Zoes Kitchen

Zoe’s Kitchen was a fast-casual restaurant concept built around Mediterranean-inspired cooking and a family story that started in the American South. The first restaurant opened in 1995 in Birmingham, Alabama, created by Zoë and Marcus Cassimus. Their son, John Cassimus, later took an active role in the business and helped grow it beyond a single neighborhood restaurant into a multi-unit brand.

Over time, Zoe’s Kitchen moved from a regional favorite to a broader chain. It expanded first across the Southeast and then into additional U.S. markets, leaning on a menu of kabobs, salads, pitas, and grilled proteins that positioned it as a lighter alternative within the fast-casual category. As the concept scaled, Zoe’s Kitchen, Inc. became a publicly traded company on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker ZOES and based its corporate headquarters in Plano, Texas. At its height as an independent brand, Zoe’s operated more than 250 locations across numerous states, often in suburban retail centers and everyday trade areas with strong daytime populations.

A key turning point came in August 2018, when Cava Group, Inc., a Washington, D.C.–based Mediterranean fast-casual operator, agreed to acquire Zoe’s Kitchen in a transaction valued at about $300 million. The deal took Zoe’s private and gave Cava access to a large portfolio of fully built-out restaurant locations, many of them in suburban markets where Cava saw room to grow. Over the following years, Cava Group used this portfolio to accelerate its own expansion, evaluating each Zoe’s site for conversion to Cava, relocation within the trade area, or closure.

As of May 2023, all Zoe’s Kitchen restaurants had either been closed or converted to Cava-branded locations, and the Zoe’s name no longer operated as an active consumer-facing chain. What remains is a legacy footprint that still shows up in the real estate market. Many former Zoe’s boxes retain restaurant infrastructure, functional parking fields, and established access patterns, which makes them attractive second-generation spaces for both Cava and other users.

For landlords, brokers, and developers, Zoe’s Kitchen now represents a layer of history beneath current activity. Cava’s growth over the last five years has leaned heavily on conversions of former Zoe’s sites rather than ground-up builds, creating a pattern of trade areas and building types that continues to influence deal flow. At the same time, locations not retained by Cava have provided a steady stream of second-generation restaurant opportunities across multiple markets. In practical terms, the Zoe’s Kitchen brand today exists as a retired banner within Cava Group’s larger platform, but its former restaurants continue to shape Mediterranean fast-casual expansion and backfill options in retail centers around the country.