CAVA — Restaurant in Phoenix

The food here is some of the best fast casual cuisine I've ever had, but from a management perspective, this place struggles in ways I've never seen a restaurant struggle in such abundance.

When the place first opened their hours were 10am-10pm, or something like that. I was enjoying this place so much that were a few times when I came here for both lunch and dinner-- and the same crew was working. It honestly seems like mgmt. had people working O/C shifts for several days in a row, which resulted in slow service and a frustrated staff. I have to imagine the workers finally said enough was enough, because for a while hours were restricted to 10:45am-3:45pm. The one-star reviews this place has gotten are mostly from this time period; mismanagement has really damaged CAVA's local reputation.

They're open until 8pm now, and it seems like the staffing situation has improved. But the restaurant still often depletes stock for things they really shouldn't be running out of-- not just random toppings; on multiple occasions, the restaurant's just been straight-up out of pitas. How does a Mediterranean fast-casual joint run out of pitas on a semi-regular basis? The recurrence points to the fact that whoever's doing inventory management and stock replenishment has a lot of learning to do.

If any of the store staff are reading this-- keep doing what you're doing. Y'all are awesome. If anyone in CAVA leadership is reading this-- consider hiring a restaurant consultant if you haven't already done so. You have a good thing going with this brand, but it's very, very clear that you need help sustaining...

This is the worst Cava I have ever been to; and I’ve been to Cavas all over the country due to my travels.

Here’s why:

1.) I, along with 5 people walked in and there was only 1 woman behind the counter. She called for help multiple times, but the 2 girls in the back were too busy giggling and listening to their own music from their own speaker to notice.

2.) When one of them finally did, and I asked for the Harissa avocado bowl without cucumbers. She proceeded to dish out the few burnt grains of rice that was left under the heat lamp. I told her I would wait for fresh rice.

3.) Once the order was prepped, she started packaging my bowl up, but there were cucumbers. I told her I said no cucumbers. She decided to take a spoon from the back and scoop them from the trash instead of making the bowl over. This shows how much they care about food allergies. IYKYK.

4.) I asked for the sauce on the side and they put some red salsa like sauce with it, instead of the Harissa sauce.

5.) When looking at the kitchen through the window, there were dirty dishes everywhere and it was an absolute mess. Their loud music was blaring and contradicting the different music playing in the restaurant.

Other customer orders were also screwed up in real-time during the 15 minutes of my life I had to waste there.

I have the utmost respect for the service industry, but there was absolutely no reason why any of this needed to happen. Please get some standards...

I’d love to give this location more stars because the food is excellent. It’s the unfriendly staff and lack of cleanliness of the place that makes me give this spot 2 stars. Today was the 2nd time visiting and my experience was the same as the first so I’m compelled to write this review. I decided to try this location again because my daughter really enjoyed her Cava experience while in San Antonio and it’s the one closest to where we live. We live in NE Mesa and made the drive today so she could get her Cava fix while home from college. We were not greeted upon entering. The staff behind the counter did not look happy to be there, seemed annoyed to have customers in the restaurant, and were simply order takers/order fulfillers. There was a couple ahead of us that clearly had never been to Cava before and the gal was not helpful to them. Seemed impatient and annoyed they were asking questions or taking longer to make decisions. The employee at the register was friendly but beyond that, no one else was warm or friendly. A majority of the tables in the restaurant were not clean & trash cans were full. Disappointed that my first visit wasn’t a fluke and it’s just how this location operates. Hopefully the other locations in AZ are better as the next time my daughter is craving Cava, we’ll be headed to one of those vs. this one on...