"Last spring, Sweetgreen did something shocking, at least insofar as the menu adjustments of a fast-casual salad chain can be described that way: It added fries. In interviews, the company's "chief concept officer," Nicolas Jammet, paid lip service to "reevaluating and redefining fast food," but I suspect that Sweetgreen was also "reevaluating and redefining" how to make money in a world that appeared poised to move on from buying what the company was trying to sell."
"This is remarkable because, for a golden decade or so, Sweetgreen was the future of lunch. Americans, especially ones who were youngish and worked on computers, were toting green paper bags around coastal cities (and later, smaller towns and non-coastal cities) en masse. Silicon Valley was injecting capital into a restaurant as though it were a software start-up. Sweetgreen's early success was not a fluke. As a restaurant, it truly did do something incredible."
Sweetgreen added fries as a menu pivot while framing the move as redefining fast food and attempting to preserve revenue. The company had already removed seed oils, introduced protein plates, and automated production with robots to match early 2020s dining trends. Despite these changes, the stock fell more than 30 percent early in the year and operational losses reached $26.4 million, prompting layoffs and the removal of fries. A co-founder stepped down, and the share price plunged from over $43 in late 2024 to under $8. Sweetgreen had previously built a strong niche by sourcing high-quality organic produce, using fresh herbs and global ingredients, and showcasing small farms in stores.
Read at The Atlantic
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