Lead Barista

Palm Vintage is seeking a passionate, experienced, and detail-oriented Lead Coffee & Matcha Barista to join our opening team. We are an upscale café, sushi, and cocktail bar concept located in Philadelphia, designed around refined hospitality, high-quality ingredients, and a memorable guest experience from morning through evening.

The Lead Coffee & Matcha Barista will play a key role in building and maintaining our beverage program, with a focus on specialty coffee, matcha, espresso-based drinks, tea service, seasonal beverages, and overall café operations. This person should have strong barista skills, leadership ability, excellent organization, and a genuine passion for hospitality.

This role is ideal for someone who not only knows how to make great coffee and matcha, but also knows how to lead a team, create consistency, maintain standards, and help shape the guest experience.

Prepare and serve high-quality espresso drinks, brewed coffee, matcha, tea, and specialty beverages.

• Lead the coffee and matcha bar during service while maintaining speed, cleanliness, and quality.

• Dial in espresso daily and monitor grind, extraction, taste, and consistency throughout service.

• Prepare matcha beverages properly, including whisked matcha, iced matcha, flavored matcha drinks, and seasonal matcha specials.

• Maintain strong knowledge of coffee, espresso, milk steaming, alternative milks, tea, matcha, syrups, flavor pairings, and drink presentation.

• Train, support, and guide baristas and café staff on beverage standards and recipes.

• Help develop and maintain recipes, build guides, drink specs, and prep procedures.

• Ensure all beverages are made according to Palm Vintage standards.

• Monitor product quality, freshness, presentation, and consistency.

• Assist with seasonal menu development for coffee, matcha, tea, and specialty café drinks.

• Maintain a clean, organized, and visually appealing barista station.

• Oversee opening and closing duties for the coffee and matcha bar.

• Track inventory levels for coffee beans, matcha, milk, alternative milks, teas, syrups, cups, lids, garnishes, and café supplies.

• Communicate ordering needs to management in a timely manner.

• Reduce waste by monitoring prep levels, product usage, and proper storage.

• Follow health, safety, sanitation, and food handling procedures.

• Provide warm, polished, and professional guest service.

• Answer guest questions about drinks, ingredients, flavor profiles, and recommendations.

• Maintain calm and leadership during busy service periods.

• Work closely with management and ownership to refine systems, improve service flow, and strengthen the beverage program.