Ted Xenohristos, co-founder of CAVA, recounts how the founders secured their very first restaurant space in Rockville, Maryland, despite lacking startup capital.
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.”
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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.”
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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.”
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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…”
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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…”
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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.”