Recode Decode: Why Sweetgreen thinks like a tech company
How did you come up the idea for Sweetgreen? I had nowhere to eat. Food was either fast, cheap, and bad for you. Or it was delicious, slow, and expensive.
The main idea for Sweetgreen: To create a place to eat that made you feel good while you are eating it and good for many years after. The pitch was farm to table fast food.
Sweetgreen will take the trends you see in e-commerce and apply them to food: You’ll be able to order food by voice, text, Slack etc…
Why the restaurant industry needs more technology: Restaurants have a utilization problem. They are open for 12 hours and utilized [mostly] for only 2 hours. How can you leverage technology to capture more demand at that peak and then spread it into the shoulders?
We designed our restaurants to be mobile-first: 50% of our business is done through our app. They just come in a grab the food fast. It’s growing rapidly because it is more convenient for the customer.
We don’t use delivery apps: We want to have a direct relationship with the customer.
We study the brand of Nike: Nike celebrates athletes. We celebrate the chef.
Technology is just an enabler to meet the customer where they are: The consumer moves and you have to move with the consumer. Technology is just an enabler to meet the customer where they are. We don’t build technology for technology’s sake.
What do restaurants look like in 10 years: Food will become personalized. Parts of the restaurant can be automated. The need for hospitality will not go away.