CAVA Is Coming to Las Vegas This Year, With the Bay Area to Follow in 2027

CAVA has confirmed its first locations in two markets it has never operated in: Las Vegas, opening before the end of 2026, and the Bay Area, arriving at San Jose's Santana Row in 2027.

The Mediterranean fast-casual chain ended its second quarter with 476 restaurants in 29 states and Washington, D.C. It has been dense in Southern California for years, but Northern California and Nevada have stayed empty while the company built out the East Coast, the Sun Belt, and more recently the Midwest.

The Las Vegas restaurant will be at 5655 Centennial Center Blvd. in Centennial Hills, in the northwest part of the valley. A company representative told the Las Vegas Review-Journal that CAVA "does intend to open before the end of this year," though it hasn't set a date.

Centennial Hills is a residential, grocery-anchored trade area, which fits how CAVA has typically entered new markets — through suburban locations aimed at regular weekday customers rather than high-profile sites. On the August 11 earnings call, management listed Las Vegas among the new markets planned for the second half of 2026.

The first Bay Area location will be at 3055 Olin Ave. at Santana Row, opening sometime in 2027. Two more San Francisco-area restaurants are planned behind it, though addresses and dates haven't been announced.

CAVA shared the news at a "Supper Series" dinner event in San Francisco in early August. The city had won a fan vote for the event over Seattle and Salt Lake City — a nice bit of marketing, and probably a low-cost way to gauge interest, though the real estate decisions were surely made well before any votes were counted.

The new markets come against a strong quarter. Revenue was $365.4 million, up 31.3% from a year ago. Same-restaurant sales grew 9.0%, with 5.3 points of that from traffic rather than price. Average unit volumes are now $3.1 million system-wide, and management said new restaurants are again performing above their targets. The company opened 17 net new restaurants in the quarter and held its full-year guidance at 75 to 77 openings, unchanged from the guidance it raised in May.

CEO Brett Schulman pointed to recent openings in smaller markets as evidence the concept travels: "From Mishawaka, Indiana to Downingtown, Pennsylvania, our newest restaurants continue to outperform our expectations, reinforcing the proven portability of our concept and the growing demand for our differentiated Mediterranean cuisine."

A few things to keep an eye on as these openings approach. In Las Vegas, whether CAVA follows the first location quickly with others — the company has tended to cluster new units in a market once the first one is open. In the Bay Area, how the unit economics hold up in a region with high build-out and labor costs; Santana Row is a proven retail environment, but the two unannounced locations will say more about how aggressively CAVA plans to build there. And for both markets, whether the openings stay on schedule — CAVA has stated a goal of at least 1,000 restaurants by 2032, which requires the pace of the last few years to continue.