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Ted Xenohristos

Co-Founder & Chief Concept Officer, CAVA · 1 appearance on the record.

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founderexecutiveLinkedIn ↗cava.com ↗

Ted Xenohristos co-founded CAVA, starting in 2006 with the full-service restaurant Cava Mezze alongside childhood friends before expanding into packaged dips and a nationwide fast-casual chain. As Chief Concept Officer, he oversees culinary innovation, menu strategy, and brand development for CAVA Group.

9statements → 7claims → 0claims resolved → 4/5average certainty → 1.11/5average debate potential → ≈4.5/5argument clarity, estimated → 2said about them ↓

7 not checkable as stated how the 7 claims stand · each chip opens the sources

7 assertions · 1 insight · 1 disclosure · every statement was checked. The predictions and assertions are the 7 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 0 are resolved, and 7 name no date, number or outcome precise enough to check. Everything else (opinions, insights, what ifs, disclosures) can never be settled by the record, so it carries no assessment.

The record, in short

What the tape says about how Ted argues and how the claims held up. Everything they said, and everything said about them, is in the tabs below.

How they sound: not measured why? →

We measure speaking style by listening to the audio itself, and a fair number needs at least 2,000 words from one person on tape we have measured. There is too little of Ted Xenohristos on measured tape to publish a rate. This says nothing about how they speak.

Everything Ted Xenohristos said on How I Built This that made the record, most notable first. Filter by type, assessment or year in the ledger →

Insight
Xenohristos: Greek cuisine relies on ingredient quality rather than technique
“Greek cuisine was never technique driven like the French or the Italians or Japanese, right? It was always about the quality of ingredients.”
Ted Xenohristos Nov 27, 2023 ▶ 10:03 CAVA: Ted Xenohristos and Brett Schulman
Disclosure
Xenohristos: CAVA founders maxed personal credit cards for first lease
“We took all our credit cards, our personal credit cards, and we just pulled money off them. Withdrew cash. We, Basically maxed them out and we were able to come up with that, that money to pay the landlord off.”
Ted Xenohristos Nov 27, 2023 ▶ 12:48 CAVA: Ted Xenohristos and Brett Schulman
Assertion Not checkable as stated
CAVA founders built their first restaurant location for around $10,000
“But I'm telling you, we built this thing for right around like 10 grand.”
Ted Xenohristos Nov 27, 2023 ▶ 15:32 CAVA: Ted Xenohristos and Brett Schulman
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Xenohristos: Initial Cava loan collateral was worth less than loan amount
“Well, there was no collateral except for the restaurant itself, so there was a lien on the restaurant, which, like I said, I mean, we built that place for 10 grand, so the collateral's Less than the loan was gonna be, so.”
Ted Xenohristos Nov 27, 2023 ▶ 20:41 CAVA: Ted Xenohristos and Brett Schulman
Assertion Not checkable as stated
CAVA founders underpriced early menu items by forgetting ingredients shrink when cooked
“We were bringing an octopus and let's just say the octopus weighed 40 pounds. We would divide that by the ounces that we served, and we were like, great, we can serve octopus for six bucks. Well, we didn't take into account that once we cooked that octopus off…”
Ted Xenohristos Nov 27, 2023 ▶ 25:33 CAVA: Ted Xenohristos and Brett Schulman
Assertion Not checkable as stated
CEO Brett Schulman warned CAVA's founders against giving him 25% equity
“I remember, you know, to his credit, he looked at me and he actually told me that that was, that's actually a bad decision. That's bad. You know, he's trying to give me good, good advice as a business partner already. Like, that's not a good thing to just give…”
Ted Xenohristos Nov 27, 2023 ▶ 40:01 CAVA: Ted Xenohristos and Brett Schulman
Assertion Not checkable as stated
CAVA funded unprofitable dips retail business using restaurant profits
“So the restaurants were making profit. The dips, of course, were not. We were funding those with the restaurant profit, but, you know, we were starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel coming out of that whole economic collapse of oh, eight, oh nine.”
Ted Xenohristos Nov 27, 2023 ▶ 40:53 CAVA: Ted Xenohristos and Brett Schulman
Assertion Not checkable as stated
CAVA founders collateralized their first restaurants when investors refused to provide capital
“We ran out of money after two restaurants and our investors didn't want to give us any more money. And so we went and took a loan out against everything that we had worked for. We took a loan against our full service restaurants, against these fast casuals”
Ted Xenohristos Nov 27, 2023 ▶ 1:12:17 CAVA: Ted Xenohristos and Brett Schulman
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Bank pulled CAVA's second restaurant loan during 2008-2009 financial crisis
“We had a loan for that restaurant, and the bank eventually pulled it because of the collapse, and so we were in a tight spot, like things were not going well.”
Ted Xenohristos Nov 27, 2023 ▶ 33:07 CAVA: Ted Xenohristos and Brett Schulman

The other half of the tape: Ted Xenohristos's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 2 times in 1 episode on How I Built This. every mention, with the transcript →

Who brings them up most Guy Raz 2

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2024 2 mentions in 1 episode

Appearances (1)

EpisodeDateSpeaking time
CAVA: Ted Xenohristos and Brett Schulman Nov 27, 2023 30m
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