We are looking for people who love pyshki, St. Petersburg's hot yeast rings dusted with powdered sugar, who love our guests and know how to tell a story. If that sounds like you, drop in and let's get to know each other.
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We need our own jack of all trades to keep all three cafés in good shape: chairs that don't wobble, taps that don't drip, lights that work and a display case that shines. Furniture, plumbing, electrics, a bit of painting, fixing, hanging things up, replacing a lock or the seal on a display case. All small jobs, but regular ones.
Your first visit is a paid trial with a real list of tasks. We will meet at one of our cafés, show you what needs doing and treat you to a pyshka.
Our Soviet pyshki machine was made in Kyiv. Production stopped in 1991: there are no new ones, and you cannot order or buy one anywhere. Every working machine today has been found, bought and restored by hand. We have several, one for each café.
You will bake on it yourself, on the very same kind of machine that made pyshki in the 60s, 70s and 80s. Of all the pyshki cafés in St. Petersburg, we are the only ones who put the machine out by the counter; the others keep it in the kitchen. Ours is in plain view: guests film videos, children cheer on the pyshka rolling down the chute, and you are at the centre of it all.
“Thank you for such a treat!” “It took me right back to my childhood.” “God bless you and may you prosper!” We hear all this out loud, right at the counter.
One guest, a man of 70, travels across the whole city for three pyshki. As a young man he worked on a machine like ours himself, recognised the taste from the first bite and now comes every week. If a story like that warms your heart, you will like it here.
Right now we have three cafés in the city centre: 118 Nevsky Prospekt, 1/25 Malaya Sadovaya St. and 2 Moskovsky Prospekt. We are heading for 10–15 locations across the city, and then other cities too. As the chain grows, so do you: new locations are opened by shift leaders and managers who started as baristas and cashiers, and newcomers are guided by baker mentors. There is no ceiling here.
Behind our counter you will find people who love what they do and talk about it with guests simply, with no scripts or memorised phrases. The job here is about sharing pyshki with our guests.
Bakers are the heart of the chain. They work with a restored Soviet machine: they learn its character, catch the moment when the dough is ready to go in, and keep the taste consistent from shift to shift. We teach you everything: the recipe, how the crust seals the dough, and the quirks of your particular machine.
We are looking for people whose hands remember warm dough and who are curious about how the machine they work on is built.
They make our signature teas (sea buckthorn and thyme; raspberry, ginger and rosemary; currant and mint), specialty coffee, lemonades and milkshakes: we have a whole drinks menu. And they talk with guests: give tips, read the mood, and tell first-timers about pyshki.
We are looking for people who love making tasty drinks and talking to people like a human being.
The first people a guest sees. They take orders and handle the till, collect hot pyshki from the chute, help with the menu and toppings, and pack sets and gift boxes to take away. They keep the counter and display case so inviting that guests want to come up.
We are looking for attentive, friendly people who count without mistakes and smile because they mean it.
Keeps all three cafés in order: furniture, plumbing, electrics, small repairs, locks and door closers, glass and display case seals. Works task by task with no unnecessary trips, and does noisy work before opening or after closing.
We are looking for an all-rounder with 2–3 years of experience or more, careful and easy to reach. Retirees welcome. Open position right now.
The pyshka has a rich biography. It was created by technologists of the Leningrad catering trust (the city's network of public canteens) in the late 1950s, and the first pyshechnaya, a pyshki café, opened in 1958 on Zhelyabova Street (today Bolshaya Konyushennaya St.). The dough is dropped into hot oil, where it instantly seals with a crust on the outside, and then the pyshka bakes inside like bread. That is why it is so light. The machines that make it were first built at military plants during the 1950s conversion to civilian goods, then in Kyiv, and then production ended.
This is living knowledge. We share these stories with guests when the moment is right, with no lectures and nothing learned by rote. A child asks “how does it work?”, and out comes a short story about the machine. A tourist is surprised that it isn't greasy and learns how the crust seals the dough. A regular starts talking about their childhood, and the conversation turns to 1958 and 25 Zhelyabova Street.
Everyone on shift has their own set of these stories. A guest leaves with a pyshka and a small discovery too, and comes back for the next one. That is our job: to be a guide to this story.
If you love telling stories, you will have plenty of room here. If you don't, you will get bored. Consider yourself warned.
Tell us briefly about yourself; there is no need for a three-page CV. What matters is who you are and why you are interested in working with us. Then we will meet, show you the café, introduce you to the machine and treat you to a pyshka.
Drop in. We will show you the machine, treat you to a pyshka and have a chat.
Apply →Pyshki iz Detstva® (“Pyshki from Childhood”), registered trademark No. 1143773.
