The big Burrito Restaurant Group has more than 1,000 employees working in its 18 restaurants. That’s a lot of personnel to manage, especially when having good people is the No. 1 priority.
“We can buy better steaks, and we can get money to build another restaurant. We can redesign the dining room, or we can get a better stereo. We can spend money on a lot of different things, but the most important thing is the people,” says Bill Fuller, big Burrito’s corporate chef.
Fuller is responsible for more than the company’s food and beverages, he helps drive the culture as the face of upper management.
Over the years, big Burrito has been successful at developing cooks into sous chefs and then executive chefs, and servers and bartenders into managers and general managers.
“We work hard to hire good people — to see the growth opportunities in good people and develop them and give them a chance to grow with us and move into leadership roles,” Fuller says.
Nearly everybody at the corporate level has come up out of the restaurants. And Fuller likes to have a strong roster in order to bring the next person up.
“But it’s hard having people in place ready to take the next step when somebody leaves — and somebody always leaves,” Fuller says. “Being successful for 21 years now, it means when people are looking to hire in town we’re an attractive poaching target.
“Just last year, we lost a couple of general managers, and we had one or two people ready to go, but trying to fill numerous roster spots at that level is difficult,” he says.
Looking for big Burrito people
It’s critical to make the right hire when looking to develop people over time to move up through the company.
A high-energy, friendly personality and a desire to take care of people gives big Burrito management an idea of whether new hires will be a good fit.
“We can teach you how to cook. We can teach you how to run a restaurant, but we can’t teach you to be upbeat, friendly, smart, a little bit sassy and fun,” Fuller says. “We can’t teach you that. You have to show up with that.”
Fuller says sometimes it’s easy to see if the candidate is a big Burrito person, but other times it’s not so clear-cut. That’s why the company gives some individuals a chance to see if, over time, they are a good fit.
A cook, for example, needs to have a sense of humor and positivity after a tough day. He or she needs to have the ability to laugh at the little things.
A server shouldn’t consistently come back to the kitchen, complaining about how they can’t stand certain tables. Fuller says it’s fine to admit to having a tough time with customers, but servers should want to fix the table, not be mad and hate it.
In the restaurant business, people work long hours and weekends. Part of the job is having angry customers tell you you’ve done a horrible job, Fuller says.
“It’s important to hire people who really are into it,” he says. “Because you’re not going to retain somebody who just isn’t excited about making sure that Mrs. Smith and her three lady friends have an awesome lunch, even though you’ve had to make them wait in the bar for a half an hour to get a table.”
Combining cultures
The big Burrito Restaurant Group has 13 Mad Mex restaurants, as well as five specialty restaurants. With such variety, different subgroup cultures have developed, so the company tries to ensure the big Burrito way permeates throughout.
On the Mad Mex side, all of the general managers and some of the kitchen managers went on a trip together to Mexico to learn about Tequila. In the specialty restaurant division, managers move around to help create a cross-pollination of the individual cultures.
“If you’re worked at Eleven and now you’re working at Casbah, you’re able to bring some of the highest-end, fine-dining concepts to the less-fine-dining-but-more-neighborhoody Casbah,” Fuller says. “So, going back and forth is really useful.”
Another way to keep everyone together is to try to keep work fun, he says. That might sound obvious, but it’s important.
“When I walk into the restaurants, I try to walk in with a smile and joke around with the people who are on shift,” Fuller says.
Although it’s impossible to know all 1,000 employees, upper management makes an effort to know as many as possible — always trying to meet the new busser, bartender or cook — and treat them like human beings.
“If you come in and know that Jamar, who is your prep cook, has been having a tough time with his family, then say, ‘Hey, how is your mom doing?’” Fuller says.
Respecting others’ roles
The biggest culture clash at big Burrito doesn’t come from the different locations — it’s front of the house versus back of the house.
Fuller says it’s important to foster an environment where people respect each other’s roles.
“If the restaurant doesn’t do well, it’s not because the waiters are fussy or because the cooks are lazy; it’s because everybody isn’t working together,” he says.
big Burrito tries to make sure each group can appreciate the challenges of the other in order to form a complete team.
Sometimes cooks need it to be explained to them that although they are packed into a hot, little room, servers have it tough, too, Fuller says.
“They say, ‘Oh, their job is easy. They come in later than us. They leave earlier. They don’t get burned. They don’t cut themselves. It’s not hot.’ But when you have to deal with unhappy customers — that’s a really difficult part of their job that sometimes makes standing over a hot stove getting yelled at by a chef easy.
“So, everybody has to remember, on both sides of the line, that we each have a tough job in our own different way and respect each other for that,” he says.
