Brett Schulman, Ike Grigoropoulos, Dimitri Moshovitis, and Ted Xenohristos founded Cava in 2011 to share the “Mediterranean Way” of eating with others in an accessible fast-casual format.

The first Cava restaurant opened in Bethesda, Maryland, in 2011.

Cava’s setup might be familiar if you’ve visited Chipotle. It’s a walk-along ordering system, where two to three employees prepare your order along a prep line.

With many ingredients available, there are endless choices for customizing the perfect bowl or pita.

Last month, Cava owner Cava Group announced plans to go public. It is offering 14.4 million shares, in a deal that values the company at more than $2.1 billion.

The IPO market has slowed down over the past year. But, Cava joins a few other chains looking to go public, including Panera Bread and the owner of the Brazilian steakhouse of Fogo de Chão, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Source: Wall Street Journal

Cava operates 263 fast-casual restaurants in 22 states and Washington DC and says it could potentially have 1,000 by 2032. Average yearly sales per restaurant is $1 million.

In 2018, Cava Group bought Zoës Kitchen in a deal valued at $300 million. The company took the publicly-traded Zoës private and began rebranding stores as Cava.

Source: Insider

CAVA has since sunsetted the Zoës brand. As of March 2, Cava Group does not operate any Zoës Kitchen locations.

Besides building their own bowl or pita, customers can select from one of 10 signature meal choices.

The bowls have nine base choices: black lentils, saffron basmati rice, brown rice, RightRice, arugula, a Supergreens of blend of lettuces, baby spinach, Splendidgreens (a mix of chopped romaine, radicchio, escarole, chicory endive, and cabbage).

We tried the Chicken and RightRice bowl because I wanted to compare the RightRice to Chipotle’s cauliflower rice. It had the texture and look of short-grain rice and was hands-down much superior as a base than Chipotle’s mushy cauliflower rice.

Cava serves pita chips with dips and toppings. Choices include roasted eggplant, crazy feta, hummus, harissa, tzatziki, and red pepper hummus. The pita chips, cooked in-house daily in small batches, are crunchy but not as oily as tortilla chips.

Other CAVA restaurant dips and spreads sold at Whole Foods include the roasted red pepper hummus, tzatziki, crazy feta, harissa, roasted eggplant dip, lemon herb tahini dressing, and yogurt dill dressing.

The spicy lamb meatball, spicy chicken, and falafel pitas were all finger-licking messy, and crazy delicious. I especially liked the spicy topping and dressing choices of the Skhug sauce, a mix of jalapeños, cilantro and lemon juice; and the Hot Harissa vinaigrette. The acid and heat combo made for flavor bomb bites.

Cava sells Maine Root fountain sodas and bottled beverages. The Portland, Maine beverage company makes sodas such as root beer and Mexican cola from 100% organic sugar cane.