11 Mansel Street · Carmarthen · Cymraeg
The Warren

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The WarrenCarmarthen

Two jobs. One Sunday a week.

Front of house and a kitchen hand, Sundays 10:00 to 17:30, £15 an hour and a meal on shift. One sitting, one menu, twenty five covers. It starts on Sunday 20 September and runs to the end of January, about twenty Sundays. That is the whole job, and the rest of this page is us being honest about what it is and what it is not.

Deri Reed sitting on the step outside The Warren, 11 Mansel Street

Deri, on the step at 11 Mansel Street.

Before the formWorth two minutes

Why this, and why now.

Deri opened The Warren in 2016 with money the town put in. It ran for nine years, was in the Good Food Guide Top 100 every year from 2019, and was named BBC Community Food Champion in 2024. It closed in September 2025, because the ordinary way of running a restaurant asks too much of one person for too long.

What he has been working on since is whether it can run a different way: responsibility shared rather than stacked on one pair of shoulders, and the community with a real hand in it rather than just a table booking.

The pilot is how that gets tested. A small number of nights, done properly, to find out whether there is enough appetite to build something bigger. It might grow into a community-owned food project. It might not. Both are honest answers, and you would be helping find out which.

Front of house Kitchen hand Sundays £15 an hour

The two rolesPaid, and properly

What we are actually asking for.

One shift a week, Sundays, 10:00 to 17:30, from 20 September to the end of January. £15 an hour, which is above the Real Living Wage, and a meal on shift. Employed and on the books, not cash and not freelance. Nobody is asked to cook for exposure.

Kitchen Hand

One sitting, one set menu, twenty five covers. Prep through the morning and service through the afternoon, alongside Deri. A small kitchen, so everybody does a bit of everything.

  • Reliable, and the same reliable every week
  • Experienced enough to be useful from the first Sunday
  • Steady on prep, and cleans as you go
  • Happy working to a menu somebody else has written
  • Solves the problem in front of you rather than waiting to be told
  • Actually wants The Warren to work

Front of House

One room, one sitting, twenty five people. You own the welcome, the pace of the room and the feeling they leave with. No sections, no turning tables, nobody hurrying anybody.

  • Reliable, and the same reliable every week
  • Welcoming and personable, genuinely
  • Experienced enough to run a room of twenty five on your own
  • Honest and trustworthy, with a room and with a till
  • Solves the problem in front of you rather than waiting to be told
  • Actually wants The Warren to work

Three things we would rather say now than let you find out in week three. It is a fixed term job, September to the end of January, about twenty Sundays. It is one shift a week, so you would not be shaping the menu: Deri writes it, and there is not enough time in a single Sunday to do that together honestly. And the only thing beyond the wage is your food on shift. If the pilot carries on we would want to carry on with you, and we are not going to dress that up as a promise today.

You would start on Sunday 20 September, which is a friends and family night at a reduced price so that everything that goes wrong goes wrong in front of people who love us. The first public Sunday is the 27th.

The room at The Warren full of people, wooden tables and fairy lights
Photograph Aled Llywelyn

The formLonger than most, on purpose

Tell us about you.

More questions than a normal application, because this is a smaller and stranger job than a normal one and it is worth both of us knowing early. Answer what you want to answer. Nothing here is a test.

One of three Who you are

Deri was asked what he wants and answered in about nine words: reliable, honest, trustworthy, competent, experienced, a problem solver, and someone who believes in the place. Everything below is just us finding out whether that is you. There is no scoring, and nobody is comparing your spelling.

Who you are

Which role

Two of three Where you have been

A long CV is genuinely not the point. The Warren was built by people who mostly had not done it before, and the best front of house it ever had walked in with no restaurant experience at all. Write what is true. If a question does not apply to you, leave it empty and it will not count against you.

Where you have been

However much or little. A long CV is not the point here.

A link is fine. Instagram, a site, anything. Or email a CV to [email protected] and we will put the two together. Genuinely optional either way.

What you would bring

Asked seriously. A small team that knows its gaps beats one that pretends it has none.

Three of three The practical bit

One shift a week is easy to say yes to in August and harder in January, when it is dark and it is Sunday. So these questions are asked properly rather than as a formality. A no here is worth much more to both of us than a yes that goes quiet in November.

When you could do it

The first Sunday is 20 September. Later is fine, say so.

Christmas and New Year are in the middle of it, so worth a thought.

Pay and hours

£15 an hour and 10:00 to 17:30 are what the job is, so this is not a haggle. But if the start time is hard, or there is something we should know, it is better said now than danced around.

Last two

It goes to Deri and Berian, nobody else, and never into an AI tool. What we do with your details. If the form gives you any trouble, email [email protected] and that is just as good.

The Warren 11 Mansel Street Carmarthen