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Tuesday (August 11, 2026) at 5:00 p.m. ET, Cava reports its Q2 2026 results, and there's a Kalshi mention market on it, and we wanted to share some of our thoughts and notes on some of the words in advance of today’s call.
Four things to know going into this call:
Pomegranate Glazed Salmon launched nationally on April 20. On the May call, Cava’s CFO said salmon would be “a margin rate headwind of approximately 100 basis points” beginning in the second quarter. Today is that quarter’s report, so we expect the word to come up.
Cava’s quarter ended around July 12, so the cyclospora outbreak mostly lands in the current quarter, rather than the reported one. Cava is not implicated in this outbreak.
Free pita chips went to loyalty members on June 21 as part of a summer supper series, and a new Harissa BBQ flavor followed in July.
Roasted Garlic Shrimp is in its last round of market tests, and Cava Core, a new data platform, was introduced on the May call.
Note: Prices are from Tuesday at about 1:45 p.m. ET.
Two markets have moved a lot in the last week.
The Cyclospora (56¢) market moved on August 6 when Sweetgreen said the word eight times on its own call and cut full-year guidance over the outbreak.
On the 6th, Cyclospora was trading between 22¢ and 53¢ on about 900 contracts, before fading back to the mid-twenties and low thirties on the 7th and 8th, then rebuilding to the high forties over the weekend.
Even though no chain other than Taco Bell has been linked to the outbreak (the source is iceberg lettuce from one supplier), Sweetgreen, Chipotle and Yum all said the word on their earnings calls.
Cava has yet to say anything publicly about this outbreak. Sweetgreen, Just Salad, and Chopt, on the other hand, all posted statements.
Another thing working against this mention is that Schulman tends to talk around live events. When asked about the government shutdown while it was still running, he answered the question without repeating the phrase. And when asked about “the Middle East conflict” by an analyst in May, he generalized to “geopolitical conflicts.”
Shrimp (74¢) moved to the mid-seventies today. In the past, the proteins and flavors in Cava’s pipeline have been named while still in testing. Across twelve consecutive call-to-call transitions from testing -- steak, salmon, chicken shawarma, and the chip flavors -- not one has been named on a call and then gone silent on the next.
Shrimp was mentioned in February, when chief executive Brett Schulman volunteered it inside an answer about the innovation pipeline:
We’ve had a market test of shrimp, our roasted garlic shrimp, so that is something we’re also excited about, as well as a number of other proteins that are in development.
Then in May, when asked directly for an update by an analyst at Stifel, he confirmed it had advanced a gate:
That is where or Nashville, where our market tests are going on Roasted Garlic Shrimp. That has moved to the next stage of the stage gate process. It originally was a market test or sorry, an operations test. We are now in a market test, which is a broader test, which would be the last stage of proof points before we would take it to a more national launch.
That gate is the point at which steak and salmon graduated from Q&A answers into prepared remarks. So, there is a chance that might be happening here.
Now, on to some of the other words…