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Ted Xenohristos, co-founder and chief idea officer of Cava, drew inspiration from his immigrant mother and father’ Greek heritage and the meals he ate rising up. What started as a humble restaurant inside an outdated Russian bakery in Rockville, Maryland, blossomed right into a nationwide model with 380 places throughout 28 states and Washington, D.C.
“We needed to do it for an reasonably priced worth and [offer] one thing that folks might share,” Xenohristos says. “We constructed that first restaurant with our naked fingers. All the things [was] from the Greenback Retailer, Goal, Dwelling Items.”
The primary few weeks of enterprise have been stuffed with uncertainty and lengthy hours. Xenohristos and Cava CEO Brett Schulman poured their vitality into developing the model’s first location, constructing it from the bottom up. With no advertising and marketing finances, they relied as an alternative on one thing extra highly effective: authenticity and hospitality.
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“We used our Mediterranean hospitality that we grew up figuring out, with out a advertising and marketing finances, with out indicators outdoors, with out a POS system,” Xenohristos says. “We gave folks free issues — free drinks, free meals, free dessert — they usually ultimately advised different folks, and earlier than you knew it, that little restaurant had a very lengthy line.”
As phrase unfold and momentum constructed, the founders realized that they had tapped into one thing a lot larger than a single restaurant. In simply over six months, they opened a second location and expanded operations to incorporate a retail line of dips and spreads, bringing Mediterranean flavors into grocery shops.
Regardless of its fast rise as considered one of Yelp’s fastest-growing manufacturers of 2025, Cava by no means strayed from its core values of generosity and Mediterranean hospitality.
“One of many causes we began this enterprise was to handle folks and to vary the tradition,” Xenohristos says. “We love meals, we needed to share it, however we actually needed to vary how folks have been handled. It begins with that.”
The model’s mission assertion is “to carry coronary heart, well being and humanity to meals.”
The corporate’s leaders show coronary heart by caring for visitors and employees, well being by means of recent Mediterranean elements and humanity by fostering connection and neighborhood inside and out of doors the corporate.
“All these issues collectively hold that tradition alive,” Xenohristos says. “We nonetheless work exhausting to execute on that dream, to have a larger tradition and restaurant.”
Making tradition a cornerstone of the enterprise contains offering significant worker advantages, reminiscent of tuition reductions, household planning help, accessible healthcare and psychological well being assets. Cava additionally hosts an annual convention designed to foster connection and collaboration amongst common managers.
This tradition extends to the buyer expertise. Even within the fast-casual eating house, Cava’s crew finds methods to create significant human connections. One such initiative is the “love button,” a instrument that empowers staff to cowl a buyer’s meal in the event that they discover somebody having a tough day.
Xenohristos says this initiative is all about “giving our crew members the instruments to have the ability to share that generosity that is ingrained in us and our tradition.”
Whereas no journey is with out its challenges, Cava’s values proceed to push the model ahead, redefining how visitors expertise meals and hospitality. “As we proceed to develop, the extra we will do what we got down to do, which was change the restaurant trade,” Xenohristos says.
His recommendation for present and future enterprise leaders is evident:
- Lead with objective and coronary heart. Constructing a enterprise rooted in hospitality, care and connection creates lasting impression — for each your crew and your prospects.
- Make tradition your cornerstone. A considerate worker expertise does greater than retain expertise; it distinguishes your model.
- Develop with out dropping your roots. Regardless of how large you scale, keep grounded within the mission that began all of it. Authenticity is your most useful asset.
- Empower generosity. Give your crew instruments to care about their work, folks and objective. Small acts of kindness create large ripple results.
- Do not simply comply with the trade — change it. Cava did not simply open eating places. It constructed a motion round meals, humanity and tradition, proving that chains will be each scalable and mission-driven.
Watch the episode above to listen to straight from Xenohristos, and subscribe to Behind the Evaluation for extra from new enterprise house owners and reviewers each Wednesday.
Editorial contributions by Jiah Choe and Kristi Lindahl
