---
title: Cava vs. Sweetgreen - What's the Difference?
description: A comparison of Cava and Sweetgreen reveals their contrasting growth strategies and customer traffic patterns, highlighting how both can thrive on the same NYC street.
image: https://popcorngtm.com/hubfs/cava-vs-sweetgreen-2026.png
---
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# Cava vs. Sweetgreen - What's the Difference?
[By \- Jason Molinari,](https://popcorngtm.com/blog/author/jason-molinari) Nov 09, 2026
*(Jason Molinari is a student at New York University. He writes about the restaurant brands he passes on his way to class and the numbers behind them. -Ed)*
Last week I was walking down University Place at lunch, deciding where to eat, as a typical NYU student does. Sweetgreen and Cava sit a short walk apart on the same street, practically facing each other. I picked Cava, mostly out of habit, but while I waited for my bowl I started to wonder how either of them stays in business. They sell nearly the same thing to nearly the same people: a fresh, build-your-own bowl for a quick lunch, at about the same price, from a few doors apart. One of them had to be losing that fight, I thought, so I decided to investigate.
At first, my choice looked like the smart one. Same-store sales, which compare what existing locations sell this year to last year, grew 3.1% at Cava in the third quarter. Sweetgreen's fell 6.4%, with customer traffic down 4.9%. Both chains were hurt this summer by the same cyclospora scare tied to fresh produce, though Sweetgreen took the bigger hit. Cava also opened its 500th restaurant and raised its full-year outlook, now expecting same-store sales to grow 6% to 7%. Sweetgreen still expects to finish the year down about 5.5%.
Look closer, though, and the story shifts. Cava's 3.1% is a big slowdown from 9% in the second quarter and 9.7% in the first. Almost all of it came from higher prices and bigger orders. Traffic, which grew more than 5% in the spring, was only "slightly positive," according to the company's earnings release. Sweetgreen is heading the other way. Once the outbreak left the news, its same-store sales grew 5% in October, with traffic up 4%, according to Nation's Restaurant News. Traffic is the number I care most about, because it shows whether customers keep coming back. On that measure, the place I didn't eat at had the better month. (One caveat: Sweetgreen is measuring against a rough 2025, and Cava hasn't reported October by itself yet.)
So is either lunch spot on my walk to class in trouble? Less than I thought. Cava is still the stronger business, but its growth is coming from people paying more, while Sweetgreen's comeback is coming from people returning. Maybe that's how two nearly identical restaurants survive on one street. They take turns: one quarter belongs to Cava, the next to Sweetgreen, and the block has room for both. ;-)
### Sources
- [CAVA Group: Third Quarter 2026 Results](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/0001639438/000162828026070159/earningsrelease2026q3.htm) (same-store sales, traffic, 500th restaurant, full-year outlook)
- [FastCasual: Cava reports strong Q2 results fueled by traffic growth](https://www.fastcasual.com/news/cava-reports-strong-q2-results-fueled-by-traffic-growth-restaurant-openings/) (Q2 same-store sales and traffic)
- [Sweetgreen: Third Quarter 2026 Financial Results](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/0001477815/000162828026071064/q326sweetgreenearningsrele.htm) (same-store sales, traffic)
- [FastCasual: Sweetgreen sales slip again in Q3, October comps turn positive](https://www.fastcasual.com/news/sweetgreen-sales-slip-again-in-q3-october-comps-turn-positive/) (full-year outlook)
- [Nation's Restaurant News: Sweetgreen moves same-store sales and traffic into positive territory](https://www.nrn.com/fast-casual/sweetgreen-moves-same-store-sales-and-traffic-into-positive-territory) (October rebound)
For more on the numbers behind restaurant performance, subscribe to [Restauromics](https://popcorngtm.com/restauromics), Popcorn GTM's weekly restaurant economics newsletter.
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