and the Curb Market work together closely to provide customers with the best meats and vegetables available on both the retail floor and on our hot bar, salad bar, soups and sandwiches. The kitchen has fresh and ready hot foods, homemade soups and stews, a salad bar piled high with local produce, sandwiches stuffed with local ingredients. Aisles are stacked with top-quality finds. From locally-grown grains, to bread delivered fresh from neighborhood bakers, to organic broths, nut butters, specialty oils, and local beers.

The Curb Market is centrally located on the ground floor within Crosstown Concourse, a one million square foot adaptive reuse of the historic Sears building, constructed in 1927 and once a major distribution center and retail store for Sears, Roebuck & Co in Memphis, Tennessee. The larger Crosstown Concourse complex is a vertical urban village anchored in arts, education and healthcare, including a charter high school for arts and sciences, graduate program in education, health and wellness institutions, grocery and marketplace, commercial/office, and a diverse range of residential living spaces. 3,000 people come and go from the Concourse building daily.

Job description

RESPONSIBILITIES

General

• Hire, train and develop a successful team in all aspects of market operations, including but not limited to stocking and merchandising, food service, sales and cash register operation, record-keeping, cleaning, and area-specific tasks.
• Maintain lean labor costs by cross-training employees for multiple tasks.
• Ensure that all federal, state and store regulations and standards for product freshness, safety, refrigeration, and sanitation are met.
• Establish an attractive product mix of specialty food and craft items for the retail section of the store, as well as identify reasonable sourcing paths.
• Oversee visual merchandising to create unique and attractive product displays and retail environment in all areas of the market.
• Develop strategies to maximize the benefit of vertical integration with Winchester Farms, and leverage this direct-sourcing path whenever possible.
• Develop marketing strategies to attract and grow customer base, both inside and outside Concourse; develop creative ways to educate customers about products, and identify areas of opportunity for growth in the future
• Manage market POS system (Catapult system by ECR Software) to produce sales reporting; analyze data to drive changes and improvements to respond to market demand.
• Utilize the Concourse loading dock and other common areas for special events and farmer’s market; work strategically with neighboring retail partners on event and programming collaborations to both enrich community interaction and increase sales.

Food Service Management

• Ensure high quality and appealing presentation of prepared foods, sourcing fresh ingredients, locally whenever possible.
• Oversee menu and recipe development with a price point that continues to grow customer count
• Further develop catering business, including marketing, taking orders, costing menus, scheduling labor and deliveries, interacting with customers, coordinating billing and payment, and quality assurance

Inventory Management

• Check supply and product levels, reorder products when necessary, and receive/store items when delivered to ensure fully stocked shelves are maintained at all times. Produce may come from multiple local sources (especially in the peak growing season, Apr - Sept), instead of one produce vendor in the off season. Currently, market products come from two dozen local vendors.
• Coordinate with kitchen manager to transfer meats from butcher shop to kitchen for food service

Customer Sales and Services

• Maintain a high quality of customer service, customers’ in-store experiences, and with catering events
• Act as point person for customers who call in special meat or catering orders.
• Train staff to be hospitable to customers, approaching them when they enter the market to greet them, ask questions, help them find what they are looking for, and/or make product or service recommendations.
• Resolve customer complaints in a gracious, timely and professional manner.

QUALIFICATIONS

• Bachelors degree and +5 years of successful experience in food service and grocery management, as sales are nearly 50/50 split between these two sectors of the store
• Excellent interpersonal and communication skills
• Tech savvy and familiarity with inventory and POS management software
• Strong supervisory and management skills relative to successful operation and execution of all areas of production and sales, including grocery with limited specialty foods and crafts, dairy, produce, beer and wine, and meats, as well as a food Service with kitchen, cafe, prepared foods, and grab-n-go deli
• Understanding basic accounting as relates to inventory and COGS
• Long-term strategic and financial planning skills
• Proficiency with automated reporting systems including, but not limited to, inventory, food cost, scheduling, time & attendance and labor preferred
• Ability to inspire a cohesive team and champion new ideas and initiatives

This position requires an ongoing commitment to the following:

• Even-tempered disposition. Ability to work under pressure in a composed and courteous manner with the clear understanding that unprofessional, unkind or unfriendly interactions with the public or other staff members are not acceptable under any circumstances.
• Prompt and timely communicator. Ability to manage a demanding level of correspondence in all forms of communication. Especially important are excellent written and verbal communication skills.
• Inclusive and Collaborative. Eagerness to work collaboratively with a diverse staff and neighboring tenants.
• Organized. Ability to manage a high volume of information and tasks for multiple projects simultaneously, at varying levels of completion.
• Gracious with people. Ability to work well with the public with a composed and supportive attitude, and to exhibit a good-natured, positive, gracious and cheerful demeanor toward others, at all times.
• Enthusiastic, energetic and positive. Ability to sustain an ongoing spirit of positivity in high-pressure and demanding situations. Great level of passion and enthusiasm for sales, programming and marketing related to food and culinary arts.
• Receptive. Ability to accept and execute a wide range of tasks necessary to complete projects, including simple/basic tasks as well as highly detailed directives, regardless of scale
• Attentive to details. Ability to sustain close attention to an ongoing set of constantly emerging details unique to each situation, ranging from visual/space needs to interpersonal requests from other staff and customers
• Assertive, determined and focused. Ability to stay on task, working under pressure to problem-solve and proactively find solutions to obstacles in resourceful ways.
• Care for user experience. Ability to find incentive and motivation in a satisfactory end-user experience for all customers.

BENEFITS AND COMPENSATION

This is a salaried, full-time position eligible for all Curb Market benefits (including health insurance, PTO, etc.). Salary will be competitive and commensurate with level of experience and skill, including an equity partnership with defined pathway to ownership.

Compensation

this position is: salaried, $50,000 to $100,000

Application instructions

Deadline

no deadline