“Welcome! I’m Joe, and I’ll be your Minister Today…”

(FranchisePick.com) The Loop franchise restaurant chain has added a new position to the traditional restaurant employee line-up: minister.

Source: The Florida Times Union, Jacksonville.com

Burgers, pizza, on a mission

Loop program uses chaplains to minister to staff and sometimes take an order

One Jacksonville-based pizza and burger joint is hiring an unconventional type of consultant to improve its business: ministers.

The Loop employs five ministers as staff chaplains: a combination executives call a mix of good business sense and personal mission work.

For a weekly salary of $40, the five chaplains pop into their home stores four hours per week to mingle with the employees from three shifts: lunch, dinner and weekend. But there’s often more than just chatting. To keep employees on track personally and professionally, chaplains console employees during cigarette breaks, hand out business cards printed with their private cell phone numbers and smooth arguments among staff – all between mixing milk shakes and tossing salads behind the counter.

God and religion are not explicitly part of the program, unless an employee requests it. Mostly, chaplains are charged with conflict resolution, exit interviews and just plain friendship for the employees, most of whom are young (between 16 and 22) and don’t stick around for long. Of course, the chaplains do some restaurant minutiae, such as working fryers or ringing up customers.

Five of the chain’s 12 local stores have chaplains on the payroll, and at least one franchisee is interested in adding a chaplain to the staff. So far, only corporate stores are participating.

But that’s a decline from the program’s all-time high of 10 stores, five of which were franchise locations. Loop founder Mike Schneider, who created the program, attributes the decline to waning interest in the franchise owners and the additional cost.

“The hiring of a chaplain is entirely dependent on the core values of the decisionmaker of each franchise,” he said. “Not all of our franchise owners profess to be Christians. It’s completely voluntary. And of course, it wouldn’t be appropriate to require it system-wide.”

The Julington Creek franchise, owned by Kenneth Caplan, hasn’t had a staff chaplain for more than two years. The previous chaplain left his post after his schedule became overloaded with missionary work overseas.

“Since then, we haven’t been able to find a good replacement,” Caplan said. “It’s a tough position to fill: it has to be the right person and they must have the availability. Coming in once a month is not going to accomplish the goals of the program.”

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