CAVA Group Inc. (NYSE:CAVA) reports second-quarter earnings after the bell today, with the call at 5 p.m. ET.
Analysts expect earnings of about 18 cents per share, up from 16 cents in the year-ago period, on revenue of roughly $360 million. On Kalshi, traders are betting on which words CEO Brett Schulman and his team will say.
The stock has fallen about 15% in the past month, erasing most of this year’s rally.
What Kalshi Predicts CAVA Will Say
“Salmon” leads the board at 97%. The glazed salmon launched in April was CAVA’s first seafood item, and CFO Tricia Tolivar said the rollout would be a roughly 100-basis-point headwind to restaurant-level margins.
“Expansion” trades at 87% and “AUV” at 82%. CAVA ended the first quarter with 459 restaurants, plans 75 to 77 net new openings this year and targets more than 1,000 locations, with management saying in May new units were tracking in line with or ahead of the strong 2025 class. A separate Kalshi market puts an 81% chance on the count topping 486 by the third quarter.
“AI / Artificial Intelligence” sits at 83%, while “CavaCore,” the data platform behind those ambitions, trades at 72%. This is more than corporate AI window dressing: nearly 40% of CAVA’s sales already come through digital orders, giving it a large pool of customer and restaurant data to personalize offers, forecast demand and improve staffing and food prep. “Automation” languishes at 16%.
“Shrimp” is at 74%. CAVA has expanded testing of Roasted Garlic Shrimp in select markets.
What Kalshi Predicts CAVA Will Skip
The closest call on the board is “Cyclospora / Cyclosporiasis” at 45%.
CAVA’s fiscal second quarter ended in mid-July, just before consumer concern intensified amid record levels of cyclosporiasis nationally and a multistate outbreak linked to recalled Taylor Farms iceberg lettuce. Tonight’s numbers may barely show it.
Sweetgreen Inc. (NYSE:SG) showed what can come next, cutting its full-year outlook last week after the outbreak knocked roughly 600 basis points off its July comparable sales, even though the company said it does not use the implicated iceberg lettuce and had no link to the outbreak.
Analysts are likely to ask. The 45% suggests traders think management may reach for “food safety” without mentioning the parasite by name.
"Same Store" sits at just 9%, strange for a restaurant stock until you check CAVA’s own terminology. The company calls the metric "same restaurant sales."
Reading the Board
Expectations for the reported quarter are high. Management said in May that sales were tracking near the first quarter’s 9.7% same-restaurant sales growth, against a soft 2.1% year-ago comparison. Kalshi agrees, pricing second-quarter growth at roughly 8.6% to 11.4%.
The bigger question is what happened after the quarter closed. CAVA has already raised its 2026 outlook once, to 4.5% to 6.5% same-restaurant sales growth and $181 million to $191 million in adjusted EBITDA. Options traders are pricing in a move of about 11% in either direction, according to Investing.com.
If CAVA delivers a strong second quarter but leaves its full-year outlook unchanged, investors may read that as a warning that traffic weakened after the quarter ended. A guidance raise would suggest July held up better than feared.
Kalshi and Benzinga have an existing data collaboration agreement.
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