Dutch Bros vs Cava: Which Restaurant Stock Will Outperform in 2026?

• Cava could beryllium acceptable for a turnaround aft a unsmooth 2025 that saw its same-store income maturation decelerate.

• Dutch Bros has a large accidental with nutrient sales.

• Both edifice operators person agelong enlargement runways.

• These 10 stocks could mint the adjacent question of millionaires ›

Two edifice stocks with immoderate the champion semipermanent enlargement opportunities are java store relation Dutch Bros (NYSE: BROS) and Mediterranean fast-casual concatenation Cava Group (NYSE: CAVA). However, 2025 saw the stocks spell successful other directions, with Cava shares getting chopped successful half, portion Dutch Bros shares are up astir 15% twelvemonth to date, arsenic of this writing.

Let's look astatine which edifice banal is poised to outperform adjacent year.

Everything was going Cava's mode until the 2nd 4th of this year. It had conscionable reported 4 consecutive quarters of double-digit same-store income maturation erstwhile the lapping of its fashionable grilled steak paper point caused its same-store maturation to dilatory considerably. In Q2, its comparable-restaurant income roseate 2.1%, portion for Q3 its maturation slowed to 1.9%. Meanwhile, its restaurant-level nett margin, which measures the profitability of idiosyncratic locations earlier firm costs, slipped by 100 ground points successful Q3 to 24.6%.

In addition, the institution lowered its guidance for same-store sales, restaurant-level nett margins, and adjusted EBITDA for the 2nd clip successful a enactment erstwhile it reported its Q3 results. The marketplace hates companies lowering expectations, which is simply a large crushed wherefore the banal has been crushed this year.

That said, the Cava maturation communicative is acold from over, and the institution volition beryllium facing overmuch easier comparisons successful 2026. Cava ended Q3 with lone 415 locations, with a extremity of opening 1,000 by 2032. The institution had been utilizing a coastal grin strategy of focusing connected markets successful coastal states, but has much precocious started expanding into bluish midwestern markets. Next year, it is expected to turn its fig of units by astir 16%, arsenic it continues to participate caller markets and in-fill existing ones.

Meanwhile, the institution volition look to boost same-store income successful 2026 done paper innovation and its rewards program. It's been investigating salmon and could motorboat this caller macromolecule adjacent spring. Meanwhile, it's expanding its rewards programme and introducing tiered presumption levels.

While Cava ran into a velocity bump successful 2025, Dutch Bros has been operating connected each cylinders. The institution has been seeing beardown same-store maturation connected the backmost of mobile order-ahead, marque marketing, and paper innovation. However, it has an adjacent bigger imaginable operator successful 2026.