Dandelion Chocolate is growing! We’re always scouting for hard-working, motivated chocolate enthusiasts:
Our pastries are inspired by the distinct flavor profiles of the cocoa beans we source, which means our recipes are continually evolving within a unique creative constraint. You will learn each of our recipes in detail and support the café’s changing needs by making new batches of drinks and pastries. Our executive pastry chef, Lisa Vega (formerly of Gary Danko), helms the kitchen and leads recipe development. Every day in the kitchen starts early and ends with preparation of batters and doughs for the next day’s bake. We are looking for a pastry assistant who is excited about contributing to our beverage and pastry production and who takes delight working with a well-run, creative, and drama-free team. We especially welcome professionals who have the intention to commit to the role for at least a year. (read more)
Your morning might start off with a quick stand-up with key members from the Chocolate Making, Operations, and Creative teams. While working on a new booklet, the team became inspired to create a new infographic to show how to make the perfect Mission Hot Chocolate which has spun off into a research project on perfect milk temperatures, frothing heights, and finding suppliers for rare Costa Rican peppers. You can’t help be excited too though they’ve also been spinning for a day or two so you point them to an existing recipe in the Dandelion Chocolate cookbook to use so they can make immediate headway. In the afternoon, you sit in on a Finance meeting to see how this quarter’s numbers are shaping up and then run into a PR team member in the hallway who wants to review next month’s product launch strategy. In that exchange, your colleague shares that the NYTimes just wrote to see if we had any chocolate tasting experiences for two that they could write about for Valentine’s Day. You spend an hour or two sketching some rough concepts and building slides that the PR team can share. Before heading home, you update the product roadmap so that the Chocolate Maker teams have the most current schedule for their morning meeting. (read more)
Wholesale Account Representative
Your day is filled with three main responsibilities: processing wholesale orders, wholesale customer service, and cross-departmental communication. You know Dandelion Chocolate’s story, brand, and process by heart, and can easily answer customers’ questions over the phone, email, and in person. You are engaged in the department and company and reliably communicate the progress of goals and the status of wholesale orders. As we increase chocolate production, you manage the onboarding of new wholesale accounts with the same personal, high-level customer service that you use for our existing wholesale accounts. You are dialed into the ordering patterns of our wholesale customers, use spreadsheets to track order frequencies, and are sure to follow up when it’s been a while since a customer has placed an order. You love deepening relationships with our customers — when Adam, a customer of 3 years, mentions it’s been a busy week, you slip an extra Esmeraldas bar (his favorite) into his next order. Your weekly email updates the Team about future wholesale orders and mentions any potential hiccups that they should be aware of. Throughout the week, you pay close attention to the systems in place and recommend improvements when you see potential weak points. At the end of the day, you prepare the paperwork and order information for the next morning before tidying up your workspace along with the team. You will be evaluated on order accuracy, timeliness, and your tracking of customer ordering patterns. (read more)
Assistant General Manager – Bloom
There will be no typical day at Bloom, and we’re looking for leaders who are excited to help create a world-class experience for everyone from the chocolate novice to the industry expert (and is savvy enough to know the difference). Collaborating with the team is as important as leading one. Whether it’s creating a sustainable system for laundering the cloth napkins to delighting a guest on their birthday, you’ll get a chance to put your leadership, systems-thinking, and hospitality skills to the test. Working alongside the General Manager and your team, you’ll create unique, amazing experiences for our guests as well as foster a caring, stable, and supportive environment for the team. (read more)
Part-Time Social Media Coordinator
With loads of ‘grammable activities happening daily across our multiple locations, you will be our on the go social media master. You will be responsible for the day to day management of our social media channels including Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. While no two days are exactly the same, a typical day may start with checking the social media calendar to make sure that you’re current on what’s coming up in the next two weeks. Based on the calendar, you head to the 16th Street Factory where a new machine will be turned on for the first time. You also interview one of our Lead Chocolate Makers for a planned Instagram story. Later, you call our Los Angeles Retail Manager to remind her to take a video of a chocolate making class scheduled that afternoon. You are especially excited that the kitchen will be experimenting with a new tart recipe, so you make sure that you get a video for a future Instagram post. When you spot an unfortunately positioned spatula sticking out from a Pastry Assistant’s head, you quickly run back to organize the shelves and retake the sequence before the moment passes. Before heading out for the day, you send your weekly update to the team, noting that a recent photo of our new Hot Chocolate vial is now the most-liked photo on our feed. (read more)
There is no such thing as a typical day, but your mornings will start by clearing the space in front of the launch pad to ensure deliveries will not be hindered. Once you have checked in with the team, you take the online order summary and pick list of the online orders since yesterday and begin neatly packing up bars of chocolate and writing personal notes to customers. The doorbell rings and you go out to open the gate, bringing the jack on the loading pad to help move the items. You knew this delivery was coming and cleared a space yesterday so that the walkways wouldn’t be covered and different teams can navigate safely through the space. Once everything is in order, you return to packing orders where you left off, getting them beautifully wrapped and ready for shipment before noon. After lunch, you have a meeting with the team where you brainstorm alternative packaging methods — the current brown paper protects the bars but you think it’s clunky and could be improved for the customer experience. You get a last minute call from the Cafe General Manager that they are unexpectedly low on hand soap, so you take a case over to the cafe. Before the end of the day, you organize yourself for the next day, tidy the area, returning your supplies to their labeled home and clearing tables of odds and ends. (read more)
Retail Associate & Barista – 16th Street
As a member of our opening team, you’ll help us get our new space up and running to its full capacity. Our retail space will offer plenty of samples that invite guests to taste and explore. You’ll make sure that our shelves are fully stocked and merchandised to our high standards, creating a delightful shopping experience for our guests. Whether it’s a large group joining us for a tour or a Mission resident coming in for their morning coffee, we want to make sure they are treated with the same care and attention. In the café, you’ll have an opportunity to showcase your coffee and chocolate drink-making skills. (read more)
There is no typical day at our Valencia Street Cafe, and we’re looking for leaders who are excited to help create a world-class experience for everyone from the chocolate novice to the industry expert (and is savvy enough to know the difference). Collaborating with the team is as important as leading one. Your day might start with trouble-shooting the starting cash levels for the drawer, making sure everyone has the tools to prepare chocolate samples before the weekend, or preparing an on-boarding packet and scheduling training for a new team member. As the day progresses, you’ll need to recognize issues and know how to escalate them such as noticing that we’re unexpectedly low on milk, a pastry sign is out of date, or the retail shelves are not looking their best. You respond by running to the market to buy milk, taking a picture of the out-of-date sign to send to the Creative team, and giving a quick tutorial to the team on merchandising. Above all, you are a support system for the team and are always willing to jump in and lend a hand. Working alongside the General Manager and your team, you’ll create unique, amazing experiences for our guests as well as foster a caring, stable, and supportive environment for the team. (read more)
As part of our Front of House team at Bloom, you’ll learn everything about chocolate from bean to bar to pastry. You’ll prepare to offer outstanding service by becoming well-versed in our philosophy on hospitality as well as tasting of all of our drinks, pastry offerings, and bars to learn how the chocolate origin impacts the flavor of the final product. Our pastry team will offer a variety of desserts and experiences in the salon and you will be tasked with guiding guests through the menu and helping them navigate the options. You’ll work with your team to provide timely, professional, and warm service to each guest who walks through our doors. (read more)
The Guest Experience Ambassador is the face of our factory. Our ideal candidate is a mature, team-oriented individual who is excited to create and share world-class chocolate experiences. You develop authentic rapport with guests, can work independently as necessary, and you have the savvy to navigate unexpected situations with confidence. Whether a guest is coming in for a tour, a birthday party, getting a hot chocolate to-go, or wandered in as they were walking by, you are the first face they will see and will be there to assess their needs, answer questions, and make recommendations. (read more)
Cafe General Manager – Valencia
Your day might start with creating a daily plan for the team with notes about a schedule change, scheduling an electrician to fix the parklet solar panels, or running out to get more milk when the delivery person made an error. In the afternoon you might have some 1:1s with your team members and then respond to all Yelp and Google reviews before meeting with the CEO to plan for the holiday season. Outside of the day-to-day tasks, you have a clear vision for how the cafe can continue to improve, broken into concrete quarterly milestones such as later hours, team greeters, better systems for tracking retail goods and inventory, and more community events. Even with ambitious plans and shifting priorities, you always make time to prioritize your team and guest service — when a cafe regular who you haven’t seen in awhile shows up, you take the time to ask about their grandchildren and get them their favorite drink. (read more)
You should love chocolate as much as we do, but you don’t have to know everything — we’ll teach you everything we know. After adequate shadowing and hands-on training, you will join our production team in their daily routine—roasting, cracking, sorting and winnowing cocoa beans, then tempering and molding chocolate bars by hand. Your new team consists of very passionate chocolate makers that care deeply about the process and take pride in the end product. Through their coaching and daily chocolate taste testing you learn to recognize when a cocoa bean is over-roasted, when a tempering round goes sideways, and if a batch of chocolate is ready to be pulled according to the texture and taste. At the end of the day, everyone meets to review what goals were met, what hiccups happened along the way, and what steps can be improved on as we continuously seek to improve and perfect the chocolate making process. (read more)
Barista & Retail Associate – Ferry Building
With the variety of guests that come through the Ferry Building, you’ll spend a lot of time discussing our mission, story, and chocolate. Throughout the week you’ll be leading tours, making coffee and chocolate drinks, restocking, and responding to guests’ questions in thoughtful detail. As a member of our team, you’ll train with Ritual Coffee Roasters and spend a day with our production team to learn the ins-and-outs of chocolate making. After that, you’ll be ready to dive in and get your hands dirty. (read more)
Cafe Associate & Barista – Valencia Street
A typical café day might start with reading the daily café report and knowing to expect the dishwasher repair person in the morning, a chocolate expert from Hawaii around noon, and a chocolate tour for the afternoon. When the line is out the door, your focus turns to ensuring each person receives a thoughtful, exquisite experience. During welcomed breaks from the rushes, you might help water cacao trees, update chalk art, or adjust the espresso machine to ensure that shots are pouring consistently. (read more)
You are proactive and willing to lend a hand to anyone on the team. When you arrive in the morning, you notice that the boxes from the latest FedEx delivery are blocking the front door. You move them to a safer place where they are out of the way so that they are out of the way and no longer a safety hazard. Next, you notice that someone spilled their hot chocolate in the cafe so without missing a beat, you grab a mop and clean up the spill while keeping in mind that the floor is slippery and putting out a “caution” sign until it’s dry. You always make sure that dirty dishes are cleared quickly, that the bus bins are cleared regularly, and that the front of house team has ample dish ware, polished water glasses, and utensils. (read more)
If any of the above roles sound like a potential fit, we’d love learning more about you and what you’re looking for in your long-term career. Please include 2-3 sentences about your long-term career plans and how this particular opportunity at Dandelion Chocolate might help prepare you for that long-term vision. We do our best to respond to each candidate, typically within 7-14 days. To apply for a role in the future, please reach out at jobs@dandelionchocolate.com.
Benefits
Dandelion Chocolate constantly invests in its people and culture. We offer excellent perks including subsidized medical, vision, and dental benefits as well as the option to enroll in our 401k program. Hourly and salaried team members accrue paid vacation and sick time. Our team members also enjoy commuter benefits, local gym discounts, and lots of chocolate tasting opportunities.
Culture
Our culture is fun, hard-working, and we love to learn. While no two days are the same, we’re always experimenting whether that’s testing different roasting profiles, tasting a new nibby scone recipe, improving our customer experience, or trying out a new prototype chocolate making machine. We look for folks who give 110%, roll with each day’s unexpected surprises, and bring out the best in others.
If you have any questions regarding current or future openings please email us at jobs@dandelionchocolate.com.