Senior Financial Analyst

CAVA; Washington; On-site; USD 90,000 - 150,000; Full time

Job summary

CAVA is seeking a Senior FP&A professional to partner with restaurant operations on budgeting, forecasting, and performance analysis. This role focuses on OPEX, pre-opening costs, and translating results into actionable insights for leadership.

The ideal candidate has 3–5+ years in FP&A or analytics within multi-unit settings, with hands-on experience in budgeting, forecasting, and financial modeling. Strong collaboration with cross-functional teams is essential for success.

Qualifications

• 3–5+ years of FP&A or related analytical experience.
• Experience supporting restaurant, retail, hospitality, or multi-unit operations preferred.
• Hands-on budgeting, forecasting, variance analysis, and financial modeling.

Responsibilities

• Support budgeting, forecasting, and monthly performance analysis for OPEX and pre-opening items.
• Own variance analysis for assigned expense lines and identify key drivers, risks and opportunities behind performance.
• Partner with Operations, Development, Accounting, and Finance to understand cost trends, validate inputs, and support decisions across the restaurant portfolio.
• Build and maintain planning models, recurring reports, dashboards, and tools for OPEX, pre-opening costs, and restaurant performance.
• Assist with month-end close activities related to assigned expense areas, including accruals and expense validation.
• Translate financial results into concise commentary and action-oriented insights for field leaders and FP&A leadership.
• Improve reporting and planning processes by reducing manual work and creating scalable tools for recurring analysis.

Skills

Forecasting

Budgeting

Variance analysis

Financial modeling

Management reporting

Operations analytics

Job description

As our Senior Partner, you will be a hands-on finance partner focused on many restaurant planning responsibilities, focusing primarily on operating expenses, pre-opening spend, and operational planning support. You will help build budgets and forecasts, analyze performance, identify risks and opportunities, and translate financial results into clear recommendations for Operations and cross-functional leadership. This role is especially important during budgeting season. We are looking for someone who can ramp quickly, understand the mechanics of restaurant-level financials, work comfortably with large datasets, and partner with operators and cross-functional teams to keep assumptions, reporting, and decisions moving.

We are looking for someone who is very familiar with emerging technology, including new methods of collecting and applying data insights. This individual must be passionate about the restaurant business and our brand.

What You’ll Do:

• Support budgeting, forecasting, and monthly performance analysis for restaurant OPEX and pre-opening line items, ensuring assumptions are clear, current, and tied to operational drivers.
• Own variance analysis for assigned expense lines, comparing actual results to budget, forecast, and prior year while identifying the key drivers, risks, and opportunities behind performance.
• Partner closely with Operations, Development, Accounting, and Finance to understand cost trends, validate inputs, resolve data gaps, and support decisions across the restaurant portfolio.
• Build and maintain planning models, recurring reports, dashboards, and tools that help leaders monitor OPEX, pre-opening costs, and restaurant-level performance.
• Support budget season execution by preparing templates, collecting and validating inputs, reconciling version-to-version changes, documenting assumptions, and helping leaders stay aligned on timing and outputs.
• Assist with month-end close activities related to assigned expense areas, including accrual support, prepaid reviews, expense validation, and follow-up on unusual trends.
• Translate financial results into concise commentary and action-oriented insights for field leaders, cross-functional partners, and FP&A leadership.
• Act as a trusted finance partner who communicates promptly, manages deadlines, and brings a practical operator-oriented lens to financial planning. Improve reporting and planning processes by reducing manual work, strengthening controls, and creating scalable tools for recurring analysis.
• Conduct ad hoc analysis and scenario modeling to support operational decisions, new restaurant openings, cost management, and leadership requests.
• Support other restaurant-level expense and revenue planning and analysis as needed

The Qualifications:

Education & Experience

• 3-5+ years of experience in FP&A, financial analysis, accounting, consulting, operations analytics, or a related analytical role.
• Experience supporting restaurant, retail, hospitality, or other multi-unit operations is strongly preferred.
• Hands-on experience with budgeting, forecasting, variance analysis, financial modeling, and management reporting.

Financial & Operational Skills

• Strong understanding of P&L drivers, controllable expenses, accruals, prepaids, expense recognition, and operational cost management.
• Ability to connect financi