This week on the Extra Serving podcast, a product of Nation’s Restaurant News, NRN editors Holly Petre, Sam Oches and Leigh Anne Zinsmeister spoke about the tail end of earnings season with the highly anticipated first report from CAVA.
The fast-casual restaurant brand rose to fame with its impressive debut on the stock market late last month and has been riding high since then, according to its earnings. The growing brand is planning massive expansion over the next few years and has seen sales jump year-over-year. More importantly, CAVA reached profitability in its first quarter as a publicly traded company. What does this mean for the future of the brand, and is it the next Chipotle amid comparisons from investors?
Also, the NRN editors talked about virtual brands. After the demise of MrBeast last week, there appears to be some hope for the virtual brand industry. Brinker, which closed its virtual brand Maggiano’s Italian Classics in May, has decided to add items from its virtual brand It’s Just Wings to Chili’s menus. Do virtual brands have more of an edge when they’re tied to a restaurant brand?
This week’s guest is David Cox, the corporate executive chef of Norms.