Aug. 18 at 8:52 PM
TD Cowen named CAVA its top pick, maintaining confidence in the Mediterranean restaurant chain despite recent sales disruption linked to negative industry publicity surrounding Cyclospora. The firm maintained its FY2026 comparable-sales growth forecast at 7%, citing CAVA’s strong Q2 performance and improving weekly trends.
TD Cowen lowered its Q3 and Q4 comp-sales estimates to 4% and 5%, respectively, from 5% and 5.2%. Management said sales initially slowed to flat or slightly positive after the negative publicity but improved steadily, with the latest week ended Aug. 9 showing mid-single-digit growth.
CAVA posted Q2 comparable sales growth of 9%, driven by 5.3% traffic growth, 1.4% pricing and 2.3% mix, beating TD Cowen’s 7.5% estimate. Adjusted EBITDA reached
$54.7M versus
$52.4M expected. Management reaffirmed FY2026 guidance for 75-77 net new restaurants, 4.5%-6.5% comp-sales growth and
$181M-
$191M adjusted EBITDA.
$CAVA