CAVA Reviews

3.6

51% would recommend to a friend

(760 total reviews)

Brett Schulman

59% approve of CEO

40% positive business outlook

CAVA has an employee rating of 3.6 out of 5 stars, based on 760 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have a good working experience there. The CAVA employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Restaurants and food service industry (3.7 stars).

Reviews by job title

760 reviews
3.0
26 Sept 2019
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

-Free Food -The culture was great the first 12 months, that is a huge reason why I joined. -The people, the previous CFO was a great leader -Company Events -The team I worked with before everyone started to leave because of the ZK deal. -Benefits were good, unlimited PTO, WFH when needed, casual attire in the office

Cons

-CAVA bought ZK, it ruined the culture and didn't bring us together as ONE team it actually divided us more and blew up everything -They were not upfront and honest about the changes that were going to happen in the future and no incentive to stay to commit to CAVA -No growth in my career if I stayed at CAVA, they don't believe in there people, and they don't trust them either. -The new CFO, runied the entire department and that is why everyone there is a contract employee because all the full-time employees left and they outsourced our jobs. -The culture became a terrible place to work because all they were focused on was ZK -ZK deal was the worst decision ever, in my opinion, that was huge reason why I left. They couldn't figure out how to integrate the finance systems, it was taking forever. -

5.0
11 Feb 2016

Human Resources

Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

The employer strongly encourages each employee to be creative. Each person has the opportunity to grow their position to what they want it to be. Management is completely hands on and always available to take on anything from the smallest task to the big stuff! They have their support staff and corporate employees work a week in a restaurant to learn the company from the ground up. Everyone has a strong passion for the company. ALSO FREE FOOD... who doesn't want free cava? Oh yeah, and salaried employees get unlimited PTO.. Pretty amazing. Modern company with amazing values and most importantly an amazing product.

Cons

No downsides really. No parking really, but thats DCs fault. The only downside is there is not a Cava location close enough to walk to from the corporate office.

1.0
19 Dec 2019
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

The only pro to working here is the free CAVA during the week.

Cons

The list can go on and on about the cons of working for CAVA, but it’s best to look at their five thing they deem important and value most. Transparency - what I saw at CAVA was the exact opposite of transparency. Instead of being transparent with Team Members about the current state of business, leadership would often gloss over the issues, present false hope and promises that things would get better. During the entire acquisition the CEO admittedly failed at keeping both CAVA and Zoe’s Team Members abreast of changes and decisions. Rash decisions were often made and telephoned down to the working teams. Humility - I honestly can’t even believe this is a value. This company has one of the most ego driven cultures I have experienced. Regardless of what market research or data says, leadership makes decisions and pushes projects forward based on their ego and stubbornness. If they even had an inkling of humility they would find the source of what didn’t work and fix it. Instead they continually fail on new initiatives. Fanaticism - I’ll give it to them here - they love CAVA and everything about it. Newly acquired Zoe’s Kitchen...not so much. And they are very vocal about their disdain for the Zoe’s business. Positivity - Positivity can not thrive in a toxic work culture. The only way to get promoted here is by being manipulative and backstabbing. There is a lot of finger pointing to blame and deep rooted issues that haven’t been figured out. The work/life balance is a joke - so much so that the CEO makes it perfectly clear that it is stupid. Thoughtfulness- In my time I didn’t find much thoughtfulness - not in the way projects were handled, not in the way leadership treats team members and definitely not in the way issues were researched. Leadership will say whatever needs to be said to look good and then turn around and do the exact opposite. In short, what I saw was this company is a sinking ship. What keeps them going is good food, but eventually the poor leadership will catch up with them and it will not be good. It’s already being seen in the multiple rounds of layoffs.

avatar
CAVA Response
6y
We appreciate your feedback. Our team is aware of the challenges that emerged in 2019 and is already making changes to re-focus on the employee experience in 2020. We appreciate your direct comments regarding our values and will be working to learn from this feedback. Thank you for sharing your thoughts on where improvement is needed.
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