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The office lunch of champions, aka “bowl slop,” seems to be on shaky ground: Chipotle, Sweetgreen, and Cava have all been shedding customers as if an ebola outbreak were camping out in their server stations.
Mediterranean fare purveyor Cava, which went public in 2023, was the latest fast-food chain to release a disappointing Q2 earnings report. Although EPS came in above expectations, revenue fell short at $280.6 million, lower than the anticipated $285.6 million. This miss was chalked up to lackluster same-store sales growth of 2.1% year over year, which fell well below Wall Street’s projections of 6.1%. Cava also cut back its full-year forecast for same-store sales expansion from its prior 6% to 8% down to 4% to 6%.
This unsavory buffet of numbers caused Cava shares to plummet 16.57% today, bringing the stock down 37.49% in 2025. The competition is doing just as poorly: same-store sales at both Chipotle and Sweetgreen suffered back-to-back losses in Q1 and Q2, which has sent their stocks sliding by 27.92% and 70.04% year to date, respectively.
Which begs the question: What’s happening to the former kings of fast casual dining?
Not so bullish on bowls
Although the bowl slop heyday in 2023 and 2024 served up a smorgasbord of strong earnings and bountiful stock gains, Americans have begun inspecting their bowls with much more suspicion.
Chipotle got creamed on social media with accusations that its portions were shrinking, even though the chain denied it. Salad lovers are also less sweet on Sweetgreen due to its rising prices, since, let’s face it, why pay $16 for a pile of lettuce when you can order a $3 Snack Wrap at McDonald’s instead?
Consumers are also tightening their belts amid a weakening job market and hazy economy. “Food away from home prices are still rising faster than groceries, so lunch is a prime discretionary splurge to get axed,” chief investment officer at Running Point Capital Advisors Michael Ashley Schulman told Brew Markets (don’t worry, he is not related to Cava CEO Brett Schulman). “If you’re a $14 to $18 bowl chain that’s also asking for a tip, you’re fighting gravity while value menus run a promo arms race and McDonalds’’s releases adult Happy Meals.”
Time to build a better bowl: To survive, bowl chains are scrambling for ways to cut back by investing in robotic bowl-building assembly lines.
Sweetgreen has incorporated its Infinite Kitchen makeline technology in a handful of restaurants so far, which has lowered labor costs. Meanwhile, Chipotle is road-testing its own robotic makeline by tech firm Hyphen. Cava, not to be left behind, has hopped on the Hyphen bandwagon, and plans to roll out automated makelines in the coming quarters.
Time will tell whether a robot can build a cheaper, more uniformly-sized bowl slop. But do they deserve a tip?—JD