Founder, Chief Concept Officer & Director, Cava
Search every verified Theodore Xenohristos interview, podcast appearance, and on-the-record quote — each transcript cross-checked by AI and human review to confirm speaker identity. Theodore Xenohristos, co-founder and Chief Concept Officer of Cava, appeared on the podcast "How I Built This" in June 2023. He discussed the company's 2018 acquisition of Zoe's Kitchen, describing it as "a melting ice cube" that needed to be stabilized. Xenohristos recalled that at the time of the deal, Zoe's same-restaurant sales were declining 3 to 4% year-over-year. He also stated that Cava views Mediterranean cuisine as "the next big large-scale cultural cuisine category" and aims for the brand to become synonymous with that category. Xenohristos reflected on his role within the company, noting that he prefers to focus on the creative and "loose" aspects of the business while his partner, Brett Schulman, handled operational improvements. He also mentioned that the original Cava restaurant, opened in 2006 in Rockville, Maryland, remains in operation and still shows marks from patrons dancing on the bar.
“I'll never forget we closed on the acquisition the day before Thanksgiving in 2018. And I remember when we were looking at the deal, the metaphor we used is we knew we were acquiring a melting ice cube and we just had to stop it from melting. And I was on a plane from Denver to Jacksonville and I get the most recent mo...”
“We see Mediterranean as the next big large-scale cultural cuisine category and we want Cava to be synonymous as the defining brand of that category and so we're just excited to have that opportunity to bring it to people across the country.”
“We were 26, 27 years old and all the time we were living with our parents 'cause we were making no money while it was all going on.”
“Sometimes we'd even sleep in the restaurant.”
“I think we missed a huge opportunity to have Cava branded sleeping bags that promote people sleeping in the [restaurant].”
“I realized that people enjoyed going there because they enjoyed him. It was more about treating people well and taking care of people, equal to the food obviously being good.”
“We built the place by hand. We built this restaurant for less than 10 grand...we didn't have a sign, we didn't have a register, and our marketing plan was to just take care of people.”
“We gave people percentage of ownership, profit sharing. We limited the number of hours you worked and paid the same amount that other restaurant managers would get — taking care of our team members is probably one of our top priorities.”
“We opened a second restaurant and then we started selling our dips and spreads in grocery stores...I brought on Brett Schulman as a consultant and he helped us fix the grocery side and suggested turning this into the fast casual format you see today.”
“The more things you had, the more chance of it going bad — we called it menu creep. We started creating standards: cook times, how long things could sit on the line, and shorter pans so food wouldn't get mushy.”
“Back in 2013 we went to $13 an hour minimum wage in many places — we've continued investing in our team members and as we grow we're able to increase pay, salary, opportunity.”
“I look at my job as defending our food: we get our lentils from Montana, olive oil and olives from Greece. We have no freezers, no microwaves — we focus on freshness and are investing in greenhouses to keep using fresh dill for tzatziki.”
“If you want to open your own restaurant or grow in a company, you have to love it — you have to love people and you have to just keep working. It's a grueling, fabulous business and our teams in the field do the work that lets us expand.”
“Two years ago we did the IPO. We announced stock grants for general managers of restaurants — I told my mom we were doing that; she worked at a restaurant for so long and she never got any stock in any company she worked at.”
“We went to $13 an hour as an hourly rate back in 2013 — minimum wage in some jurisdictions was like $7.25 — and we saw our growth really take off because we were hiring people that really love to be a part of this brand.”
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