customer service

Consistently great food has created a need for a new point of differentiation among restaurants. Thus the (next) age of service has arrived. Leading the charge in a growing number of establishments is the maitre d'hotel.

For reasons he can’t explain, five years ago, Jose Cuevas’s waitstaff languished at JumBurrito in Midland, Texas. “Some stores were doing well and others just horrific,” says Cuevas, founder and president of the Mexican fast casual chain with six locations and $5.2 million in annual sales.

If you’re familiar with the Monical’s brand, it’s likely because of the wave of publicity the chain received back in 2003, when for a 17-month period it experienced zero turnover among management—a statistic that’s virtually unheard of in this business.