CAVA Group (NYSE:CAVA) & BJ’s Restaurants (NASDAQ:BJRI) Critical Survey

BJ’s Restaurants (NASDAQ:BJRI) and CAVA Group (NYSE:CAVA) are both retail/wholesale companies, but which is the superior investment? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their valuation, institutional ownership, analyst recommendations, profitability, earnings, dividends and risk.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of current ratings and price targets for BJ’s Restaurants and CAVA Group, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
BJ’s Restaurants	2	4	2	0	2.00
CAVA Group	0	9	15	2	2.73

BJ’s Restaurants currently has a consensus price target of $40.83, indicating a potential upside of 0.30%. CAVA Group has a consensus price target of $82.29, indicating a potential upside of 20.38%. Given CAVA Group’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts plainly believe CAVA Group is more favorable than BJ’s Restaurants.

Institutional & Insider Ownership

100.0% of BJ’s Restaurants shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 73.2% of CAVA Group shares are owned by institutional investors. 4.9% of BJ’s Restaurants shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 12.1% of CAVA Group shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, hedge funds and endowments believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Risk and Volatility

BJ’s Restaurants has a beta of 1.33, meaning that its stock price is 33% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, CAVA Group has a beta of 2.41, meaning that its stock price is 141% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Profitability

This table compares BJ’s Restaurants and CAVA Group’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
BJ’s Restaurants	2.23%	12.92%	4.67%
CAVA Group	12.14%	8.88%	5.21%

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares BJ’s Restaurants and CAVA Group”s revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
BJ’s Restaurants	$1.36 billion	0.63	$16.69 million	$1.34	30.38
CAVA Group	$963.71 million	8.23	$130.32 million	$1.16	58.93

CAVA Group has lower revenue, but higher earnings than BJ’s Restaurants. BJ’s Restaurants is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than CAVA Group, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Summary

CAVA Group beats BJ’s Restaurants on 11 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.

About BJ’s Restaurants

BJ’s Restaurants, Inc. owns and operates casual dining restaurants in the United States. Its restaurants offer pizzas, craft and other beers, appetizers, entrées, pastas, sandwiches, specialty salads, and desserts under brand name Pizookie. The company was formerly known as Chicago Pizza & Brewery, Inc. and changed its name to BJ’s Restaurants, Inc. in August 2004. BJ’s Restaurants, Inc. was founded in 1978 and is based in Huntington Beach, California.

About CAVA Group

CAVA Group, Inc. owns and operates a chain of restaurants under the CAVA brand in the United States. The company also offers dips, spreads, and dressings through grocery stores. In addition, the company provides online and mobile ordering platforms. Cava Group, Inc. was founded in 2006 and is headquartered in Washington, the District of Columbia.