Cava (CAVA) topped first quarter earnings expectations with same-store sales up nearly 11%, outperforming peers in a slowing restaurant sector.

Cava CEO Brett Schulman joins Catalysts host Madison Mills and Yahoo Finance Senior Reporter Brooke DiPalma to discuss why the Mediterranean fast-casual restaurant kept guidance conservative despite crossing $1 billion while trailing its 12-month revenue basis.

To watch more expert insights and analysis on the latest market action, check out more Catalysts here.

Video Transcript

00:00 Brian Sozzi

Cava topping first quarter estimates of same-store sales climb nearly 11%, bucking the slowdown that other restaurant chains have reported. Here with me now, Brett Schulman, Cava's CEO, and our very own Brooke De Palma. Brett, great to have you here. The stock, as you just saw under a bit of pressure, even though you did have a great quarter, but the concern, as you know, is guidance. Walk me through your thinking. What was it about this quarter, about the environment that prevented you from giving higher guidance?

00:34 Brett Schulman

Yeah, I think it's a testament though to our long-term success. When you look on a three-year basis, because we've had really dynamic growth over the last three years, in the first quarter of the last three years, we grew 41%. And we guided for the rest of the year in the high 30s. So, really, a small moderation when you look at it in the context of the longer term. And we're not focused on the day-to-day gyrations of the stock. We're focused on building the next large-scale cultural cuisine category, and we reached a really great milestone in the quarter. On a trailing 12-month basis, we crossed a billion dollars in revenue, really validating Mediterranean as that next large-scale cultural cuisine category, a category that we've established a clear leadership position in.

01:28 Brian Sozzi

Consumer sentiment did fall for the fifth straight month. We just got that report out. Now, this quarter was a bit slower in terms of same-store sales growth that we have seen in previous quarters. Can, is it possible in this environment to return to previous same-store sales growth that we've seen?

01:55 Brett Schulman

Well, certainly we'd like to see some certainty on some of the policy fluidity out of Washington, but you know, we've seen this over the course of the last year where consumers have been facing increasing headwinds. And so, that's why we've been investing in our guest. We've underpriced CPI by 800 basis points in recent years. And that's at a time when many have taken a price almost double CPI in some cases. And only 1.7% menu adjustment pricing earlier this year. We have no plans to take further price and really kind of be a port in that uncertainty and inflationary storm for our guests where they're becoming more selective, but they're still selecting to choose to eat at Cava.

02:54 Brian Sozzi

I do want to hit a point on that. When I spoke to Scott Boatwright, Chipotle's CEO last month, he said that Chipotle is about 10 to 20% less than fast casual peers. How is Cava winning in this environment even with a higher price point? I ask you every quarter, what's the average price now?

03:21 Brett Schulman

Yeah, so the average price per person is around 1450. And again, we look at value as a combination of multiple factors. It's the relevance of the cuisine, which Mediterranean diet has been number one ranked diet for eight years running. It's the quality of the ingredients we're sourcing, the convenience in which you can access it in our multi-channel format, and the experience we deliver with that Mediterranean hospitality and the bang for the buck that we're delivering. And we see that resonating. We noted that we have not seen an erosion of premium protein attachment or our fan favorite pita chips. So clearly, guests are able to come in, eat at Cava, and actually trade up into premium proteins and pita chips and still fit within their budget.

04:13 Brian Sozzi

You're even getting low-income consumers come to Cava at a time like this. How do you balance higher inflation while also sticking to that price point and not raising prices in this environment?

04:29 Brett Schulman

Well, that's our job to work on behalf of that for our guests every day. And we even noted that with some of the tariff impact, which is fairly minimal to us. We quantified about 20 to 40 basis points with the current policies that have been pretty fluid, that we have been able to work, whether it's with our suppliers, whether it's with operational efficiency, to absorb that on behalf of our guests and maintain our full-year restaurant level margin guidance at 24.8 to 25.2%.  Related Videos

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