As Burger King enters the next phase of its turnaround efforts, the fast-food chain is trying to lure families back to its restaurants with colored Whopper buns and kid-friendly movie partnerships.

Starting Tuesday, the Restaurant Brands International chain will sell new menu items inspired by the “live action” remake of “How to Train Your Dragon.” The collaboration is more than just a one-time partnership — it’s part of Burger King’s broader strategy to lift U.S. sales.

“Where we’re really starting to lean in now that we’ve made some progress in both operations and in our restaurants is on a family-first marketing strategy,” Burger King U.S. and Canada President Tom Curtis told CNBC.

Burger King’s U.S. business has been in turnaround mode for more than 2½ years. After falling behind burger rivals McDonald’s and Wendy’s, the company announced plans to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in a comeback strategy to renovate its restaurants, improve its operations and spend on advertising. The chain even bought its largest U.S. franchisee with the goal of accelerating its restaurant remodels.

“We’re finding that there will be chapters to this as we go through time, and right now is this family strategy chapter, where we’ve done enough work and transformed our restaurant operations to the extent that we’re proud of,” Curtis said. “We’re inviting families back in, and we’re finding that we’re getting better retention when they do come back in.”

Curtis said focusing on families gives Burger King the opportunity to attract customers across age cohorts, from millennials to Generation Alpha, which is roughly defined as people born between 2010 and 2025. Plus, parents’ avid use of social media means that word spreads quickly, giving the approach a leg up compared with targeting a single demographic that isn’t as enthusiastic online.

The limited-time themed menu items include the Dragon Flame-Grilled Whopper, with a red and orange marbled bun; Fiery Dragon Mozzarella Fries, made with Calabrian chili pepper breading; Soaring Strawberry Lemonade; and the Viking’s Chocolate Sundae, with Hershey’s syrup and black and green cookie crumbles.

Movie collaborations aren’t anything new for fast food — or Burger King. It was one of the first fast-food chains to lean into movie tie-ins. In 1977, the chain sold “Star Wars” drinking glasses ahead of the film’s release.

McDonald’s wasn’t far behind, following with a Star Trek-themed Happy Meal two years later, kicking off decades of movie, TV and toy tie-ins aimed at kids. More recently, the Golden Arches’ collaboration with “A Minecraft Movie” across more than 100 markets sold out within two weeks in the U.S., about half the time earmarked for the promotion.

In Burger King’s more recent past, under Curtis’ leadership, the chain has had two major partnerships: one with “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” two years ago and another with the Addams Family franchise, timed for Halloween last year.

Both of those menus featured Whoppers with thematic, colored buns, dyed using natural colorants, like beet juice or ube.

“Not having artificial dyes and colors is something that’s been important to us for a while,” Curtis said.

Burger King use of natural dyes comes as artificial food dyes have come under fire from health-concerned parents. Following a push from Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the Food and Drug Administration recently announced plans to phase out the use of petroleum-based synthetic dyes in food and drinks.

The two previous collaborations also were Burger King’s top-selling Whopper innovations, based on the number sold, according to Curtis.

“What we found in the Addams Family promotion specifically was, as we dug into the property, traffic was fairly flat, but sales were up,” he said, attributing the sales growth to families, which have a higher average check than a solo diner or a couple.

The expected sales lift from the “How to Train Your Dragon” menu comes at a crucial time for Burger King.

In its most recent quarter, the company’s comeback stumbled. The chain’s U.S. same-store sales slid 1.1%, mirroring an industrywide slump as fears about the economy and bad weather kept diners at home.

But Curtis is confident that Burger King is on the right track, pointing to the chain’s relative outperformance compared with its two biggest competitors: McDonald’s and Wendy’s.

“I know that they’re scrambling, and sometimes, frankly, copying some of the things that we do, which, you know, plagiarism is the sincerest form of flattery,” he said. “When we see them doing that, it gives us more conviction to stay on course.”

When the live-action version of “How to Train Your Dragon” hits theaters on June 13, it’s expected to be one of the summer’s big blockbusters. After all, the animated trilogy has grossed more than $1.6 billion worldwide.

Burger King has similar expectations for its menu tie-in.

The past success of the Spider-Verse and Addams Family menu items pushed Burger King to “dramatically” up its forecast for the “How to Train Your Dragon” menu, according to Curtis. And Burger King is also planning on changing its advertising strategy, which could drastically increase demand for the Dragon Flamed-Grilled Whoppers.

“In the past, we would just kind of associate ourselves with the movie property, but we wouldn’t necessarily advertise the association — you’d just see it and hear about it in social media,” Curtis said.

The promotion is supposed to run through early July, but in case Burger King burns through its supply in just three weeks, the chain is prepared to monitor what locations have run out of the menu items. That’s a lesson it learned during its Spider-Verse promotion, when it had to launch a tracker on its website to help customers find the coveted Whopper.

As it learns from every experience, Burger King is planning to dive deeper into franchise partnerships, betting that the extra effort will drive long-term loyalty for the brand.

“We’re doing a couple more of them than we have in the past,” Curtis said. “We’ve got one toward the end of the year that we’re very, very excited about … and we’re getting some lined up for next year as well. In every one of those, we’ll go all in.”

Disclosure: Comcast owns CNBC and Universal Studios, the producer and distributor of “How to Train Your Dragon.”

Department of Justice officials on Tuesday charged members or associates of an Armenian organized crime ring with stealing more than $83 million worth of cargo from Amazon by posing as legitimate truck drivers and siphoning off goods destined for the company’s warehouses.

Since at least 2021, at least four people linked to the crime ring carried out a scheme across California to steal truckloads of merchandise, ranging from smart TVs and GE icemakers to SharkNinja vacuums and air fryers, the DOJ alleged.

“At present, Amazon is plagued by recurring thefts of its shipments, which is commonly referred to as ‘cargo theft,’” the complaint says.

Amazon has ramped up its efforts to track and shut down fraudulent, deceptive and illegal activities on its sprawling online store. Eliminating stolen goods is particularly challenging. CNBC reported in 2023 that Amazon suspended dozens of third-party merchants it alleged were selling stolen goods, though many of those sellers claimed they were unknowingly caught in the scheme, putting their businesses at risk of survival.

Amazon isn’t the only retailer afflicted by cargo theft. Experts told CNBC cargo theft-related losses are estimated at close to $1 billion or more a year.

In its complaint, the DOJ said the alleged fraudsters operated four transport carriers — AK Transportation, NBA Holdings, Belman Transport and Markos Transportation — that would obtain contracted freight routes from Amazon Relay, an application used by truckers to obtain work, also referred to as loads.

Each trucker is assigned a load for pickup from a manufacturer’s warehouse to be dropped off at an Amazon facility. Instead, the groups would divert from their designated routes, take a portion of the goods off the trucks and resell them or gift them to associates, prosecutors allege.

In some cases, the “self-styled carriers” would complete their deliveries at an Amazon warehouse several days after they were expected to show up, according to the complaint.

DOJ officials seized the alleged fraudsters’ iPhones and found photos and videos of warehouses lined with boxes of crockpots, Keurig coffee machines, keratin shampoo, Weber grills and other goods.

Amazon teams cooperated with DOJ officials in their investigation, including sharing information about the stolen goods, and details of the alleged fraudsters’ accounts on its online marketplace.

An Amazon spokesperson said in a statement that the company has “zero tolerance” for cargo theft and other forms of organized retail crime. Amazon relies on a mix of internal teams and technologies to prevent ORC schemes. The company has also referred “thousands” of ORC bad actors to law enforcement officials.

“These referrals have resulted in arrests, product seizures and recoveries, and the dismantling of ORC networks in the U.S. and around the world,” they said in a statement.

DOJ officials linked the defendants to a litany of other alleged crimes, including attempted murder, kidnapping, illegal firearm possession and health-care fraud. Several of the 13 defendants are expected to appear in a Los Angeles district court on Tuesday and Wednesday, while one of the defendants appeared in a court in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, on Tuesday and was detained.

Raising prices on consumers to cover the costs of President Donald Trump’s tariffs will be Target’s ‘very last resort,’ CEO Brian Cornell said Wednesday.

The remarks came as Target reported weaker-than-expected sales in its first quarter and cut its full-year forecast. The retailer, whose business hasn’t fared as well against rivals better known for bargain prices, has “many levers to use in mitigating the impact of tariffs,” Cornell said.

Major retailers appear to be treading cautiously around the question of price hikes after Trump slammed Walmart last weekend for warning that shoppers could pay more due to tariffs. In the days since, Target, Lowe’s and Home Depot have each made carefully worded remarks about the potential for higher prices or minimized discussion of tariffs altogether.

Walmart said last week that it customers would likely start seeing some prices climb as soon as this month because tariffs have created a more “challenging environment to operate in.” While presidents typically avoid appearing to dictate individual companies’ strategies, Trump castigated Walmart on his social media platform, demanding that it “EAT THE TARIFFS” and adding, “I’ll be watching, and so will your customers!!!”

“We’ll keep prices as low as we can for as long as we can given the reality of small retail margins,” Walmart told NBC News Saturday in response to Trump’s post. Days later, Home Depot all but ruled out near-term price hikes, citing its scale and supply-chain arrangements. Lowe’s barely mentioned tariffs when it reported earnings Wednesday but said just 20% of what its shoppers buy now comes from China, after years of diversifying its sourcing.

For Target, Cornell emphasized that tariffs were just one factor in a series of “massive potential costs” the company is grappling with. He pointed to consumer uncertainty over the direction of the economy and a high-profile backlash over Target’s watering down of its diversity, equity and inclusion policies. The retailer had expanded those initiatives after police murdered George Floyd in its hometown, Minneapolis, five years ago this weekend.

Target has rolled out discounts over the past year to lure inflation-weary shoppers and touted plans to expand its third-party marketplace to offer a broader range of items. To deal with new trade policy challenges, it’s negotiating with vendors, reassessing its product lineup and adjusting its foreign supply chain, Chief Commercial Officer Rick Gomez told investors Wednesday.

‘Half of what we sell comes from the U.S.,’ he said, adding that Target is expanding production in the United States and in other countries outside of China, whose exports currently face a 30% import tax.

Target’s stock fell more than 5% Wednesday during a broader market sell-off.

Some major companies that sell products at leading retailers have raised prices or said they’re considering doing so, including toolmaker Stanley Black & Decker, consumer products giant Procter & Gamble, sportswear brand Adidas and toy maker Mattel.

Mattel, the maker of Barbie dolls, has also come under fire from Trump, who threatened to hit it with 100% tariffs this month, after it signaled price hikes were on the table.

Big companies generally have more latitude to handle cost increases and other economic headwinds than their smaller counterparts. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and independent business owners have warned that tariffs threaten to snuff out many small operators, chipping away at the competition for already large corporate rivals.

The National Retail Federation, which represents some of the biggest retailers in the country, has emphasized that risk in lobbying against new levies. “Small and medium-sized businesses will be disproportionately affected by the tariffs, with many saying they will have to raise prices or shut down,” it says on its website.

So far, “consumers are still spending despite widespread pessimism fueled by rising tariffs,” NRF Chief Economist Jack Kleinhenz said in a statement last week after retail sales eked out a modest 0.1% rise in April.

But even the largest multinational companies aren’t insulated from tariff-driven uncertainty, the NFR and industry analysts say. Like Target, several large firms have revised or scrapped their financial outlooks in recent weeks, unsure how the White House’s trade agenda will affect them. Nike plans to increase prices on several items between now and June 1, a person familiar with the matter told NBC News on Wednesday.

Not every retailer is voicing tariff jitters. The parent company of T.J. Maxx and Marshalls beat sales estimates Wednesday and maintained its full-year forecast. The discounter, which buys unsold merchandise from other brands that have already paid tariffs on much of it, said it expects to be able to handle the pressure from higher import taxes.

Sportswear brand Canada Goose, which makes popular winter jackets, also exceeded Wall Street expectations. But it joined the slew of companies pulling their forecasts for the rest of the year, citing an “unpredictable global trade environment.”

We now know who won the contest to attend an intimate dinner with President Donald Trump by buying his cryptocurrency — and he’s a familiar face to Securities and Exchange Commission regulators and law enforcement officials.

Justin Sun, a Chinese-born crypto entrepreneur, confirmed in an X post Tuesday that he was behind the account, labeled ‘SUN,’ that purchased the most $TRUMP meme coin to sit at the president’s table at a crypto-focused gala scheduled for Thursday.

‘Honored to support @POTUS and grateful for the invitation from @GetTrumpMemes to attend President Trump’s Gala Dinner as his TOP fan!’ Sun wrote. ‘As the top holder of $TRUMP, I’m excited to connect with everyone, talk crypto, and discuss the future of our industry.’

He capped the post with an American flag emoji.

Critics have blasted the dinner contest as potentially unconstitutional and a blatant opportunity for corruption. Trump has not publicly commented on the accusations, and the Office of Government Ethics has declined to comment. A White House official did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday.

The Trump administration is not directly involved in administering $TRUMP coin. As for the dinner, a White House official said in a statement that the president ‘is working to secure GOOD deals for the American people, not for himself.’

‘President Trump only acts in the best interests of the American public — which is why they overwhelmingly re-elected him to this office, despite years of lies and false accusations against him and his businesses from the fake news media,” White House spokesperson Anna Kelly said.

While Trump has not been as aggressive in directly promoting cryptocurrencies as some campaign backers in the industry had hoped, his administration has abandoned or paused many pending cases that had been brought against crypto entrepreneurs and businesses.

That includes Sun, who was charged in 2023 with market manipulation and offering unregistered securities. Regulators sought various injunctions against him that would have largely prevented him from participating in crypto in the U.S. The Verge, a tech industry website, had also reported Sun was the target of an FBI investigation.

But in February, the SEC, now controlled by Trump appointees, agreed to a 60-day pause of the suit in order to seek a resolution.

Two months earlier, Sun purchased $30 million in crypto tokens from World Liberty Financial (WLF), the crypto venture backed by Trump and his family, the website Popular Information reported.

Eventually, Sun became the largest publicly known investor in World Liberty after he brought his funding total to $75 million.

According to Bloomberg News, per the terms of World Liberty’s financial structure, 75% of the proceeds of token sales like Sun’s get sent to the Trump family as a fee — meaning they may have directly earned as much as $56 million.

On Jan. 22 — two days after Trump was inaugurated — Sun posted on X, “if I have made any money in cryptocurrency, all credit goes to President Trump.”

In April, The Wall Street Journal reported that Joe Biden’s Justice Department had been investigating Sun, noting that researchers had estimated that more than half of all illicit crypto activity took place on Sun’s Tron blockchain platform. The Journal said it wasn’t clear whether the investigation was ongoing. It said Sun’s representatives declined to comment about what they called “baseless allegations about legal matters” while denying Tron enables criminal activity.

Sun may now be a multibillionaire, with a net worth estimated at $8.5 billion, according to Forbes. He reportedly was forced to spend $2 billion to shore up one of his crypto firms that was facing collapse in 2022.

He did not immediately respond to a request for comment about what he hoped to get out of the dinner with the president.

Sun has also earned headlines for purchasing ‘Comedian,’ an art installation composed of a banana duct-taped to a wall, for $6.2 million, and for buying lunch with Warren Buffett for $4.57 million.

Sports giant Fanatics is pitting fans against greats Tom Brady, Kevin Durant and Alex Rodriguez at an upcoming marketing event.

The company announced Tuesday it is introducing a skills-based competition at Fanatics Fest 2025, taking place June 20-22 in New York City. Fanatics says more than $2 million will be given away in prizes, including a $1 million cash prize for first place, a Ferrari 812 GTS for second place and a Lebron James collectors card worth $250,000 for third place. If no fans finish in the top three, falling short of the celebrity competitors, the highest-scoring fan will receive $100,000.

If a celebrity competitor comes in first, they take home the seven-figure prize.

“I think the thinking was, how do we create even more of an insane environment where fans and athletes and streamers are all running around, in this case, quite literally, having a great time and showcasing all of that,” said Lance Fensterman, CEO of Fanatics Events.

It’s the second Fanatics Fest after the inaugural event last year drew more than 70,000 fans and brought together major sports leagues and hundreds of current and former athletes. The offerings last year included league activations, autograph sessions and a trading cards and collectibles show.

This year, Fanatics is hoping to go even bigger — with a goal of bringing in 100,000 attendees — as the company continues to broaden its reach in sports marketing.

Michael Rubin acquired Fanatics in 2011 after merging it with his company, GSI Commerce. What began as a sports e-commerce platform has evolved in recent years into a diverse sports platform offering trading cards and sports memorabilia, live shopping, betting and gaming, as well as an events business.

Fifty fans will be selected to compete at Fanatics Fest 2025 against top talent that also includes comedian Kevin Hart, former New England Patriot Rob Gronkowski, Los Angeles Clippers shooting guard James Harden and Olympic gymnast Jordan Chiles.

The competition will include Major League Baseball pitching accuracy, National Hockey League slapshot accuracy, National Football League passing accuracy, a National Basketball Association shooting competition, a FIFA goal scoring challenge and a golfing contest. Fans can apply to participate by submitting a short video in the Fanatics app.

While Fanatics’ events business represents just a small fraction of business — last valued at $25 billion, according to a person familiar with the company — Fensterman said Fanatics Fest creates a lot of positive sentiment around the company.

“It’s incredibly impactful in terms of bringing the entire ecosystem together for the sole focus of delighting,” he said.

Levi Strauss has agreed to sell Dockers to brand management firm Authentic Brands Group for $311 million, the companies announced Tuesday. 

Under the terms of the deal, Authentic will own Dockers’ intellectual property while Centric Brands will take on operations, handling manufacturing, sourcing and distribution. Under the brand management business model, Levi’s stands to make up to $391 million in future years based on how well Dockers performs under the Authentic umbrella, which also includes Forever 21′s intellectual property and brands like Reebok and Nautica.

“The Dockers transaction further aligns our portfolio with our strategic priorities, focusing on our direct-to-consumer first approach, growing our international presence and investing in opportunities across women’s and denim lifestyle,” Levi’s CEO Michelle Gass said in a statement. “After a robust process, we are confident that we maximized the value of the business and that Authentic is the right organization to usher in the next chapter of growth for the Dockers brand.” 

In October, Levi’s announced it was considering selling Dockers as it looked to focus on growing its namesake line and its athleisure brand, Beyond Yoga. Levi’s created Dockers in 1986 as a hedge against denim and to offer consumers an alternative: khakis. The brand was hugely popular throughout the 1990s and 2000s, but khakis have since fallen out of fashion in the U.S., especially recently as denim makes another comeback. 

To grow Dockers, Levi’s needed to offer more tops and bottoms, but the company is doing the same thing at its namesake banner and there was too much overlap between the two brands. Dockers’ performance was also dragging down Levi’s results and Gass, who took the helm of the company a little over a year ago, has been working to cut off extraneous businesses to fuel growth and focus on direct selling. 

In the three months ended March 2, Levi’s reported $67 million in revenue related to Dockers. The figure isn’t comparable to the year-ago period because Levi’s only recently started breaking out the performance of each individual brand. 

While khakis have fallen out of favor in the U.S., Dockers is still popular abroad, which is what makes a brand management company a strategic fit, according to people who have seen Dockers’ financials and spoke on the condition of anonymity because the details were private. Firms like Authentic are skilled at rapidly licensing and deploying brands internationally.

In a press release, Authentic said it plans to “unlock new opportunities” for Dockers through its global network of 1,700 licensing partners. It said it is in active discussions with regional operators in Latin America, Europe, the Middle East and Asia to expand Dockers’ existing businesses across those markets. 

“Few brands own a category the way Dockers does, yet still have so much room to grow,” said Matt Maddox, president at Authentic. “Its legacy in casualwear gives it a strong foundation, but the real opportunity lies in reimagining the brand for a new generation. Through our global platform and deep licensing network, we’re committed to stewarding the brand into its next era of growth and relevance.”

BEIJING — One Chinese baby products company announced Tuesday it is officially entering the United States, the world’s largest consumer market — regardless of the trade war.

Shanghai-based Bc Babycare expects its supply chain diversification and the U.S. market potential to more than offset the impact of ongoing U.S.-China trade tensions, according to Chi Yang, the company’s vice president of Europe and the Americas.

“Even [if] the political things are not steady … I’m very confident about our product for the moment,” he told CNBC, adding he anticipates “very fast” growth in the U.S. in coming years. That includes his bold predictions that Bc Babycare’s flagship baby carrier can become the best-seller on Amazon.com in half a year, and that U.S. sales can grow by 10-fold in a year.

The $159.99 carrier, eligible for a $40 discount, already has 4.7 stars on Amazon.com across more than 30 reviews. The device claims to reduce pressure on the parent’s body by up to 33%. A far cheaper version of the baby carrier is a top seller among travel products for pregnancy and childbirth on JD.com in China.

Bc Babycare already has the carrier stocked in its U.S. warehouses, and has a network of factories and raw materials suppliers in the Americas, Europe and Asia, Yang said. “The global supply chain is one of the things we keep on building in the past couple years.”

The Trump administration has sought to reduce U.S. reliance on China-made goods and to encourage the return of manufacturing jobs to the U.S. In a rapid escalation of tensions last month, the U.S. and China had added tariffs of more than 100% on each other’s goods. Last week, the two sides agreed to a 90-day pause for most of the new duties in order to discuss a trade deal.

Baby gear is particularly sensitive to tariffs since the majority of those sold in the U.S. are made in China, said U.S.-based Newell Brands, which owns stroller company Graco, on an April 30 earnings call. That’s according to a FactSet transcript.

The company said it raised baby gear prices by about 20% in the last few weeks, but had not incorporated the additional 125% tariffs announced in mid-April. Newell said on the call it had about three to four months of inventory in the U.S., and had paused additional orders from China.

The company did not respond to a request for comment about whether it had resumed orders from China and whether it planned more price increases.

Bc Babycare declined to share how much it planned to invest in the U.S. But Yang said the company plans to open an office in the country and hire about five to 10 locals.

The company initially plans to sell online, spend on marketing and eventually work with major retailers for offline store sales. Its partners for raw materials and research include three U.S. companies: Lyra, Dow and Eastman.

The Chinese company, which entered the baby products segment in 2014, in 2021 claimed a 700 million yuan ($97.09 million) funding round from investors including Sequoia Capital China.

Yang said the company scrutinizes the comments section on Chinese and U.S. e-commerce websites to improve its products. As a result, the U.S. version of the baby carrier is softer and larger than the Chinese version, he said.

Bc Babycare’s U.S. market ambitions reflect how large U.S. and European multinationals not only face growing competition in China, but also in their home markets.

“After experiencing substantial growth due to the premiumization of consumption in the Chinese market, multinational brands are now entering a challenging second phase where they compete fiercely for market share,” Dave Xie, retail and consumer goods partner in Shanghai at consultancy Oliver Wyman, said in a statement last week.

Oliver Wyman said in a report last month that the Chinese market has become the incubator for premium product innovations that are being exported. The authors noted, for example, that Tineco floor scrubbers have become Amazon best-sellers.

The Justice Department isn’t planning to prosecute Boeing in a case tied to two crashes of the aerospace giant’s 737 Max, a person familiar with the matter said, a tentative agreement that would allow the plane-maker to avoid a guilty plea.

Boeing agreed to plead guilty in the case last summer in a deal with the Justice Department after the Biden administration found earlier that year that the company violated a 2021 agreement tied to the crashes. A judge rejected that plea deal last year, citing concerns about diversity, equity and inclusion, and opened the possibility that Boeing could face trial.

The fraud charge stems from Boeing’s development of the 737 Max. The U.S. had accused Boeing of misleading regulators about its inclusion of a flight-control system on the Max that was later implicated in the two crashes.

A final, non-prosecution agreement hasn’t been reached yet, the person said. The Justice Department and Boeing didn’t immediately comment.

Under the new agreement, Boeing could pay family members of victims of the two Max crashes. In total, the two crashes of the best-selling Boeing jet killed all 346 people on board the planes.

The new tentative agreement, which was reported earlier on Friday by Reuters, would mean Boeing wouldn’t be labeled a felon. That label could have come with restrictions on defense contractor work.

Boeing is the country’s biggest exporter and, in addition to making commercial jetliners, it’s a major defense contractor. The Trump administration recently awarded the company a multibillion-dollar contract to build a next-generation fighter jet.

Cava on Thursday reported better-than-expected sales in its latest fiscal quarter, shaking off the malaise the broader restaurant industry has felt as consumers have cut back on dining.

The Mediterranean chain said its same-store sales grew 10.8% in the three months that ended April 20, lifted by traffic growth of 7.5%. Analysts surveyed by StreetAccount were projecting same-store sales growth of 10.3%.

“When we look at our consumers in the quarter, we saw an increase in premium attachment on higher priced items, like our pita chips or amazing housemade juices. We also saw that our per person average continued to increase, and then when we look at our results, there’s positive traffic across all of our geographies, across all of our income cohorts, as well as the different formats of our restaurants and dayparts,” Chief Financial Officer Tricia Tolivar told CNBC.

She added that diners have been trading up from fast food and down from casual-dining restaurants into Cava’s bowls and pitas, a trend the company has seen for several quarters.

Elsewhere in the restaurant industry, companies have been reporting very different behavior from consumers, although many companies’ results did not include any time in April, when the industry’s sales and traffic performance improved.

Fast-casual rival Chipotle said its transactions fell 2.3% in the first quarter as consumers pulled back their spending in February, spooked by economic uncertainty. Sweetgreen reported its first quarterly same-store sales decline since it went public in 2021. McDonald’s CEO Chris Kempczinski said fast-food industry data showed both low- and middle-income consumers spending less. The burger giant said U.S. same-store sales declined 3.6% for the first quarter.

Despite the strong quarterly performance, Cava reiterated its same-store sales forecast, sticking with its projections of a 6% to 8% increase. The chain said last quarter that it is expecting slower growth in the back half of its fiscal 2025.

The stock fell 5% in extended trading. As of Thursday’s close, Cava shares have slid 11% so far this year, hurt by investor concerns over its conservative outlook for the fiscal year and the economic fallout from the Trump administration’s tariffs.

Here’s what the company reported compared with what Wall Street was expecting, based on a survey of analysts by LSEG:

The company reported fiscal first-quarter net income of $25.71 million, or 22 cents per share, up from $13.99 million, or 12 cents per share, a year earlier. Cava reported an income tax benefit of $10.7 million related to stock-based compensation, which boosted its earnings this quarter.

Net sales climbed 28% to $332 million. On a 12-month trailing basis, Cava’s revenue has surpassed $1 billion, representing a major milestone for the company.

The company did raise some of its projections for the fiscal year.

Cava now anticipates adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization of $152 million to $159 million, up from its prior forecast of $150 million to $157 million. The company also plans to open between 64 and 68 new locations, higher than its previous outlook of between 62 and 66 restaurant openings.

Nvidia said it won’t be sending graphics processing unit plans to China following a report that the artificial intelligence chipmaker is working on a research and development center in Shanghai in light of recent U.S. export curbs.

“We are not sending any GPU designs to China to be modified to comply with export controls,” a spokesperson said in a statement to CNBC.

The Financial Times was the first to report the news, citing two sources familiar with the matter. CEO Jensen Huang discussed the potential new center with Shanghai’s mayor, Gong Zheng, during a visit last month, the FT reported.

The center will assess ways to meet U.S. restrictions while catering to the local market, although production and design will continue outside China, according to the report.

AI chipmakers such as Nvidia have been hit with major China roadblocks since 2022 as the U.S. began cracking down on sending advanced chips to China because of concerns of possible military use.

Last week, the Trump administration said it would replace restrictions put in place under President Joe Biden with a “much simpler rule that unleashes American innovation and ensures American AI dominance.” Nvidia said last month that it would take a $5.5 billion charge tied to selling its H20 GPUs in China and other countries.

Huang has previously commented on the significance of China, which is one of the company’s major market after the U.S., Singapore and Taiwan. He told CNBC this month that getting shut out of the world second-largest economy would be a “tremendous loss,” estimating that China’s AI market could hit $50 billion over the next two to three years.

“We just have to stay agile,” Huang told CNBC’s Jon Fortt, in an interview alongside ServiceNow CEO Bill McDermott. “Whatever the policies are of the government, whatever is in the best interest of our country, we’ll support,” he added.