CAVA — Restaurant in Columbus

I’m so mad I can chew bullets right now. 🤬

I’m completely done with this Cava location in Columbus. Tonight my youngest daughter and I went in to order bowls. First impression, the food prep area was filthy. I couldn’t believe the state of the food preparation area. The young tall dark skinned black girl that waited on us was HORRIBLE. She had the worst attitude imaginable. She didn’t have a name tag on for me to grab her name. Remind you we were the only people in line ordering.

She was short with us, slammed our bowls down every time she moved them, gave us little to no toppings. We had to asked her repeatedly to add more toppings to our bowls. She slammed the spoons down each time she used them. She was very impatient and couldn’t wait for us to even tell her the dressings we wanted in our bowls. She forgot to give my daughter her pita, so when I asked she got even more impatient with us and threw it in the bag.

When we checked out, she didn’t hand us our bag and she asked if we wanted our receipt, I told her yes, she printed the receipt and then left it in the register and walked off.

I was soooo pissed off that I was about to confront this young girl but I knew it would be a huge confrontation. My daughter was upset and didn’t even want the food and I could tell she was uneasy the whole time ordering her food from this young lady. Believe me, she didn’t want me to show out so I remained professional and courteous. I can’t even eat the food because I’m so pissed.

So I’m writing this review because that employee should be fired. I called the store while in the parking lot and like every call, they never answer the phone, not even the managers. So I will attempt to find out who owns this particular Cava and report this young lady and the manager who was on duty who walked away. Like Zoe’s that was there before them, if you hire just anyone to run your businesses they will fail.

If anyone knows who owns this location, please leave their info. Count...

4/24/25 @ 8:15 pm (they close at 10pm). This was our 3rd visit and there is a clearly pattern that needs addressed at this point. You were out of multiple items and said it would take 13-15 minutes to make them. But you didn't need us to ask for an item (such as the lamb meatballs) before making it! If you have it in the back (which you said you did), make sure it is prepared in the front!!! But even worse, is you were out of things like tzatziki sauce! For a Mediterranean place, that is like being out of fries at McDonalds! That goes in many of your items! And this is the 3RD TIME IN ROW you were out of this! And to make it worse, we only learned you were out of certain ingredients AFTER you started making our orders! At that point, we would have chosen different orders, but we weren't informed until it was too late!

Additionally, how about you fill up your drink containers? Is that too much to ask?

And how about you clean your tables? (When we arrived, there was no other customer in the store, so you clearly weren't busy). We intended on eating inside, but (and I can't believe I'm saying this), EVERY SINGLE TABLE was filthy and hadn't been wiped off. Not most of them. ALL of them. I only took a couple photos because it was awkward enough doing that. But trust me, every... single... table... was filthy (food, sticky, spilled drinks, etc) because we were trying to find a place to sit down. We couldn't so we just left with the food.

You guys need to try WAY harder. And again, this wasn't our first time... this was our 3rd time in a row seeing all of...

My daughter and I went for our first time. We were so excited saw great reviews from other Cava’s and loved healthy and Mediterranean food. We walked in and it was a line I would say maybe 10 people. For a new restaurant I have never seen no organization the staff didn’t seem to know who job was who and our food just sat there in a line waiting on our toppings. The staff was so dry, no smiles, no pep in their step and honestly acted like they didn’t want to be there and we were bothering them. When we finally got to the cashier I explained to her what each of us was paying for. She said ok but really seem like she wasn’t paying us no attention. We got to our table and noticed she had charged us both twice for something we got one of. I asked for the manager she came to our table, we explained, she was so nice and apologized for the error and fixed my daughters ticket asap. We so loved the food, great flavors great options but out of Greek vinaigrette? The dining room was pretty clean but the ice machine was out of ice and no forks? This can be a great addition to Columbus Ga we may go back. But for a restaurant to just be open a couple of weeks maybe months. The owner needs to realize first impressions can either make you or break you. And if you don’t train or get some great customer service the food won’t matter, people want to be greeted, felt welcomed and things explained when you are a first timer. You got to make people want to come back may not be Cavas but there is other places we can spend our money that appreciates...