Congratulations to Michigan Avenue on earning the 2024 Jean Malnati Miller Award for our restaurants!
Each year, the Jean Malnati Miller Award is awarded to the carryout and restaurant that best represent Jean’s spirit of Care, Generosity, and Work Ethic. As a whole, the winning stores best exemplify our core values of THE GIFT (Teamwork, Hospitality, Excellence, Growth, Integrity, Family and Tradition). Objective criteria are used to determine the winner combining the key areas listed.
The winning stores post the highest combined stores in three critical areas: The development and engagement of our staff, our guest satisfaction, and the continued financial performance growth of the store.
Those three areas have been the cornerstones of our company for more than half a century, and while many stores are great in one of the areas, the winning stores are the ones that performed excellent in all three in 2024.
The categories are:
- JOIN: Internal Net Promoter Score: Would our team recommend Lou Malnati’s as a place to work? (2024 Top Workplace “Join” score – the Culture Survey Question “I would highly recommend working at this company to others.”).
- HOSPITALITY: Tattle guest satisfaction feedback. (2024 Tattle Score – the total count, average score and average rating).
- GROW: Development of our people (# of staff who became a manager in 2024 who originated in this store).
- PROFITABILITY: 2024 EBITDAR Growth.
Congratulations again to Michigan Avenue for a great year! Thank you for exemplifying Jean’s spirit in everything you do and passing that on to not only the team members in your store but also to our customers.
Here’s a peak into what makes them such a deserving winner, from District Manager Craig Bushor:
“The success of this store starts with the General Manager, Jay Schuster. His mindset, and his ability to stay positive no matter what. When he became the GM of this restaurant, he inherited a team that was poor on communication. He established goals for his managers, he consistently met with them 1-1, he drove performance, and eventually managers either met the high standards of excellence that were communicated, or they moved on. He put a lot of thought, training and mentoring into his summer 2024 management team, and they thrived. He ensured that each leader on his team understood their responsibilities and ownership, so they could grow as individuals and succeed as a team.
Jay is great at prioritizing what is most important for the business. He prioritizes what is good for his staff and the store’s culture, what is good for the guest experience, and how to be profitable. Jay and his team focused on establishing systems and pre-shifts to ensure there is a high level of communication. They created a culture board with an employee of the month program.
Their Kitchen Manager, Tony Ascencio, does a great job of including their kitchen team with what is going on in the restaurant as a whole.
The entire management team is intentional about saying hello and goodbye to each team member. The team is hungry for feedback and view feedback as care for one another and an investment in their growth. They are curious and want to improve. The management team has a positive collaboration approach with staff. The team has a high level of communication with me. They are vibin’ as a team! The team is often heard saying, “This is the best team I have ever been on. Please don’t move me!”
The management team are great developers of people. In addition to each manager having their own development plan, the store now has a farm system or pipeline of three HSMs being developed to become managers. This store has a contagious positive culture with good people who care a lot.”
It’s easy to see why Michigan Avenue earned the honor of the Jean Malnati Miller Award in 2024. The General Manager, and management team as a whole, hold themselves and each other to a high standard. They communicate well and deliver for one another and their customers on a consistent basis. Let’s meet that entire management team:
- RD: Matt Stern
- DM: Craig Bushor
- GM: Jay Schuster
- Matt Murphy
- Scott Sciriha
- Brian Keister
- Tony Ascencio
- Anselmo Velazquez (new to the team)
Congratulations to the entire team! We can’t wait to see the growth continue in 2025.
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