Senior Financial Analyst

Job Details

Senior Financial Analyst - Restaurants

This Jobot Job is hosted by:
Melanie Courtney

Salary: $85,000 - $100,000 per year

Our client is a top Mediterranean restaurant concept.

• Competitive salary, plus bonus and long-term incentives*
• Early Wage Access!
• Unlimited PTO, paid parental leave, plus paid opportunities to give back to the community
• Health, Dental, Vision, Telemedicine, Pet Insurance plus more!
• 401k enrollment with CAVA contribution
• Company-paid STD, LTD, Life and AD&D coverage for salaried positions*
• Free food
• Casual work environment
• The opportunity to be on the ground floor of a rapidly growing 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

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 financial movement to operational behavior and explain results clearly to non-finance partners.
• Comfort working through ambiguity during planning cycles, especially when assumptions, ownership, or actuals need to be reconciled quickly.
• Ability to build concise recommendations from detailed analysis and identify when a trend requires action, escalation, or deeper review.

Technical Skills

• Advanced Excel skills, including complex formulas, pivots, lookups, model hygiene, and scenario analysis.
• Experience working with large datasets from financial systems, ERP tools, data warehouses, BI tools, or restaurant/workforce systems.
• Exposure to SQL, Tableau, Power BI, Databricks, Snowflake, Hyperion, Oracle, SAP, or similar tools is a plus.
• Curiosity about automation, reporting improvements, and better ways to collect, validate, and apply financial and operational data.

• Clear written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to tailor financial messages for operators, finance partners, and senior leaders.
• Highly organized and detail-oriented, with strong follow-through during deadline-heavy periods.
• Collaborative mindset with the confidence to ask good questions, pressure-test assumptions, and keep stakeholders informed.
• Ability to work independently, manage multiple priorities, and remain steady during budgeting season