Melissa emphasizes the importance of human interaction in the dining experience, the role of continuous improvement, and the integration of sustainability practices.
Melissa emphasizes the importance of human interaction in the dining experience, the role of continuous improvement, and the integration of sustainability practices. Sid and Melissa also discuss the evolving expectations of consumers for values-driven brands and the necessity for businesses to adapt their physical spaces to meet these demands.
Welcome to Elevating Brick and Mortar. A podcast about how operations and facilities drive brand performance.
On today’s episode, we talk with Melissa Ng, SVP of Design and Construction at CAVA. CAVA is a Mediterranean fast casual restaurant chain with locations across the United States. Cava is owned by the publicly traded Cava Group.
GUEST:
Melissa Ng is SVP of Design & Construction at Cava Grill, and oversees the growth and evolution of Cava’s portfolio through new restaurant builds, a conversion program, and design innovation projects. Prior to that, she was Head of Design & Construction for Blink Fitness, when the Brand was growing via new Corporate and Franchise locations, as well as enhancing their Digital Offering to members. From 2012 to 2018, Melissa held various roles at Chipotle Mexican Grill, including Retail Design Director overseeing the Development Lab. During that time, her team created 3 new Restaurant Prototypes, and executed pilot projects to support the company’s Digital Ordering Channels. Earlier in her career, Melissa oversaw Corporate Workplace design at TD Bank Group, and designed Flagship stores for the Victoria’s Secret Pink Brand. Melissa has a background in Architecture and holds a BA from Cornell University.
TIMESTAMPS
00:31 - About CAVA
01:06 - Melissa’s journey
04:38 - CAVA’s mission
21:00 - How to ensure consistency
19:11 - Reacting to high consumer expectations
30:37 - ESG practices
37:25 - About Project Soul
41:12 - Find Melissa Ng on LinkedIn
SPONSOR:
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LINKS:
[00:00:00] Sid: Hello everyone. Welcome to Elevating Brick and Mortar. Thank you for joining us for the season finale. Season three has been absolutely wonderful, and we have a special guest to close us out today.
[00:00:10] Joining us is Melissa Ng, SVP of Design and Construction at CAVA. Melissa, welcome.
[00:00:16] Melissa: Thanks Sid. I'm happy to always have an opportunity to champion CAVA’s cause and spread the word about our mission.
[00:00:23] Sid: There you go. I love it. Thank you for being here. So Melissa, for folks in our audience who might not be familiar, can you share some insight into CAVA?
[00:00:31] Melissa: Yeah. So for those of you who have not had the opportunity to try our brand yet, um, CAVA is a fast casual Mediterranean brand. Our mission is to bring heart, health and humanity to food. We're in 26 states right now, plus Washington DC and we continue to open in new markets every year.
[00:00:49] Sid: Great. So Melissa, you are an architect by education, right? Did you always think about jumping into retail and, and fast casual? What inspired you to make the switch? Tell us a little bit about your journey.
[00:01:01] Melissa: Yeah. When people ask me about what I do and, and my education and background, I always tell them that I am an architect by education, but really in my professional life, I'm a problem solver. So I went to architecture school. The first several years of my career, I spent in pretty traditional architectural firms.
[00:01:19] In 2008, I got the opportunity to work for limited brands, the parent company of Victoria's Secret. And that was really my first foray into working on the client side, and I loved it.
[00:01:30] I really cut my teeth in understanding not just how to make things look beautiful from the guest perspective or the customer perspective, but really how what we created in the physical space could lend itself to better interactions between employees and guests, and how a lot of those decisions that we make as designers impact the bottom line of a business.
[00:01:54] And from there, the rest is history. I worked for retail brands, worked in the financial services sector doing retail banking design. Did some corporate workplace design. Worked for Chipotle for several years, worked in the fitness, sector, and now I'm at CAVA.
[00:02:08] Sid: Yeah, that's pretty impressive. Your career spans all sorts of spaces. I mean, retail, banking, restaurants, fitness. How does that inform how you think about physical spaces and how do you think about what you do?
[00:02:22] Melissa: Yeah. You know, even though I've worked across many different industries, I always take something from, whether it's retail, whether it's retail banking design, whether it's corporate workplace, I love creating spaces and leading teams to create spaces where, what we do every day can positively impact the interactions between field team members and guests.
[00:02:44] And regardless of whether we're talking about a restaurant space where you've got someone in the back of house interacting and serving food and preparing a meal for a guest in the restaurant or. A retail employee behind the POS having a really great engagement with someone in a retail space. Those interactions are all very similar and there's a lot of crossover, I think more than a lot of people would, would, uh, realize.
[00:03:08] Sid: Growing up, did you always know that you wanted to be an architect? What drew you to the space?
[00:03:14] Melissa: Yeah. You know, I have a really vivid memory of, probably when I was eight years old and I started taking piano lessons and my sister and I would go for our piano lesson together. And while I was waiting for her to complete her lesson, I remember looking through stacks and stacks of Architectural Digest at my piano teacher's house.
[00:03:34] And I also had an uncle who, um, or have an uncle who is an architect as well, so, you know, in my early years I always knew I wanted to create spaces. I was always somewhat artistic, but also, somewhat methodical, and I think architecture brings together those two skill sets really nicely. I never thought though, when I was in architecture school that there were jobs or career paths on the client side.
[00:03:59] That's something that I discovered, once I got into the working world. And, and I love it. I mean, it's always been a passion of mine design and I'm so happy that I get to work for a company like, like CAVA where I love the product and I also love what I'm doing for the brand.
[00:04:13] Sid: I love it. So for those who might not know the full story, um, what, what is CAVAs mission and, and how has a brand evolved over the past few years?
[00:04:22] Melissa: I've been with CAVA for about four and a half years now. I'll be celebrating my five year anniversary this fall. And you know, for anyone who has followed our story, whether it's our IPO, which we'll be celebrating the two year anniversary of next month or the Zoe's acquisition, or, you know, the great story of our founders.
[00:04:41] I think the great thing about our brand is that we have always wanted to bring heart health and humanity to food. And there's really three different ways that we see that come to life as part of our mission. So, you know, obviously it's about serving delicious food that helps people eat well, but also live well.
[00:04:58] We love taking care of the people and things that feed us, whether it's our farmers, our other purveyors of our product, but also the team members both in the field as well as in the support center. And third, we really see food as a unifier. Especially in this day and age, food can be a way to create more diversity and create more inclusivity across the board.
[00:05:20] One image from our IPO that always sticks in my mind is the big yellow banner outside of the stock exchange. And it had the low, you know, we had just launched our new logo and it said CAVA, and underneath it said, welcome to our table. And we say that a lot, um, at CAVA, whether it's, um, you know, with our support team members and, you know, an initiative that we are working on that is going to welcome more people to our table, especially with, you know, the expansion of our restaurant portfolio or even in small interactions between a crew member and a guest within our restaurant. All of that really ladders up into this idea and mission of bringing heart health and humanity to food.
[00:06:01] Sid: Yeah, I mean you've seen some pretty fascinating growth. What differentiates CAVA? I mean, you just, um, shared a lot about how you think about, you know, your value prop, but how do you think about what you're offering to your customer, the brand promise, the North Star, 'cause that goes beyond just food, right? It's all about the, the operations of course, but also design, and ultimately the guest experience.
[00:06:23] Melissa: Yeah. You know, the interesting thing, and I think the thing for me that makes CAVA unique as a business and that is just within our DNA is, when you think about the start of our rapid expansion, the Zoe's acquisition and the expansion of our restaurant footprint, that all really started during the pandemic, and so we were expanding our restaurant portfolio. We were building processes, we were hiring new team members in the field and for the support center. And CAVA is really a brand that is built on a foundation of agility, you know, through necessity. And I think it's that agility and that ability to kind of look at what we're doing today.
[00:07:10] This innate ability to pivot when needed, um, that makes our brand so flexible, but it also allows us to, stay true to the mission that we have. And, um, in part this really great feeling and expression of hospitality that is so much a part of Mediterranean cuisine and culture that is so important to the core of our, uh, to the core of our business.
[00:07:35] Sid: Now the Zoe Kitchen acquisition was a pretty bold move, right? A big one. What inspired that and, and what has that done for the CAVA brand and how you think about where you're present and what you're offering to your customers?
[00:07:48] Melissa: It's like the story of the little fish swallowing, the big fish, right? CAVA, um, at the time had I think about 70 restaurants, Zoe's had over 200 restaurants.
[00:07:58] And so we really had to grow up, uh, very quickly. And not only did we have to do that and figure out how we were going to convert the majority of the Zoe's portfolio to CAVA, but, oh, and by the way, there's a pandemic happening, right? So there's all these supply chain challenges, from a building department perspective, a lot of plan reviewers were working remote.
[00:08:20] They were launching all of these, um, online platforms that a lot of the reviewers and jurisdictions did not know how, um, to use or were, were getting onboarded with. So, you know, the Zoe's acquisition certainly helped us grow and expand our portfolio at a time that a lot of brands either failed or were very unsure about what the future held.
[00:08:43] We took some time between 2018 and when the first location was converted a few years after that to really figure out, you know, how do we one, make sure that as we were embarking on this conversion program, you know, we still have to run the Zoe's restaurants.
[00:08:57] There were things that we actually learned as a business from Zoe's that ended up carrying over into CAVA, right? Like Zoe's had an amazing catering platform. They did a lot of catering business. And so we borrowed some of the good things that they did and are implementing them in our, our catering program today.
[00:09:12] And, as that evolves, we continue to, to learn lessons. With respect to how we were able to convert all these locations during the pandemic, we were, we were just keeping our eye on the long term, right? It was, and Brett says this a lot, Brett, our CEO says this a lot, it's a, it's a marathon, not a sprint.
[00:09:30] Yes, we are dealing with very difficult times, but what are we trying to achieve? There will be an end to the pandemic. Let's keep our eye on the prize. And so we did a lot of really smart things. Um, during the conversion program we started bulk buying equipment. 'cause we knew we were gonna convert. It was very low risk for us to do it.
[00:09:47] At the time we started bulk buying HVAC just to get ahead of some of those supply chain issues. And because a lot of that happened in the very early stages of the growth of our, um, company or at the beginning stages of this rapid expansion. Our teams just work that way. Now it's part of our DNA.
[00:10:04] It's not, oh, now we have to be agile. It's who we have been for the past several years, and I think it was a, a great thing for us to go through. As difficult as it was, I'm not sure I, I would want to relive that anytime soon. Um, it was great when we converted the last restaurant, but. We, we learned a lot of great lessons as an organization, not just on the development side of how to operate going forward, how to be proactive, how to identify risks and mitigate them, and we're still doing a lot of that today.
[00:10:32] I.
[00:10:34] Sid: Yeah. Like the, the physical built environment is a, is a big part of the restaurant and everything from the vibes to the experience and you know, how customers look at your brand is, it's all tied in to that physical space even in a world of, of takeout and drive-throughs. How do you address the challenge of maintaining consistency? And having the same experience, especially as not only have you, you know, grown significantly, but you've also converted a whole different brand into your own. I'm sure there's a lot of things that I, you have to take into account because one thing that customers are not, you know, good at is being forgiving, especially when they have an expectation they wanna walk in to a CAVA in, in Dallas and have the same experience as the one that they had in Austin. How do you ensure that?
[00:11:24] Melissa: One of the things that's really important for us is this idea of continuous improvement, not only on the development side, but also on the operations side. And we are really good about, cross-functionally collaborating, but also, um, making sure we have a feedback loop. I'll give you a good example on the, on the, development side.
[00:11:42] We have a continuous improvement program and we have stakeholders from, obviously design, construction, facilities, operations. We even have, cross-functional partners from the technology teams sit in that continuous improvement program. And so, when we collect feedback, um, we want to make sure that all that feedback is in the service of, um, the, the end goal that we're trying to serve, which is making sure we have that consistent, experience.
[00:12:10] Making sure that if there is any friction that is preventing our team members from serving guests. Um, at a very high quality that enables them to not only be consistent with the service, but give those really, um, really great touch points, between crew and, and customer or guests that we are, we are doing that.
[00:12:30] When we converted, uh, the Zoe's portfolio, we did it generally speaking in half the time and for half the amount of CapEx, of an NRO and, you know, we put together a really great program and we're fortunate that we were able to, um, maintain about 40% of the back of house in the kitchen without sacrificing consistency of equipment, um, flow for the back of house, in the front of house.
[00:12:56] You know, we completely changed the look and feel. We did a complete redo to make sure that, from a guest perspective, even though, you know, 60% of the back of house might have been existing from a Zoe's, from a guest perspective, they would not know the difference between walking into a conversion versus walking into a new restaurant that we built from day one.
[00:13:17] Sid: Fascinating. The world of the physical environment sometimes, tends to get marginalized a little bit, right? Especially when you're talking about facilities, right? You think about building new spaces, everyone focuses on the design and the actual buildup, and then, you know, there's a new store opening and then you move on.
[00:13:35] But ultimately how you take care of those spaces plays a big role in the brand experience, right? Customers walk in, they're not necessarily looking at how clean your door is, but if it's not clean, they notice that, right? And they walk away thinking something just didn't feel right. And we hear this all the time where these functions are seen as cost centers. Clearly you've done something right because you know, you have risen up the ranks and you have a big span of control. How did you achieve that?
[00:14:10] Melissa: As it relates to empowering or creating spaces where operations can really function at a, at a very high level, one of the biggest compliments I ever received in my entire career happened in, I think it was my first month of, of working for CAVA and I was touring some of our existing locations, um, and doing a market tour,
[00:14:31] And I was walking through with one of our, um, uh, market area leads. And, you know, I think it was just because of the way that I was looking at things, the feedback that I was giving to my team, maybe some questions that I was asking facilities.
[00:14:46] The, the ops area lead turned to me and they said, "Oh, so you have an operations background, don't you? Like, I get that you oversee design construction, but you must have come from operations". And I felt that was one of the biggest compliments I've ever received because it truly, to me meant that, um, not only was I trying to turn over a restaurant with my team that you know, was a high quality build. Our GCs did what we needed to. That we built it per spec. That the layout was great, but that I was actually thinking from an end user perspective. You know, and then as it relates to the facility side of things. When we as design and construction professionals, and I oversee facilities as well, but you know, on the design, construction, even the real estate side, from the development perspective, even though our timelines tend to be very long, right, like it can take sometimes depending on, the type of build or the work letter we have, it could take up to two years from the time we initiate a site in real estate committee and get it approved to the time we open a restaurant.
[00:15:48] That window of time, even if it's two years, is a very short window in the overall, I'll call it lifespan of a restaurant. When you think about how long we're in a space, and so when we turn over those restaurants, yes, they go to operations, but facilities are really the, uh, the champions that are making sure that that restaurant stays at the level that it needs to.
[00:16:10] So that, you know, a guest, to your point, does not walk in and notice that a door is. Uh, door is dirty or that it needs repair or that, you know, a table is so worn that, uh, the brand starts looking tired and so. A lot of what we do on the front end, and especially with continuous improvement, is getting that feedback from operations and facilities, to ensure that regardless of what market a guest goes into, um, whether it's a conversion, whether it's an NRO, that the experience is the same and it's a high quality experience.
[00:16:42] And they don't notice anything in disrepair or they don't notice what's wrong because everything just looks and feels right.
[00:16:48] Sid: The time during COVID, that was very challenging. And, you know, all the things you mentioned were really smart. I mean, getting HVAC units at that time was absolutely impossible. There were like six to eight month timelines. A lot of restaurants and a lot of physical spaces.
[00:17:04] Retail suffered, right? But al also the physical spaces changed. Post COVID, and I'd love to hear your thoughts on that because it's like drive-throughs made a comeback, right?
[00:17:14] And it wasn't just walking into the space and dining, you know, in, in the dining room, but. They wanted drive-throughs. They wanted more takeout. They wanted to order from, you know, third party apps. All these experiences though, you know, this omnichannel experience still ties to one thing, which is the brand experience and irrespective of how you interact with the brand, customers have high expectations and they have gotten even higher post COVID.
[00:17:44] How did you think about the physical space to react to those elevated expectations, and also how did you think about the physical space itself because, from what we gather and what we see and what, in all our conversations, takeouts and third party app orders now represent like 25 to 30% of a lot of restaurant orders.
[00:18:08] And so, does the kitchen have to be redesigned to handle that kind of volume? Would love to hear your thoughts on that.
[00:18:15] Melissa: One of the things that I really respect about CAVA and, um, the leadership of our organization is, of course we had to react to some of the regulations that happened during COVID and you know, dining rooms closed or there was limited dining. And, you know, we responded to that appropriately.
[00:18:33] But what we didn't do was, um, force upon our guests something that we thought they wanted. We always meet our guests where they are. We have drive-throughs and it's not because, oh, we think a guest wants a drive through, but that's because that's what our guests were telling us that they wanted.
[00:18:51] Um, or pick up by car lanes rather, there was a time during the pandemic, um, where we thought about, Hey, you know what, a lot of other brands are doing kiosks. Should we do kiosks? Ultimately we decided not to, um, because one, we didn't feel that it was the right brand experience for our guests, and we also thought about the impact that it would have on our ops team in the back of house, you know, then they would get one additional channel that orders would be coming in at, and we knew that the kiosk would ultimately, you know, at that time, degrade the guest experience and make um, labor more difficult. You know, a lot of brands put kiosks in and there have been recent studies that showed kiosks, uh, or that are showing us and telling us that kiosk actually do not increase guest, uh, satisfaction. They do not necessarily increase order accuracy. And as soon as that study came out, I was so thankful that we did not, that we did not put kiosks into restaurants.
[00:19:50] In addition to making sure that in the back of house our layouts are optimized and as close to our pro prototype as possible, we're also implementing some technology that, you know, for all intents and purposes from the guest perspective is almost invisible. So, we have implemented new kitchen display screens that really remove friction increase order accuracy, increase labor efficiency at our second make lines for digital order and pickup by car.
[00:20:22] And so those are the types of technologies that we love because they actually enhance the guest experience within the restaurant and they remove friction for the teams so that team members can spend less time, you know, looking at multiple tickets, stuck on their arm, trying to assemble digital orders. And it frees up their time to do table touches. It frees up their time to interact with guests, and it allows us to bring that humanity back to our service model.
[00:20:51] Sid: I love that. Bringing back humanity to your service model. That that's fascinating. One of the things that we see is that as technology is making its way into, uh, the businesses we love. There's two things that can happen. One is it can augment the guest's experience,
[00:21:07] or it can do, you know, the opposite, right? Where you, the customer feels a little bit removed from the person taking the order, from that warm smile. And, you know, I think businesses struggle with that. How do you do the right things that you know, that are best for the, you know, the operators without taking away from the human element? What is important to you? Um, because those decisions then, you know, influence every part of how you deliver on a brand experience, right?
[00:21:38] Melissa: Yeah. You know, we get a lot of questions, about throughput and what are we doing, and, you know, it comes up in earnings. A lot of other brands are talking about it, right? Speed of service. Um. And, and we say that we are fast enough, um, especially as we open in new markets, we do not want to sacrifice the guest experience for speed necessarily, right? Like our, uh, our same restaurant, uh, sales are still in the double digits from a comp perspective. And so as we introduce more and more guests to CAVA and our offering and some guests even to Mediterranean food, right? And some of the markets that we're opening, some restaurants, people don't know what tatziki is. People don't know what hummus is. And so. Making sure that we are using technology, um, like I said, to free up our employees and our ops teams to really have that high level of engagement with guests is, is definitely serving us well. And I think, you know, a lot of other brands are trying out robots to prepare food and re completely removing that human interaction.
[00:22:46] And that's something that, you know, I, I don't think we'll ever do, at least as it relates to that one-to-one at our serve line. I am, uh, very closely watching other brands that have done that and, have, uh, implemented robots and implemented all of these technologies that are really diluting and degrading the, the human experience. I have a feeling we're gonna see a lot more brands leaning in, like CAVA is um, to making sure that, uh, restaurants still feel welcoming, that are acknowledging that interactions not only between employees and guests are important, but creating spaces where people can interact with each other, where everyone feels welcome, to the table and everything that we are doing on a technology side. so Implementing, um, AI and different technologies to enhance the human interactions within our space is going to continue to be extremely important to us.
[00:23:40] Sid: Now putting aside like the hat that you wear of, uh, a restaurant and design leader, right, and just putting on the hat of just a consumer, what does the past five years look like? When you've walked into restaurants, you know, all types of restaurants, you know, as a consumer. What have you noticed?
[00:23:58] Melissa: The consumer is very smart, and consumers have, whether it's retail, whether it's restaurants, other areas of hospitality, we have a lot more choices. And consumers, uh, because we are so savvy, because we have a lot more choices, we have the ability to raise the bar.
[00:24:19] And so it is so important for brands to understand, you know that in the digital world, right? With e-commerce with, um, being able to ask chat GPT for advice on any, anything. We are still people that exist in the physical world and those physical spaces, right? Like you go out to, uh, eat at any restaurant, most restaurants are filled these days.
[00:24:44] Service has to be high. The environment has to be high. The whole holistic experience, whether it's a retail experience, you know, going into a store and not just seeing something on an app and buying it, but people wanna get into stores and touch and feel things and see things and try them on. That is never, in my opinion, ever going to go away.
[00:25:03] You know, there might have been a, a little bit of a slowdown of it during the pandemic, um, across all industries, just out of necessity. But we've come out of that and people have come back to physical spaces with a vengeance. And I truly believe that brands like CAVA who never lost the eye on the, you know, the future vision.
[00:25:23] And were very steadfast and understanding that people would come back to restaurants, um, and stores and hotels and would continue to travel. Those are the brands that are staying ahead of the curve. Um, and even though I love the fact that CAVA. Um, we are really differentiated because we're one of the only fast casual brands that is putting, um, so much emphasis on that in restaurant, um, experience.
[00:25:46] I hope that other brands, um, across many industries follow suit 'cause it truly is important. There is this lonely loneliness epidemic, um, that is happening and I don't want CAVA to be the only brand, um, that acknowledges that and offers something back, to not only guests, but you know, the employees that have to work, in our spaces. So CAVA is ahead of the curve, but I do truly believe that there will be others in our industry that will see the light, um, and start to follow suit.
[00:26:14] Sid: I agree that that makes total sense. Yeah. I mean, there are times when you walk in, well, most times when you walk into a restaurant these days, if they do it right, it's packed, you're thinking to yourself, it's a Tuesday, you know? But everyone's in there and our craving for, you know, the human interaction and restaurant spaces are just a great way to spend time with family and friends and, uh, and, and be able to interact. The physical space plays a big role in that, right? And it's not just the design, it's the ambiance, the music that you play, all of that huge, huge contributors. When you look at the world around us, what do you think is a fad? And you're like, this is gonna go away. There's no way this is gonna stick.
[00:27:01] Melissa: Yeah, you know, I think, any application of a robot meant to replace, a meaningful human interaction is, you know, there's a lot of robots, whether it's a, you know, drone delivering food, whether it's some of the bots that are delivering, you know, food to, I know Chick-fil-A uses them to deliver food to people.
[00:27:21] Any application of a robot that removes a really meaningful, human interaction, I think is not gonna be as popular in the years to come as you know, it's a very buzzy thing right now, but I don't think it's going to be as popular, especially with brands that, um, like CAVA are at the forefront of making sure that humanity is, is still a, a core of, of the brand.
[00:27:47] So while robots are really cool, um, and there is a place for them, I think as it relates to especially the in restaurant experience, assembly of food, serving of food, we're gonna probably see less and less of those, um, especially as, uh, brands like CAVA, um, can really continue this trend of making sure, uh, people still have opportunities and that we're creating occasions where people do gather, um, around with friends and family at a table.
[00:28:17] Sid: Let's pivot a little bit and talk about maybe sustainability, right? Is that something that you think about, in terms of how you design your spaces, the materials you use? What are your thoughts on that? Because ESG is something that I think every brand should do or, or focus on because you know it's the right thing, but sometimes.
[00:28:39] It can be more costly to do the right thing. How do you think about, about those practices?
[00:28:46] Melissa: Yeah. Um, we're doing a lot of work, um, in the ESG space right now, and to me, you know, sustainability is just good for the planet. But it also, um, has the ability to remove friction, um, for our team members, uh, and our support center team members so that they can focus on the things that, or that, so that we can all focus on the things that really matter.
[00:29:08] So, I'll give you a good example. We're piloting in, um, a few restaurants, uh, remote monitoring of our HVAC systems, as well as walk-in coolers. And so, you know, there's a lot of platforms, uh, or companies that offer this type of monitoring. Typically, there's a two year payoff in ROI in energy savings.
[00:29:29] When we first embarked on this mission, we said, oh, energy savings, that's great. That's good for our bottom line. As a business, it's great for the planet to make sure our major building systems are running efficiently. But what we've found that it's really done is one, there's been a huge benefit for our facilities team, um, just in the remote monitoring, the reporting and the data points that they have.
[00:29:53] Proactively to see issues with heating and cooling that they can get ahead of with a vendor as opposed to waiting until a unit fails. We have to close the restaurant because a restaurant's too hot or too cold. Um, just the. Uh, you know, the incalculable, I guess ROI on removing that type of friction is, um, is amazing and we're seeing other benefits of those systems.
[00:30:22] Just from the data points that we have. We've been running the pilot for, um, less than a year. And truly I thought it would take us a year of running this pilot to see some benefits. But even within the last six months, um, the actions that we've been able to take on the facility side, and again, it's just removing that friction and that headache for our operations team, um, in the restaurant so that they can focus on guests.
[00:30:44] So, you know, sustainability is really one, it's just an important thing to do for the planet, but also when there's all these additive benefits, like removing friction for our team members, it's just icing on the cake. And so we will continue to pursue other platforms, um, like that, you know, run pilots and figure out what's appropriate for our business and what really is gonna make a meaningful, um, you know, meaningful impact, um, to how we're running our support center teams, as well as, uh, the impact in the restaurants themselves.
[00:31:13] Sid: I love it. Today's consumer is also more values driven, and they want to support the brands that they love, and they want those brands to stand for something. Do you feel the cult, the consumers, have high expectations of you as a brand and just doing things that are the right thing for, for people and the planet?
[00:31:36] Melissa: Yeah, I mean, guests today, consumers today are smarter than ever, right? Like information is at all of our, um, fingertips and we are demanding more, and it's the right thing to hold. Brands like CAVA, um, those in our space, any brand out there to a high standard. There's a lot of emphasis not only on um, you know, the, the quality of the food, but from a holistic standpoint, what can a brand do for you that is going to improve, um, the quality of your life, right?
[00:32:07] Like, we're not just about bringing food that's delicious, but we want people to eat and ultimately live well. We listen to our consumers our CX teams. We monitor social media. We listen to what, um, our guests are telling us, uh, not only through, you know, official means of surveying, but also looking at the comments on some of our social media posts, looking at reviews of our restaurants and taking all of that into consideration.
[00:32:34] There are benefits to be living in a digital world and having that information at our fingertips and figuring out how to action against it is really important. And we certainly do a, a ton of that.
[00:32:45] Sid: Yeah. Now you know, one of the hot topics of today and now is, uh, the upcoming tariffs. Right? And what kind of impact might they have on our space? As someone who has, you know, a wide span of control, everything from design to, to facilities, this could have impacts on material and, and the cost of material and how fast you're able to get them and where you can get them.
[00:33:09] Are you seeing any impacts yet or are you bracing for any impacts on, on how your bus, how your teams operate and, and your budget?
[00:33:21] Melissa: Yeah. Luckily in um, 2025, we are seeing very minimal impacts from any tariffs. And in 2026, yeah, a a lot is still unknown. But for next year's pipeline, we're just trying to get ahead of it. And we are fortunate to know that, you know, we can place bulk buys, um, for, you know, a portion of next year or all of next year because we know we're gonna continue opening restaurants.
[00:33:46] We're very well positioned, um, to do so, and we're cashflow positive. So if for whatever reason we do need to put a deposit down on a bulk order for, you know, equipment for 2026 or, um, you know, start cutting POS for HVAC equipment for early 2026. We, we can do that. Um, I think what's helped us very well, you know, I talked a little bit about agility and our team kind of, you know, grew up during the pandemic, certainly on the development side.
[00:34:13] And. So we just have those muscles already. Um, we do a lot of research, um, in light of the fact that right, there's a lot of unknowns, like let's collect as much data that there is out there and try to make informed decisions to get ahead of it. Um, and luckily for us, um, placing bulk orders or, you know, making commitments to, um, vendors for X amount of rest, you know, restaurant builds, um, is, is a low risk for us because we know we're going to continue to grow.
[00:34:43] Our restaurant count, uh, you know, we wanna be at a thousand restaurants by the year 2032, and we're certainly on, um, a good, good trajectory to do so.
[00:34:52] Sid: Wow. On that point, you know, as we wrap up, is there anything that you can share with us about the future, uh, of CAVA and the vision and, and what we have to look forward to?
[00:35:02] Melissa: One of the things that I am immensely excited about, um, is the launching of our new project, Soul Design. We won an award by Fast Company. We're one of Fast Company's 50 most innovative, um, companies, and part of that is because of what we're doing with Project Soul and the acknowledgement that the physical in a restaurant experience is a lot.
[00:35:21] Uh, has a lot to do to, to do with that. So super excited about Project Soul. In the early days of CAVAs restaurant design, um, very well thought out designs, very elegant, high design touch, but didn't really connect with our mission, um, and our Mediterranean offering. And so with Project Soul, we are getting back to our roots.
[00:35:43] And it's not just about the dining room looking pretty, but how are we optimizing, uh, the serve line so that the product, when the guest comes through, is really clear and we're highlighting all of the amazing, um, ingredients and offerings, um, that we have. Uh, making sure that the materials, the color palette, the lighting, um, feels like you are in a sunki Mediterranean environment.
[00:36:07] And it also connects with everything we're doing on our digital platforms and the new logo, um, you know, that we rolled out Prego IPO. So super excited. Um, we're starting to roll in some limited Project Soul elements to our restaurant openings, um, this year and, we will continue to open, um, all of our 2026 locations in full Project Soul design.
[00:36:28] So really excited for guests to, um, see more of that design. The initial, um, reception from our pilot projects was really, really positive. So, you know, that's just going to help, um, emphasize our mission of bringing heart health and humanity to, um, to food in every way that our brand shows up across all of our, um, platforms for guests and our employees alike.
[00:36:51] Sid: Love it. What? What was the inspiration behind the name?
[00:36:55] Melissa: So Project Soul is a little bit of a play on words. We spell it SOUL, right? Like bringing that humanity back to food, but also "sol" as a nod to the Mediterranean Sun.
[00:37:08] Sid: Oh, there you go. Love it. Love it. For folks in our audience, you know, future leaders, what advice would you give them in terms of how they can, you know, articulate better the impact that they have, on the brands that they serve and how they can make design and the physical space is a critical part of the business.
[00:37:29] Melissa: For those of us, uh, in the development world, especially in the design world, um, or those of us with design backgrounds, um, be steadfast, uh, stay true to what you believe in, um, I was so excited that Project Soul has been received so positively.
[00:37:46] When we really started championing Project Soul, um, externally to the public and we were getting such great feedback, it was really inspiring for me. And I think it's important for those of us who believe that physical spaces, um, really matter. Find brands that resonate with you, like work for brands or partner with brands that believe in the same thing, um, and, and make sure you're steadfast.
[00:38:12] Don't, uh, bend to the whim of like the next big tech fad. Because that might not have longevity, that might not have legs. We are still human beings. We are still physical people that exist in the physical world, and we just can't forget that.
[00:38:27] Sid: I love it. With that, Melissa, I just wanna say a huge thank you. Thank you for being on the show and taking the chi time to, uh, to chat with us. For folks in our audience who might wanna look you up and, and connect with you, uh, where can they do that? I.
[00:38:40] Melissa: Find me on LinkedIn. I'm very active on LinkedIn. As our team grows, we, uh, recruit from LinkedIn, but connect with me. Send me a message. Feel free to reach out even if you just want to network or learn more about CAVA.
[00:38:53] Sid: Love it. Well, once again, Melissa, thank you so much and for all those in our audience, thank you for joining us, and I'll see you on the next episode of Elevating Brick and Mortar.
[00:39:03] music break
[00:39:04] Well, that was Melissa Ng, SVP of Design and Construction at CAVA. CAVA is a phenomenal fast casual restaurant that has not only seen great growth over the past few years, but they have also figured out how to build their operations and physical spaces around the guest experience, of course, while serving delicious food.
[00:39:29] Melissa oversees all parts of the built environment and shares how she thinks about the physical space being a huge factor on delivering on a brand's promise. This means everything from the design to the construction to facilities. Everything has to be done right, keeping the operator and the customer in mind.
[00:39:48] If you do this well, you'll have happy operators. Happy customers. Well, this concludes season three of elevating brick and Mortar. Thanks to all of you, our listeners, for making this such a fantastic season. With that, I'm your host, Sid Shetty,, and I'll see you on the next season of Elevating Brick and Mortar.