Maybe it’s the succulent chicken strips or the green bean fries, or the Parmesan-crusted Sicilian quesadillas, or the Jack Daniel’s shrimp, chicken and rib sampler. Or maybe it’s John Faison’s management touch.
Whatever it is, Faison, general manager of the T.G.I. Friday’s restaurant in Greenbelt, says he hasn’t noticed a dropoff in customers because of the economic slowdown that has affected many businesses, from homebuilders to auto dealers and other restaurants.
And his management philosophy has worked so well that he was honored earlier this year by T.G.I. Friday’s corporate management. Faison won the eatery chain’s 2007 Outstanding Profit Achievement Award at its annual global leadership conference in Las Vegas.
With more than 900 restaurants worldwide, T.G.I. Friday’s has 15 in Maryland, including two others in Prince George’s County, in Bowie and Laurel.
‘‘I honestly think it’s been a group effort here,” said Faison, 44. ‘‘The employees and managers who work for me are doing a great job, and to be recognized nationally for it is great.”
A ’passionate’ leader
Faison’s restaurant is owned by Jackmont Hospitality of Atlanta, which also owns T.G.I. Friday’s restaurants in Silver Spring and Washington, D.C., in addition to others around the country. Jackmont Hospitality won a T.G.I. Friday’s corporate award as Franchise Group of the Year for 2007, as well as other awards.
‘‘John embodies everything anybody would want in a passionate leader,” said Daniel Halpern, Jackmont Hospitality’s president and CEO. ‘‘His team loves him, the community certainly has embraced him and certainly he’s a beloved figure in the T.G.I. Friday’s family. Everything you see and hear about John is true. He’s a very passionate guy, he believes in what he does and couldn’t be a better ambassador at the T.G.I. Friday’s in Greenbelt.”
Halpern, who said his company is planning a $1 million renovation of the Greenbelt restaurant this summer, said Faison has been a key to the restaurant’s community outreach.
‘‘When John came to us and said he wanted to have a Biker’s Night on Wednesday nights, the first thing we said was, ‘Hey, wait a minute, what are we doing?’” Halpern joked. ‘‘But we said OK, and John brought the bikers in and they’ve had meetings there on bike safety, and they’ve raised a lot of money for charities. And that’s just one of the ideas John has brought us, and helped us be more a part of the community.”
Halpern said Jackmont Hospitality is now looking to establish another T.G.I. Friday’s in the county. ‘‘We’re close [on finalizing plans] on District Heights,” he said. ‘‘We’re looking at building the T.G.I. Friday’s brand in Prince George’s County and the District.”
Faison has been general manager of the Greenbelt restaurant for the last two years. He said his restaurant, which has sales of up to $30,000 some days, and has about 6,700 customers a week, recorded a profit of $2.54 million in 2007, on sales of about $7 million.
Taking ownership
Faison, with more than 20 years’ experience with Friday’s restaurants, has been with Jackmont Hospitality’s restaurants the last five years.
‘‘I’ve had a lot of offers throughout my career, but I’m just sort of a basic kind of guy, I’m loyal, and with Jackmont Hospitality it’s just like family,” he said. ‘‘So why leave a place where it’s like family and go some other place where it might be like a foster home? With Jackmont, you can reach out and touch the CEO, the vice president, and call them anytime for advice, on the restaurant, or anything, so that’s why I stay with them.”
On his success at emphasizing customer service, Faison said, ‘‘I tell my employees to take ownership, to act like an owner. I tell them to ‘act like you own those four tables you have, act like you own that bar that you’re tending, act like you own that cooking station you have.’ Because it’s not just about me ... because I can’t do all the cooking, prepare all the food, serve all the drinks.
‘‘I try to get them to take ownership and feel proud of their own areas, to be empowered. I tell them if you feel like the guest is not totally satisfied with the food, you have the power to go to the manager and say, ‘I think we should give them half off.’ I tell them if everybody raises their ownership level up, we can be the best Friday’s in Maryland, or in the United States.”
Faison has had success at his Greenbelt restaurant even while other restaurants have suffered. Mike Donohue, a spokesman for the National Restaurant Association in Washington, D.C., recently told The Gazette, in a story about declining retail sales because of the slowing economy, that a ‘‘significant portion of the [restaurants] we have surveyed have said they’ve seen a decrease in foot traffic from a year ago.”
But Faison said his restaurant is still doing well. Asked his secret on coordinating more than 130 full- and part-time employees to deliver hundreds of meals a week, Faison said, ‘‘It’s basically communication. You have to have your game plan together and talk it out with your employees, and then it takes a lot of follow up.”
Faison, originally from Camden, N.J., said he started with T.G.I. Friday’s, ‘‘when my girlfriend was pregnant and I had to go find a job, so I got a job washing dishes at a Friday’s.”
Faison went on to get a degree in hotel and restaurant management at Rutgers University, he said, and continued to work at Friday’s, managing restaurants in New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania and Washington before coming to Greenbelt..
Faison, who lives in Dale City, Va., with his wife and three children, said that out of all the locations he’s managed, ‘‘I love the Prince George’s community as a whole. It is very loyal. They let you know how your business is running, they let you know the real deal, and I appreciate the feedback they give you. My career in this county has helped my career as a whole.”
