Financing

Behind Cava Group’s conversion of Zoe’s Kitchen restaurants

A Deeper Dive: Brett Schulman, CEO of Cava Group, joins the podcast to talk about a wide range of topics, including its rapid expansion thanks to its acquisition of Zoe’s Kitchen.

How is Cava Group’s integration of Zoe’s Kitchen restaurants going?

This week’s episode of the Restaurant Business podcast A Deeper Dive features Brett Schulman, the CEO of Cava Group, who talks about a wide variety of topics, but particularly his company's integration of Zoe’s Kitchen.

Cava acquired Zoe’s in 2018 in one of the more interesting deals of recent vintage. Both were fast-casual Mediterranean chains but Zoe’s was publicly traded at the time. Since then, Cava has been converting Zoe’s restaurants into Cava locations.

Such conversions used to be relatively popular in the industry in the 1990s but have been relatively rare since, though First Watch used conversions to grow quickly several years ago. Schulman Talks about why that strategy makes sense and what it’s doing for Cava.

He also talks about digital sales, the current state of delivery and Cava’s potential plans for catering. And Schulman talks about his company’s strategy to balance demand from all these channels.

We’re talking with one of the premier fast-casual executives in the industry on A Deeper Dive so please have a listen.

Subscribe on Apple Podcasts.

Subscribe on Spotify.

Members help make our journalism possible. Become a Restaurant Business member today and unlock exclusive benefits, including unlimited access to all of our content. Sign up here.

Multimedia

Exclusive Content

Leadership

Who's on your fantasy restaurant-management team?

Reality Check: Why bother with fantasy football when the ideal virtual C-suite is waiting to be picked? Here's my roster.

Food

Veggie Grill evolves the menu to keep pace with plant-based trends

Behind the Menu: Since the fast casual’s start in 2006, many new meat and dairy alternatives have come to market and consumers’ health perceptions have changed. Veggie Grill has been forced to change too.

Financing

The Subway saga takes another turn

The Bottom Line: Just when we thought the massive deal was set to go through, the feds stepped in to have their say.

Trending

More from our partners