Cava Group
Greek-American restaurant chain
Cava (stylized as CAVA) is an American Mediterranean fast casual restaurant chain with locations across the United States. Cava is owned by the publicly traded Cava Group, which purchased Zoës Kitchen in August 2018. The combined company is the largest restaurant operator in the Mediterranean category in the U.S. restaurant industry. Cava also produces a line of Mediterranean cava dips, spreads, and dressings that are sold in grocery stores across the US. As of May 2023, all Zoës Kitchen restaurants have been closed or replaced by Cava restaurants.
01History
In 2006, first-generation Greek Americans Ted Xenohristos, Ike Grigoropoulos, and Dimitri Moshovitis launched the full-service Cava Mezze restaurant in Rockville, Maryland, with Moshovitis as executive chef. In 2008, Xenohristos, Grigoropoulos, and Moshovitis partnered with Geoff Maites and Kenny Maites to launch a line of dips and spreads, and grew the product line into over 200 stores, including Whole Foods Market. In 2009, Brett Schulman joined them as CEO and co-founder of the fast-casual chain Cava (originally called Cava Mezze Grill, later rebranded as Cava Grill and then simply as Cava). They opened the first Cava restaurant in Bethesda, Maryland, in January 2011.
In August 2018, Zoës was acquired by Cava Group, Inc. for $300 million in total enterprise value.
In April 2021, Cava Group completed a $190 million series F funding round led by T. Rowe Price, bringing its value to nearly $1.3 billion. Since 2015, the company has raised more than $640 million.
By December 2022, the Cava Group had significantly reduced the number of Zoe's Kitchen locations. As of May 2023, all Zoe's Kitchen restaurants had closed, and many had been replaced by Cava restaurants.
On June 15, 2023, Cava made its public debut on the NYSE under the symbol CAVA.
02Restaurants and expansion
In November 2018, Cava Group bought Zoës Kitchen, a restaurant chain with more than 250 locations, in a deal worth $300 million, taking the company private and helping Cava expand further into the suburbs.
As of August 2021, there were 133 Cava locations. All Cava restaurants are company-owned, and none are franchised. In 2020, Cava Group converted seven of its Zoës Kitchen locations to Cava-branded restaurants, with plans to convert 50 more in 2021. It has additional off-premises and digital kitchens dedicated to preparing food for online orders. As of May 2026, Cava operated 474 restaurant locations in the United States.
Sources and credits
This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Cava Group”, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.
Images, from Wikimedia Commons:
- CavaGroup2022.png by Unknown author, Fair use
- Cava restaurant at Union Station in Washington, D.C. 01.jpg by Harrison Keely, CC BY 4.0
- CAVA - Silver Spring, Maryland.jpg by Farragutful, CC BY-SA 4.0
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