CAVA Q2 2026 - Preliminary Earnings Alert

Event: Quartr Q2 2026 event Retrieved: 2026-08-11T20:45:00Z Comparison mode: maximal Scorecard contract: v1 Source status: release=available (earnings release 3692286, all 11 pages read; source PDF stamped 2026-08-11 20:20:41Z) | financials=earnings release statements only (no separate Quartr standardized financials attached to this event) | transcript=not available (call 2026-08-11 21:00Z / 5:00 p.m. Eastern, not yet held)

Earnings takeaway

CAVA beat on both scorecard metrics - fiscal Q2 2026 consolidated revenue of $368.436m came in 2.3% above the $360.092m API Ninjas consensus and GAAP diluted EPS of $0.19 beat the $0.184 consensus by 3.5% - and the company reaffirmed its full-year fiscal 2026 guidance unchanged on all five disclosed metrics.

Consensus scorecard

Key earnings highlights

Guidance changes

No financial guidance change disclosed.

Key bullish aspects

• Both scorecard metrics beat, and the growth is traffic-led rather than price-led: Same Restaurant Sales of 9.0% comprised 5.3 points of guest traffic against 3.7 points of price and mix, with AUV up to $3.088m from $2.939m and 94 net new restaurants opened during or since the prior-year quarter which management says are exceeding performance expectations.
• Full-year fiscal 2026 guidance was reaffirmed in full - 75 to 77 net new openings, Same Restaurant Sales of 4.5% to 6.5%, restaurant-level profit margin of 23.7% to 24.3%, pre-opening costs of $22.0m to $22.5m and Adjusted EBITDA of $181.0m to $191.0m - against first-half Same Restaurant Sales of 9.7% in Q1 and 9.0% in Q2, both above the top of the full-year range.
• Corporate cost leverage improved: general and administrative expenses fell to 10.8% of revenue from 11.4%, and to 9.3% from 9.8% excluding equity-based compensation and executive transition costs. Year-to-date operating cash flow rose to $134.5m from $98.9m and Free Cash Flow to $44.8m from $21.9m.

Key bearish aspects

• Restaurant-level profit margin fell 60 basis points to 25.7%, driven by input costs from the 2026-04-20 Pomegranate Glazed Salmon launch, a higher mix of third-party delivery and incremental wage investments. Within the segment, food, beverage and packaging rose to 30.0% of CAVA Revenue from 29.5%, labor to 25.3% from 25.0% and other operating expenses to 12.8% from 12.4%.
• Margin slipped at every level despite 31% revenue growth: Adjusted EBITDA margin fell to 14.9% from 15.0% and net income margin to 6.2% from 6.5%. Net income grew 25.3% against 30.0% Adjusted EBITDA growth and 31.3% revenue growth, held back by higher depreciation and amortization and a higher effective tax rate on a lower equity-compensation tax benefit.
• Reaffirming rather than raising the 4.5% to 6.5% full-year Same Restaurant Sales range after posting 9.7% and 9.0% in the first two quarters implies a material slowdown in the back half. The release offers no explanation for holding the range.

Key uncertainties

• The basis of the $360.092m revenue consensus cannot be determined. The company leads its release with "CAVA Revenue" of $365.433m, a segment measure that excludes licensed restaurants, while the consolidated statements of operations show total revenue of $368.436m. The scorecard uses the consolidated line as the company-wide figure; against the CAVA segment line the beat would be +1.5% rather than +2.3%.
• The consensus EPS basis is also unstated and the company publishes no adjusted per-share measure, so GAAP diluted EPS of $0.19 was the only eligible actual. On basic EPS of $0.20 the beat would be larger. No adjusted per-share amount was derived here.
• Two of the three named margin pressures - a higher third-party delivery mix and incremental wage investments - are ongoing rather than one-time, and the release quantifies neither. Management states both were dilutive to margin rate while accretive to margin dollars, without sizing either effect.

Market context

• API Ninjas price snapshot for CAVA: $60.86 on NYSE with volume of 4,980,232, timestamped 2026-08-11T20:23:34Z. That is roughly 16:24 Eastern, immediately after the regular session close and about three minutes after the release, so it is effectively a closing-session snapshot and not an after-hours reaction to these results. No reaction is characterized here.
• The release was published after the close on 2026-08-11, ahead of the 5:00 p.m. Eastern (21:00Z) conference call; the Quartr source PDF is stamped 2026-08-11 20:20:41Z and Quartr had carried a confirmed 20:10Z report time for this event. The event therefore qualified on the document-availability arm of the due-event window rather than the call clock.
• Conference call access is stated in the release: a live webcast at 5:00 p.m. Eastern on 2026-08-11 from investor.cava.com, with a recorded webcast available shortly after the call and for up to one year.
• The quarter is a fiscal twelve-week period ended 2026-07-12 against a twelve-week period ended 2025-07-13, so the comparison is period-length consistent. The year-to-date figures cover twenty-eight weeks.

Source limitations

• Every displayed actual comes from Quartr earnings release document 3692286. All 11 pages were read, covering the highlights, the quarter review, the full-year outlook, the consolidated statements of operations, the CAVA segment tables, selected quarterly and balance sheet data, all three non-GAAP reconciliations and the glossary.
• The text layer renders this release as loose lines rather than aligned tables, so column assignment was done by footing against stated totals. The income statement foots exactly ($368,436k less $341,590k of total operating expenses gives the stated $26,846k of income from operations; $30,578k less $7,561k of tax gives the stated $23,017k of net income). The Adjusted EBITDA bridge foots exactly ($23,017k less $3,293k plus $7,561k, $20,966k and $5,675k, less $439k, plus $1,229k gives the stated $54,716k). The segment table foots exactly ($365,433k less $271,621k gives the stated $93,812k of restaurant-level profit at 25.7%). The Free Cash Flow reconciliation foots exactly ($134,520k less $89,738k gives $44,782k).
• The $545k executive transition cost line appears in the reconciliation tables without a clear period assignment in the text layer; it is not used in any figure above beyond noting that the non-GAAP G&A measure excludes it.
• The company itself states that certain figures are subject to rounding adjustments and that totals in its tables may not be arithmetic aggregations of the preceding figures.
• The API Ninjas row for CAVA dated 2026-08-11 carried no fiscal_year or fiscal_quarter, so the exact ticker-and-date match path was used against the Quartr event date of 2026-08-11. No fiscal-period conflict exists. The provider supplied no actual revenue or actual EPS for this event, so no reconciliation diagnostic was available; under maximal mode that does not suppress the comparison.
• API Ninjas supplied only the consensus estimates. Provider difference and difference-percentage fields were empty and were not used; both scorecard variances were calculated locally as the Quartr actual less the API Ninjas estimate, divided by the absolute estimate.
• No transcript exists for this event yet, so nothing in this report reflects management commentary beyond the release text. The call is scheduled for 2026-08-11 at 21:00Z.