<div class="block">Brett Schulman, Cava CEO, joined Cheddar News to talk about his company going public. &quot;We think the market is always welcoming to long-term sustainable growth stories, especially category defining brands,&quot; he said. Schulman also shared his pitch to investors as the company launches it IPO.</div>

Closing Bell

Cava CEO Brett Schulman Talks IPO Debut

Mediterranean restaurant chain, Kava made its market debut here at the New York Stock Exchange today and shares popped nearly doubled in their debut ending the day at about $44 a share after pricing at $22 a piece last night. Well, I spoke with the CEO of CAVA earlier today to talk about the company's plans going forward and to hear his pitch to investors on its market debut. Take a look the next big cultural cuisine category. Mediterranean fastest growing category in fast casual. We have a clear, dominant leadership position in it. We've got this massive white space opportunity that we've proven portability across the country in multiple markets. And we've supported with really robust infrastructure to be able to successfully scale and grow and take advantage of that white space opportunity. Why now a big ipo and a market that hasn't seen a lot of them, but certainly the conditions have changed. We think the market is always welcoming to long term sustainable growth stories, especially category defining brands and Chris. It's really three things. One is that we are a consumer facing brand. And so we want this growth story in the public realm where our guests can have ownership and the public can have ownership in this great growth story. And second, as we define the Mediterranean category across the country, we really want to bring awareness to what we're doing and the positive impact our food has. And then third, we have a clean balance sheet, but this further strengthens and fortifies our balance sheet as we think about restaurant growth and we think about those macro economic headwinds that we've all been talking about. I think every month for the last 12 months, if they do manifest themselves, this allows us to stay on wavering on our long term vision and really take advantage of that white space opportunity in front of us in the category. We continue to define an IPO, of course, a great opportunity to raise money to focus on that expansion as you were just explaining, what are the going to be used for specifically? Yes. So we operate in 22 states in the district of Columbia today. That means there's 26 states in the Continental us, we haven't opened in and plus there are significant growth opportunities in the 22 states we do operate in. So we're really focused on great restaurant growth going forward. What can consumers expect if they walk into a cava? Yeah. Well, that's a great thing. 38 items on our line that translate to over 17.4 billion combinations. So whether you want a plant based meal, you want to gluten or lactose from your diet or if you just want spicy lamb meatballs, crazy fat and body rice. Everyone can come to the car and be happy. Look, the price point for consumers is so important these days as we've seen inflation really pick up the past 18 months. Finally a little bit on the downside. Of course, your supply chain will dictate prices to some extent. What kind of pricing power are you providing? That makes this an affordable option for eaters? Yeah, I talked about all that infrastructure we've invested over the years, whether it's our vertical integration, manufacturing, our dips and spreads or our direct source scalable supply chain. And what that allowed us to do last year is only take less than 5% in restaurant pricing when others were taking double digit pricing, really lean into that value proposition for our guests so that we can welcome everyone to our table big day for your company. Of course, investors want to know the path to profitability. How do you get there? So we've got a really powerful restaurant unit Economic Engine as Evan by 50 million of restaurant level profit in the first quarter, that's compared to 91 million all of last year. So this great restaurant Economic Engine that continues to grow as we open more restaurants and we come out of the transformation of our Zoe's acquisition. So all of our new unit restaurant growth really contributing to that profit engine and then that massive white space opportunity in front of us with the infrastructure I talked about for us to leverage as we now scale and grow. I'm sure our viewers want to know if a cop is coming to a location near them. What can you tell us about the expansion plan specifically? So I talked about growing in the 22 states that we currently operate in and we did announce that we're going to Chicago our first market in the Midwest. So Midwest is a region we do not have any restaurants in. And we're excited to bring our Mediterranean way to food safety. Of course, another important topic, right, to make sure that people can not only enjoy their meal but that it's safe and sustainable as well. What is your company doing on? Yes. So I mentioned our manufacturing facility which our dips and spreads actually predated our fast casual business. That's an FDA inspected pathogen tested certified facility. So we kind of grew up in a food safety world with mock recalls and that now is translated to the restaurant. So whether it's our Zut checklist and food safety audits from a third party auditor partner, we want to make sure we have a safe food, safe environment, both for our guests and for our team members. All right, thanks to the CEO of CAVA for joining me earlier on its big market debut and a welcome reception from investors today.