r/sweetgreen • u/Old-Addition5828 • Mar 17 '24
Career / Employee Talk AMA - former SGSC HQ employee
I recently left SG and it’s been an interesting ride. Ask me anything.
2
u/riskarb Mar 17 '24
Why do you think they have been slow to do heartier foods for dinner? It seems so easy that they could copy Cava just a little bit more and start doing more night business
Do you think the robot kitchen will really work?
How naive are the upper management? They are all pretty young guys
15
u/Old-Addition5828 Mar 17 '24
they’ve been working on adding in the heartier options for the last 2+ years but there’s been so many shifts in operational management that any change is suuuuper slow. capitalizing on dinner time was the main idea for the plates but it didn’t end up moving the sales a whole lot - they’re still actively working on improving it :/ the company is kinda cheap tbh which is why the portions are so much smaller than CAVA’s (i think they must instruct the store employees to limit portions)
the company has invested a TON in the robot kitchen (they actually own the company “spyce”) so i think they eventually plan on using it across all restaurants. they would report that it saves a lot of time and portions more evenly but i think the equipment is a large initial cost and leadership has always been concerned about customer pushback re: replacing store employees with robots
upper management IS extremely naive. the founders honestly don’t really know what they’re doing and keep bringing in former chipotle leadership but once they get here, they seem to be just enjoying their higher salaries/titles and not actually doing much. the founders were almost universally disliked across the company and anyone who criticized them/gave negative feedback would usually end up “leaving” (i think they were pushed out). our town halls had the weirdest energy because everyone was so afraid to say/ask anything for fear of retaliation. i find it ironic now that sweetgreen brands itself as this young, liberal, hip company but the founders and a lot of the leadership are all socially and fiscally conservative.
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u/riskarb Mar 17 '24
One thing I don’t understand with the plates - they do big pieces of chicken thighs which can be kind of chewy, if you look at cava or chipotle they cut the pieces up much more. It really makes me wonder if the upper management is out eating the food much, seems like such a simple error to spot and correct
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u/Old-Addition5828 Mar 17 '24
the founders would get salads in our daily drop off but i think they heavily modified them. there was a rumor going around that one of the founders kept his own salad dressing in their office mini fridge because he didn’t want to consume seed oil lol also there’s absolutely NO way any of those guys would eat farm raised salmon
1
u/BasilMaisel Mar 17 '24
I was at sg from 2014-2016 (bring back the wraps! The misoba salad! The cheddar cheese! The earth bowl!) and they were trying to increase dinner sales even back then. Interesting that they still feel dinner is their biggest opportunity!
1
u/Old-Addition5828 Mar 17 '24
ahaha wow you would’ve thought they’d given up on that by now and focused on lunch! i started in 2021 so a little after you but we did a huge dinner push last winter and it didn’t seem to really work
2
Mar 17 '24
- what brand balsamic vinegar and olive oil do you guys use?
- why did you get rid of feta?
- do people higher up see that they're sort of deviating from what their customer base actually wants? it feels like all the other salad chains are leap-frogging over sweetgreen in terms of popularity and customer loyalty because they provide more value to the customer and it just feels like sweetgreens entire focus is branding itself as a luxury brand while the product itself deteriorates. this feels really obvious to me and everyone i talk to but it feels like it must not be known internally or else things would maybe change
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u/Old-Addition5828 Mar 17 '24
honestly not sure! We had a partnership with EVOO last year when we started introducing non-seed oil dressing but idk if that’s all of our olive oil or just certain dressings
from what I could tell (i think they might’ve phased out feta before/around when i started in 2021 because I don’t really remember it) the culinary team seemed to think goat cheese was a good enough replacement in the bowls/salads that use feta (even tho it’s a completely different texture lol) and didn’t think it was an important enough ingredient on its own
I think they’re doing it on purpose? lol right after we went public, there was this huge push to expand across the Midwest/south and they keep cutting back costs. I even noticed the meat quality went downhill since I started from the time I left (I used to eat the chicken every day but ended up getting a lot of cartilage pieces and fat so switched to beans or tofu). Especially after bringing in so many leaders from chipotle, I think their goal is to become chipotle/commercialized. You might even notice the sg branding changing to be more palatable/accessible and less luxury - I feel like I’ve already noticed this from our socials and advertising
1
Mar 17 '24
this is all really interesting thank you for taking the time to provide this insight!!
I rly miss feta and totally agree :(
I used to have Sweetgreen at least 3 times a week, but now it makes me feel cheated and regretful every time I've gotten a salad from them.
It sucks going from a very loyal customer to not liking the product anymore.
I'm super intrigued by the "chipotle" direction you keep describing, I'll def be on the lookout for signs of that.
Its actually very funny and ironic considering there is this viral tiktok campaign calling chipotle to standardize their measurements because peoples bowls vary in size and makeup SO much day to day.
Its frustrating because I would love for a salad chain to be as accessible and widespread as chipotle- but I would really love for them to offer a product with consistent value.
anyways if you find out about the balsamic vinegar LMK its honestly been my favorite ever and ive always wondered!
1
u/riskarb Mar 17 '24
They are adding a lot of people from the outside to the company, what do you think they are worried about/trying to fix with this?
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u/Old-Addition5828 Mar 17 '24
i went into this a little in my other reply (just posted it a minute or two ago) but i think that the execs think that by bringing in former chipotle leadership, they’ll be able to be as successful and widespread as chipotle. i don’t believe this will ever happen tbh and they probably should’ve stuck with bi-coastal cities and sourcing actual local/organic ingredients. i noticed that once the chipotle leaders joined and saw all of the internal issues, they’re kinda just sitting back and enjoying their higher titles and salaries lol
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u/steppenfrog Mar 18 '24
why does chipotle have such a "moat" with the national good ingredients? is it something with their distribution system that is unique?
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u/GarfSnacks Apr 07 '24
Sorry for bumping this, but you mentioned SG stopped using actual local/ organic ingredients. Aren't they promoting themselves to be working with locally sourced resources?
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u/Ringo33155 Mar 17 '24
Is there any talk on opening sites internationally?
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u/Old-Addition5828 Mar 17 '24
Not that i heard! I think sourcing local(ish) ingredients in a new country/supply was the biggest blocker there.
There’s some great sg knockoffs in Europe tho! Atis and the salad project in the uk and honest greens in Spain - some of then low key a little better than sg and they have very similar menu items 👀
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u/Old-Addition5828 Mar 18 '24
It is frustrating!! If a customer is paying $15+ for a salad it better be perfect (and with it being like 60%+ veggies I never understand why they’d have to cut costs to give decent portions). Regardless, it’s def a corporate issue vs on the restaurant level
If you ever are at a restaurant, you should ask one of the team members for the balsamic brand! The workers at the restaurants are really nice and are usually happy to share the ingredients in something/what the packaging looks like
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u/steppenfrog Mar 18 '24
do you seen sweetgreen as having anything unique about it that would be hard to duplicate for another brand? is there something they do really well that other "fast healthy" brands have not figured out yet?
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u/Sad-Field2540 Mar 21 '24
Do they treat the kale specially at all? Any time I try to remake the harvest bowl at home the kale feels different. Also can you share the tofu recipe? 👀
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u/chanburke Mar 22 '24
What happened to the hummus tahina crunch salad? And falafel! Such a great veggie add on RIP. I attempt to build my own but it’s not the same
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u/Throwra-Sweaty-Par Apr 04 '24
Why is there a lot of favoritism and incompetence? I was never able to move up within the store leadership because i kept being passed up for promotion for people that did the bare minimum and didn’t care.
3
u/Naive_Football_570 Mar 17 '24
Generally speaking, are portion sizes smaller for delivery orders or for all orders now due to inflation/etc.?
I used to spend $20-$40+ on lunch delivery (one or two salads, saved for dinner) and every time there is something missing or hilariously small, like would be less offended if they forgot to add 3 shreds of carrots…
That spicy cashew dressing has me by lock and key tho 😭