Month: September 2025

• “Slop bowl” hubs like Chipotle, Sweetgreen, and Cava have recently struggled with slumping sales.
• I taste-tested meals at the three chains to see why the restaurants are losing ground.
• While the food was fresh and the flavors at each chain were tasty, their real problem is value.

It appears the era of the “slop bowl” may be fading.

Fast-casual restaurants like Chipotle, Sweetgreen, and Cava had been exceptions to the restaurant industry’s slumping sales and diminished foot traffic as consumers curbed their spending over the better part of the last year.

Those days seem to be over: $20 can now get you table service with your Triple Dipper at Chili’s, and other casual and fast-food chains are ramping up their combo meal offerings. Doesn’t that muck up the slop bowl’s value proposition? Consumers seem to think so.

Sweetgreen’s same-store sales fell 7.6% in the second quarter, while Chipotle reported a 4% decline — one of the brand’s worst quarters since 2020. Cava, while expanding locations, also reported a slowdown in same-store sales: 2.1% growth in its most recent quarter, a significant deceleration from the 14.4% growth it enjoyed in the prior-year quarter.

“If I’m going to spend an extra $4 or $5 to go to Chipotle or Cava versus McDonald’s, that value still needs to be there — it just needs to be a different type of value,” Jean-Pierre Lacroix, president of the brand strategy firm SLD, told Business Insider. “They need to find that balance and provide value while creating something unique that is memorable and shareable.”

Four analysts and brand strategists who spoke to Business Insider said each restaurant is grappling with its value proposition. Gone are the days when consumers would frivolously swing for a larger-sized soda or an added side. Customers demand filling meals, healthy options, and affordable prices, with slop bowls no longer seen as the top dog in those categories.

That raises the question: do the bowls themselves live up to the value promise that made each brand popular? I tried each chain to find out.

Chipotle was the most filling — and least expensive

At $19.01 for a burrito bowl, chips, and a drink, Chipotle was the most economical option — and the most filling of the three chains I tried. I sampled the recently re-released carne asada bowl, now available for a limited time, and found it flavorful and fresh. The hearty portion size (with over 1,000 calories if you add guacamole) easily stretched to feed me for both lunch and dinner.

Laurie Schalow, Chipotle’s chief corporate affairs officer, told Business Insider that the brand’s prices remain 20% to 30% less than meals at other fast-casual chains and often below comparable meals at many quick-service restaurants.

“The health of the Chipotle brand remains very strong,” Schalow said, citing customer perception surveys measuring satisfaction with the company’s offerings.

Cava’s flavors and colors were exciting — but pricey

I hadn’t eaten at Cava before. I spent $28.97 on a bowl, spicy pita chips, a drink, and a blondie bite — an impulsive $2.95 purchase my sweet tooth made me indulge in at the register.

With around 600 calories for the bowl and a nearly $30 price point, I wouldn’t spend that much on lunch on a regular basis.

That said, Mediterranean flavors are some of my favorites, and this steak and harissa bowl didn’t disappoint. Not only was it delicious, but the bowl was presented beautifully, with the colors of cabbage, cucumber, and tomato worthy of a second glance.

Instead of focusing on a traditional value proposition like a combo deal, Cava’s CEO Brad Schulman said during the brand’s Q2 earnings call that its popular hot harissa meal — which included a promotional stuffed pita chip toy — was intended to “tap into the emotional connection of our guests.”

The brand’s internal surveys of customers indicate they see the meals as a good value, Schulman said.

A spokesperson for Cava declined to comment for this story.

Sweetgreen was tasty — but the weakest link

With all due respect to Sweetgreen and its fan base, $29.01 for a salad, a slice of focaccia, and a drink was simply too rich for my blood.

In fairness, I tried to keep each meal comparable by sampling the same protein offering at each chain, so my steak substitution added about $3 to the typical price point. But even if I’d opted for the chicken that comes standard with the harvest bowl, I’m not sure I’d have had a different takeaway.

While it tasted fine, the Sweetgreen salad was largely comprised of kale. At 740 calories, it was more nutritionally dense than the Cava bowl, but it was somewhat less flavorful and satisfying than its competitors.

On my first visit to Sweetgreen, I ate midday in an affluent Los Angeles suburb. Upon finding my seat, I texted my editor that the meal was “yuppie food” — with trendy flavor profiles, Instagrammable decor, and a high price point that felt clearly geared toward the young urban professionals who filled the dining area. I love a good salad, but as a frugal spender, I didn’t feel like the target consumer.

Sweetgreen has recognized an issue with its value proposition. CEO Jonathan Neiman said during the company’s August earnings call that it would increase its chicken and tofu portions by 25% to appeal to value-conscious customers.

Since I got steak in mine, I’m not sure such an increase would have mattered much to me. The analysts who spoke to Business Insider said that leaning toward bigger portions is a risky move because customers could be irritated if Sweetgreen ever reverses the decision.

Representatives for Sweetgreen did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

There’s nothing wrong with the food, but slop bowls are a messy business

Each of the meals I sampled was worth a second bite. The bowls were fresh, their offerings solid, and — if someone else were picking up the tab — I’d happily enjoy a meal at any of these locations again.

Truly, there wasn’t anything wrong with the food. Still, the analysts I spoke to had a point: there’s a bigger issue at play here than a single chain’s strategy. The meals deliver, but the math doesn’t.

“Those companies, none of them did anything wrong. Most of us would love to be that successful,” Gregg Majewski, founder and CEO of the restaurant group Craveworthy Brands, told Business Insider. “It’s that the economy’s finally gotten to a point where even the big boys and the ones that are the market leaders are starting to feel the pressures that everybody else has been facing.”

For fast-casual chains like Cava, Chipotle, and Sweetgreen, it’s clear the slop bowls still slap — what’s not obvious is whether that’ll be enough to save the bottom line.

• David Shelley is the CEO of Hachette Book Group & Hachette UK.
• He started hosting “ask me anything” sessions eight years ago.
• He says Americans are more willing to ask uncomfortable questions than Brits.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with David Shelley, CEO of Hachette Book Group. It has been edited for length and clarity.

As the CEO of a global company, I aim to create a culture built on friendly and trusting challenges. The best business results happen when people are able to challenge themselves and others, including senior leadership.

To accomplish that, I take an untraditional approach, hosting “ask me anything ” (AMA) sessions with employees. These small group talks help foster trust and ultimately benefit the company.

The sessions started after the UK required pay transparency

The idea started about eight years ago, when I was CEO of Hachette UK. The British government required us to publish data about our gender pay gap. Like many companies, our results weren’t great, to put it mildly. Lots of women had very strong feelings about that.

My intuition told me it would be much better to talk about it out in the open. I started hosting sessions with small groups. During 15-hour sessions, women told me about the impact having a child had on their careers and the micro-aggressions they experienced at work.

I heard information I wouldn’t otherwise have had as a CEO. It helped me understand the issue a lot better and formulate a plan to fix it. I think it was helpful for the staff to feel that I was really listening to them. I decided to do these sessions whenever a major issue came up in business.

I brought the idea to New York City to build trust

About 18 months ago, I started working in New York as CEO of Hachette Book Group. Anytime there’s a transition in business leadership, trust needs to be rebuilt. People need to know I truly encourage transparency, challenge, and critique; I’m not just saying it.

To reinforce that, I hosted about 25 hourlong listening sessions over three months. I’d sit around the table with 10 to 12 employees, often over lunch, and ask them to tell me what’s on their mind. It was very helpful. When those wrapped up, I started hosting AMA sessions.

Americans are willing to ask hard questions

I sometimes get hard questions — about running a for-profit company, about capitalism, or why certain titles are published and others aren’t. There hasn’t been a question that I’ve shied away from (though sometimes I genuinely don’t know the answer and have to go ask the experts in that niche).

It’s a cultural cliché, but I’ve noticed Americans don’t hold back. They’re a lot more willing to have hard conversations face-to-face. In the UK, people often emailed me after to ask things they weren’t comfortable asking in front of the room. Here, people are refreshingly to the point.

Listening sessions led to a change in how we discuss pay

The listening sessions and AMAs build trust and transparency at the company — something I care deeply about. They also impact policy. When I started in New York, I heard again and again from employees that they were frustrated with merit-based raises. The process felt arbitrary and mysterious. I must have heard that 50 times.

In response, we created a pay rubric that outlines the pay range for a job and the skills needed to be at the high end of the range. Managers can now turn to that, and employees actually understand what’s going into their wage calculation. There’s more work to be done, but that moved us to more honest conversations.

This approach fits my personality

Common business advice says to lean in. I love to do that. I have a natural curiosity about people, and can be quite an honest, oversharing person.

My business coach once gave me advice she’d never given anyone else: she said while most people need to lean in more, I might need to lean out a bit. I laughed, but there’s some truth to it. I have a tendency to try to engage with everyone.

An open, conversation-driven approach to leadership works with my personality, but it doesn’t work for everyone. In general, when it’s modeled at the top, people get on board. However, there have been times when senior leaders aren’t comfortable with my approach, and it doesn’t make sense to keep them on.

The more I’m challenged as a leader, the better my results will be. That’s true at every level of the business, so I strive for open communication throughout.