Pita Chips Crush Silicon Chips in 2024

Cava stock surges nearly 200% in 2024, topping the 67% rise for the Mag Seven.

While the tech-heavy NASDAQ rose by 29.6% in 2024, don’t forget to pay attention to the Build-Your-Bowl fast-casual restaurant chains like CAVA delivering healthy gains across the board powered by proteins and a little hummus.

Here at Risk Reward Stocks, we analyze all the charts and numbers just like everyone else, but beyond the public stats, we pride ourselves on genuinely experiencing a newer restaurant chain before investing. The little things count: is the food good? How long are the lines before, during, and after the lunch/dinner rush, how fast do the lines move, and are the customers smiling?

It did not take long to see that Cava was delivering on all fronts. We started investing in this stock in early 2024 as soon as we continued to see entire youth sports teams (both girls and boys) in line (ages 6 to 16), all super excited to craft their custom bowls with the perfect mix of greens, grains, proteins, and toppings.

Cava (often called the Mediterranean Chipotle) aims to reach 1,000 restaurants by 2032. On a recent trip to New York, we spied a sexy new Cava store in its final stages of design, and it was amazing to see all the NYC foodies peeking in the window, trying to gauge how soon the shop would open in the land of 50,000 food options.

The final piece of the Cava puzzle is understanding their remarkable customer base. Younger fans lovingly use the term “Slop” to describe the restaurant’s bowls when all the personalized ingredients are mixed together. Cava quickly embraced the term as part of its social media strategy, and this playful tone being used by both the brand and its fans is where the magic really happens.