🥗 “Sultans of Salad” — Sweetgreen Co-Founders Jonathan Neman & Nicolas Jammet

0:01Nicolas Jammet: Yetis, we hope you like your salad with extra sauce. Because tonight, we don't just have one guest, we have seconds. Jonathan Neman and Nicolas Jammet are two of the three co-founders of Sweetgreen. The restaurant chain that's trying to replace Big Macs with Big Bowls. You see, John and Nick, they were buddies at Georgetown U who simply couldn't find a fresh lunch. So they launched a salad shop senior year and graduated with a business plan. Before Sweetgreen, kale was a Pizza Hut decoration. Oh, and Hearts of Palm, we thought that was jewelry. So first, Chipotle created Fast Casual. Then Sweetgreen created Fresh Casual.

0:36Nicolas Jammet: Because Sweetgreen became the first food chain to host a music fest. Instead of Happy Meal toys, Sweetgreen was giving away Kendrick Lamar tickets. And Sweetgreen IPO'd in 2021, the first SEC paperwork to list croutons as a business risk. And with nearly 300 locations today, it is the first ever pure play parsley stock. But Besties, these guys, they're tech forward because they have something called the infinite kitchen, robots whipping up bowls. And they're finance forward with the stock up 40 % year to date thanks to their launch of wraps. And today we'll find out how College Besties built a five and a half billion dollar IPO.

1:10Nicolas Jammet: One lift. And how a$20 salad company is responding to affordability. Plus is protein a long-term trend or big beef propaganda? If you want to understand entrepreneurship economics, or what we'll all be eating in eight years. Then Nick and John will scoop out the answers faster than you can spell quinoa, which no one can. Besties, please welcome the legends of legumes, the Caesars of salads, the pharaohs of farm to table. Our guests for tonight's live show are Jonathan Neiman and Nicholas Jemay, the chief executive officer and chief concept officer of Sweet Cream. And this interview with Sweet Cream is the most delicious, best one yet.

1:51Nicolas Jammet: Let's give a round of applause for him. Thank you very much.

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3:57Nicolas Jammet: Write your own money story with Monarch. Use code tboy at monarch.com to get your first year of Monarch or half off at just 50 bucks. That's 50 % off your first year at monarch.com with code TBOI. So Nick and I were freshman year college roommates. You guys were college buddies as well, living down the hall from each other. Was it unicorn at first sight? Tell us the story.

4:15Jonathan Neman: It actually was. We're very lucky. Freshman year, move-in day. You probably remember that day. You don't know what you're walking into, carrying all your stuff. And I get in there, and Nick is in the dorm room right next to me. And so he's the first person I met when I stepped on campus. Both of our moms were both helping us move in. And a quick, funny story about how Nick and I became friends very early on is we really bonded over food. And we both loved food. Nick came from this hospitality family. And I remember one day he came back with roasted duck. And we were making this incredible Michelin meal in the common area of roasted duck.

5:00Jonathan Neman: And we were forever friends.

5:02Nicolas Jammet: Jack brought me a leftover pappardelli from the Olive Garden. So I feel like I'm owed a duck at least, Jack. So when was the moment you realized your salad shop could become a billion dollar business? Because we know your first shop didn't make sense to be a salad shop. You know, when we started senior year and, you know, John, Nathaniel and I all had parents that were founders and immigrants and started their businesses. And so we grew up in this world of building a business. And so we love the idea of going to build something. We then also had the same problem in our life every day. Not liking the food options.

5:40Nicolas Jammet: The cafeteria was gross. The other places that tasted good didn't make you feel good. So we said, let's build the solution. So in the beginning, it wasn't about building a billion-dollar brand. It was about building something for ourselves as consumers and customers. And we knew we wanted it. We knew our friends wanted it. And then the more we learned around about the food industry, we realized this is a much bigger opportunity to really rethink where food is going and where the consumer is going. And how do we build one of the next great American fast food brands? At the time, when we started, it wasn't about building a billion-dollar brand.

6:08Nicolas Jammet: It was just about changing food. that was like 2005 2007

6:13Jonathan Neman: it was this really amazing moment in culture where people were starting to pay attention to where their food was coming from but the choices were still very bifurcated it was either food that was slow, expensive and fresh or it was fast and affordable and cool but it was terrible for you and the idea was can you bring those together can you make food that is delicious and makes you feel good and accessible and connected to culture and cool and that's really where the brand came together is kind of optimizing across all of those ideas.

6:44Nicolas Jammet: But you did one more thing and Jack and I always respect a brand that's going to take a big risk like this. You managed to associate food with music and you started hosting music fests. You still have the posters for your playbills. Is that the right word? Yeah. In the bathrooms at Sweetgreen Locations. How the heck did you get Kendrick Lamar to come to a salad concert?

7:05Jonathan Neman: How do you even tell an investor you're going to do that? So it really started with a problem we had. So we opened our first restaurant at Georgetown. It was tiny. It was 500 square feet. And it was pretty successful out the gate. We had some tough moments, but overall did well. About a year and a half feet later, we opened our second restaurant. And it's much bigger. It's like 2 ,000 square feet. It costs a lot more. And it turns out we opened on the wrong side of the street. Oh, boy. So what they tell you about location, location, location, it's very true. It really matters. So wrong side of the street, no customers.

7:38Jonathan Neman: And we're kind of like, oh, shit. Don't really know much about marketing, loved music. And we thought, wouldn't it be cool to just kind of stand outside? We knew if people tried the food that they would come back. That was like the key to the business is once somebody tried it, they weren't one-time customers, but they really stuck with us. They came multiple times a week. So the idea was, how do you get people to just try it? So one morning, it was a Saturday morning, we got up. were like, let's just start DJing and playing music in front of the storefront. So we drove to Guitar Center, we bought a giant speaker, we got a folding table.

8:12Jonathan Neman: Are you still in college? No, this is about two years after college. And we literally stood there in front of the restaurant and played music and handed out samples. And we did that every weekend for weeks and weeks. And it kind of worked. It created a little energy around the brand where it wasn't just, you know, this restaurant, but there was a community built around it. And so we said, okay let's throw a block party and the first block party our second restaurant was actually right where the dupont circle farmers market was and so we said why don't we throw like a post farmers market block party and so we threw a block party it went really well we said okay let's throw another block party kind of grew and grew and grew and then we said well let's why don't we throw a festival and we didn't plan on throwing a 25 000 person festival we planned on throwing like the block parties were like 500 people.

9:01Jonathan Neman: We're like, let's throw a 2 ,000 person. But as we started to understand the economics of throwing an event, it's a heavy fixed cost business. You have to set everything up, you have to pay for the talent, and then you amortize it on how many tickets you could sell. And at the time, and probably still do, we loved the band The Strokes, and we said, wouldn't it be cool if The Strokes could play? And we reached out, they were doing a comeback, we reached out, and we said... How did you reach out, by the way? I got to hear that detail. So we had a friend advisor. His name is John Cohen. He started Fader Magazine and like an ad agency called Cornerstone.

9:37Jonathan Neman: He was like a small angel investor and he knew the agent and the manager introduced us. We kind of became friends and we gave an offer and they said yes. And it was like once the stroke said yes, everybody else said yes. And then it literally went from like 500 people in a parking lot to 20 ,000 people with the strokes. and that was the start of Sweet Life.

9:58Nicolas Jammet: What was the feeling when the Stroke said yes? We really didn't believe it at first but they were just coming out with a new album so it was perfect timing honestly. I remember this moment when they finally went on and John and Nate and I were backstage and we just looked at each other like what the hell did we just do? I think we got some press like the cover of the Washington City Journal was like what the hell are a bunch of salad kids doing hiring the Strokes? It was like the cover story. But they wrote about the salad kids and that was the kick.

10:23Jonathan Neman: I think the idea was how do you connect to culture make it more about a community and not really just get into this idea of building a world around the food and we used to say the thing you go to these music festivals and it's usually the most unhealthy day of your life, right? You're eating crappy food but you're having a good time and wouldn't it be cool if you could eat a bowl of quinoa while watching some rock and roll? That was the idea

10:48Nicolas Jammet: I mean Jack's still recovering from Coachella 2017 2017, so. Well, as you guys scaled, one thing Jack and I are always curious about the company is the profit puppy. Like, the one product you're selling that, like, you really hope people order because you make an extra margin on it, but maybe they don't know, or what's behind it? So the perfect order at the Olive Garden was I sold a glass of wine. Check. And then I sold them stuffed mushrooms. Nice. Then the tour of Italy, which is, like, every Italian dish on one plate. Yeah. Then a tiramisu. What's your perfect order? And you can say opposite of that.

11:23Jonathan Neman: So the way we think about our business is actually is less on a per transaction basis. It's more on a lifetime value. It's again, what is interesting and different about our business is the relationship, the frequent relationship we have with our customers. So versus if you think about many of the places you go to, once you're a speaking customer, you're coming once a week, twice a week versus some other places you go a couple of times a year. So while we look at profit per item, what's more important is return rate. What item gets people to come back and keep coming back and keep coming back?

11:54Jonathan Neman: So we rank our menu items by what is most likely to get a customer to come back. From that lens, it's very clear. It's the goat. It's the harvest bowl.

12:06Nicolas Jammet: Curry cauliflower.

12:07Jonathan Neman: Yeah. No, the harvest bowl. It's the harvest bowl. It's the hit. It's the number one seller. It's the thing that gets people coming back. And then recently, as you guys mentioned, we launched wraps and we have a new hit on our hands. The classic chicken Caesar wrap is an absolute hit. There we go. We got fans. It's like a Strokes concert. And so that's been a new hit where people are having it and coming back.

12:34Nicolas Jammet: Full disclosure, Jack and I, as we were doing research, we expensed many a wrap leading up to this. But we are curious because we want to get more into today's business now. What is the ROI on the wrap? Like, can you tell us, is that like an immediately profitable item or do you factor in like all the marketing expenses and the research you did? Like, how does the wrap look? You know, wraps is a really exciting launch for us because the whole point of Sweetgreen wasn't to just sell salads. That was our core category, core product. But the vision is really to have a broader menu of just healthy, fresh, chef-crafted food.

13:04Nicolas Jammet: And so as we broaden our menu, we get to invite new customers and customers just come more frequently when you don't feel like a bowl, when you don't feel like a salad, when you don't feel like a plate. and something that's more portable. So it really changed who can come to Sweetgreen and how people can use Sweetgreen. So it was a really exciting way to introduce new customers into the brand. It's a slightly lower price too, right?

13:22Jonathan Neman: Yeah, so the other thing the wraps did is it broadened the occasion, so it's portable. It's much lower, it's lower priced. So take a little offense to the$20 salad comment. Salads are priced on average right below$15. That's fair. And the wraps start at$11. And so the idea was having something more affordable, kind of an entry-level price. So the Chicken Caesar is$11 to$12 in pretty much every single market that we're in. So the idea was a little bit lower price, something a little hardier, portable. And one of the interesting things that we've seen with the launch of the wraps is it has been incredibly popular at Gen Z.

14:03Jonathan Neman: So Gen Z has been the fastest-growing cohort of new customers joining, kind of coming into the brand due to wraps.

14:10Nicolas Jammet: And I watched them make the wrap at the store the other day. You said it slaps because you're Gen Z now. So you guys basically took a bowl and lined that bowl in a wrap and then made a salad in it and kind of just... And you're right, it's portable. That's a big deal. I will say also, I think the part of the wraps that was A, the hardest part to do, but also one of the parts we're most proud of is actually the tortilla. Because we have this food ethos that's around unprocessed ingredients, whole food, food source a certain way, we couldn't find a tortilla on the food service market that fit our ethos.

14:41Nicolas Jammet: They just don't exist. They're all full of junk, like dough conditioners and seed oils. And so we spent a year commercializing a custom tortilla that fit our standards. And so the tortilla you get at Sweetgreen is made for Sweetgreen. You can't get it anywhere else. And it's four simple ingredients. It's unbleached, unenriched wheat flour, extra virgin olive oil, sea salt and water. And has the perfect chew and texture. Yeah.

15:02Jonathan Neman: And just one more thing on the wraps. Because really to like perfect it, it's funny, the debates we have at Sweetgreen. So two of the big debates was before you wrap the wrap, should you mix it or not? And do you want the wrap cut or not? So big, big, like obviously huge operational decisions. To scale that. But, you know, talking to customers, really like trying it a million different ways. We found that mix is better. because you've had those burritos where you have avocado all on one side and it's not mixed in. So mix first, and then you want that first bite to be the best bite. So even though it added a little bit of complexity, having it cut gives you that first bite as the best bite.

15:49Jonathan Neman: And so those are kind of the tortilla, the mixing, the cutting, really made that experience, I think, very special.

15:57Nicolas Jammet: I think this is the cool thing about when we cover the restaurant industry and the cool thing about having a CEO and a creative officer here is that the industry, and this can apply to every industry, it comes down to these micro decisions. Jack and I talk about tummy share. Sweetgreen wanting to expand tummy share from lunchtime to dinnertime and doubling your size. You talk about rinse and repeat, how doing that to shampoo doubled their sales. These microvations, mini innovations that can totally unlock new market. And in this case, it was the wrap.

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18:37Nicolas Jammet: The portability thing. Did customers tell you that they wanted portability? Did they tell you they wanted smaller portions? You could have done a sandwich. The rap came like pretty far into the story. Yeah, you know, I would say we spend a lot of time listening to our customer and understanding what they want at Sweetgreen and just in the world. And so part of it was just understanding the food culture and where it was going and what opportunities we had on the sweet green menu to just attract more people. Portability was a huge part of it. But also just hardiness, like the days that you don't want a bowl of ingredients and you want something that feels a little hardier and carby.

19:08Nicolas Jammet: And so it felt like it was hitting a totally different customer or a different occasion. And so we heard that from our customers. So let's talk technology because the Infinite Kitchen is wild. Yes, it is. It's Willy Wonka in a salad bar. Why don't you share more context with the Edis? The Infinite Kitchen was an acquisition you guys made five years ago. And it is a series of tubes that hold the ingredients. And it distributes them perfectly into the bowl. And the bowl actually twists as it moves down the conveyor belt. So that the portions go into the right spot. Rather than just dumping all on top of each other.

19:40Nicolas Jammet: So like 35 of your locations, a little more than 10 % have these robot salad mixers. Known as the Infinite Kitchen. is the future of sweet green robots making salads at all the locations so it's part of the future

19:54Jonathan Neman: um first of all being here in boston shout out to the spice team we actually they were mit grads that where they started it and so this is where this is where that that team was that we acquired um and the brilliant engineers that built this incredible technology we don't really like to call it robotics it's not robotic it looks like a giant refrigerator looks like a piece of you know stainless steel kitchen equipment. But the idea around it was, can you leverage technology to improve the customer experience? And how can automation do that for us? It's one perfect portioning, perfect accuracy, faster speed, and the ability for us to redeploy that labor to have a better human connection with our customers.

20:34Jonathan Neman: So that was the vision for it is, you know, have the machine do the things that machines do best and have humans focus on the service piece. So coming and taking an order from you and actually having that conversation and not being rushed down the line. So, so far it's been very successful. We've rolled out almost 40 of them around the country. For us, it works in very high demand areas. It works in those more urban areas where you need to go really fast. Think, you know, inside of city, you know, kind of central business districts in those areas. It works super well. So this year, about half of the new restaurants we opened feature an infinite kitchen.

21:06Jonathan Neman: It'll definitely be part of the future. but what's important to like mention is we still make all the food from scratch we still source it the same way the machine the machine is what we call the infinite kitchen is really just assembling the bowl and then at the end we do have a finishing station where our our team members and our chefs are you know putting on the proteins garnishing it putting the dressing on and mixing it and kind

21:27Nicolas Jammet: of having that human connection at the end you know we talked earlier about ben afflack and ai and the hollywood industry i found it so hopeful something you said in another interview which is that the Infinite Kitchen reduces churn among employees. Which was a total surprise. When you hear of automation entering an industry, you don't think of employees staying. Can you explain why that is? Why did introducing the Infinite Kitchen to your restaurant keep employees there longer?

21:54Jonathan Neman: So when we decided to acquire this company, we brought our team along with us in terms of how would it impact your lives and how would we design this experience around it. And we were actually a little bit nervous when we first announced it of how the team was going to react. They were so excited. First of all, we don't put the technology in existing stores, so it's not like we're telling a bunch of people you've lost your job. It's really going in new stores. And the restaurant industry, as you know, is a very high turnover. Our turnover is about half the industry, but it's still high. We still turn over a lot of people within the restaurants.

22:26Jonathan Neman: And one of the reasons is it's a really hard job. It can be a challenging job or kind of in some ways a repetitive job. And so the idea is how do you let the humans do the parts that humans are best at, the cooking, the prep of the food, and the hospitality, and let the machine do some of the more repetitive tasks. Think if you're doing online orders or delivery orders, where you're just following a screen or a chit and building a bowl. That's the stuff that it can take care of. So it made the job easier for them and let them focus on the parts that they like. And that is why the churn went down, the employee turnover in those stores went down.

23:01Jonathan Neman: A counterintuitive case study on automation.

23:03Nicolas Jammet: It made the job less stressful for those in the restaurant. I can see that. Now, we should also talk about the roasted cauliflower recession, as we've called it before on the show. The reason we mentioned$20 salad before is because that's me. I'm guilty of the$20 salad. Jack goes right to Harvest Bowl and goes off the menu. I customize to the point that I may cause some of your churn among employees. Nick is constantly asking for samples, something that doesn't happen at Swickering? This is not an ice cream shop. But I like the ice cream shop model.

23:37Jonathan Neman: We're totally cool with that. Hopefully they say yes. They do.

23:41Nicolas Jammet: They really do. Still trying to build up the courage to try the hearts of Palm. But the stock has been down, even though it's rocketing this year, down 80 % from its all-time highs. And we were just curious, why do you think it's down and how do you get those customers back?

23:57Jonathan Neman: So the plan is really to focus on the fundamentals of what we do. And that is really around delivering an excellent customer experience. There's really a few pillars to that. It starts with people, culture, and leadership. Despite all the technology that we put in, all the systems, all the tools, all the new menu items, all the marketing, the most important thing is that experience in that restaurant. And that's driven by the leader and the culture they build in that restaurant. So that's really the primary focus. Like today, we were here in Boston visiting restaurants, focusing on how do we empower our leaders, give them the right training and development and tools.

24:31And let them cook.

24:33Jonathan Neman: Let them build that, create a great experience. So that's been one of the big focus areas. And I think if you see some of the results this year and how things have begun to rebound a big way, it's that focus on people and culture. The second thing is around menu innovation. So we talked about people are constantly looking for new things. We never imagined Sweetgreen to be a salad company. The idea was to really serve farm-grown, chef-crafted real food. That was the idea. And so salads was the first way in, wraps, we have plates. You know, salads are, to be honest, actually less than 50 % of our sales.

25:07Jonathan Neman: So menu innovation is a huge part of that. Wraps launched earlier this year in about three weeks where we have a huge menu launch coming. Think more cooked food, more protein, more hot that we're very excited about. And then we are also really focused on two other things. One is around digital innovation. We've always been a leader around digital and how we can make it easier to order sweet green, whether that was like the first company to have a mobile app for pickup orders and delivery, to now we're thinking a lot about agentic ordering and how AI is going to change the ordering experience. And then lastly is brand.

25:43Jonathan Neman: How do we just continue to be in the conversation, in culture, in music, in fashion, in fitness, all those sorts of kind of worlds that we play in to create that brand awareness, acquire new customers, and really build that emotional connection with our customers.

25:59Nicolas Jammet: And Jonathan, what about price? Because that has been a big industry challenge for all restaurants, is how do you make money and also charge a high price that is low enough for people in this economy to afford? So how do you handle the price challenge?

26:12Jonathan Neman: Yeah, so there's a few things. One, obviously things have gotten more expensive over the past few years. So we focus on how we can deliver value to our customers, whether that be value in a consistent high quality experience. Last year, we announced we increased protein portions by 25%. So without any price increase, we increased protein portions. We've also introduced a lot of lower-priced items, a la RAP. So really to have more entryways, we introduced a loyalty program. And over the past five or six years, we've taken 13 points less price than the industry has, and seven points less than grocery.

26:53Jonathan Neman: So while everything has gotten significantly more expensive, the delta between us and the competition or us and the alternatives has actually shrunk.

27:02Nicolas Jammet: So you've raised prices less quickly than the rest of you.

27:04Jonathan Neman: We've raised prices significantly less than others. So for us, it's just, you know, we have to pay our farmers fairly, we have to pay our teams fairly, and we want to deliver a high-quality experience, but we think more about what we deliver, and we have to be worth the price that we're paying. We understand that it's a premium.

27:20Nicolas Jammet: So adding more to the experience. Yeah, I think it's like the price value equation. I think it's never been more important for us to really show and tell the stories around why our food is more premium and the ingredients are better. I mean, I can tell you going down our whole menu, the quality of ingredients we are buying is very different than those in the industry. The pounds of organic greens, the responsibly raised meats, the no seed oils in our cooking. Like these are things that aren't typical and harder and more expensive. So telling those stories and making sure consumers understand the value that's going into their meal is really important.

27:48Nicolas Jammet: So I think sweet cream salads are incredibly delicious. I also can't believe they're only that many calories given like the chicken pesto parm. Phenomenally delicious. And it's only like 650 calories. I'm like, wow, this is like a miracle food. So it's delicious. It's healthy. And it's also, I see the sign in the restaurant where all your farms are. It's farm to table. of those three marketing messages, tastiness, healthiness, sustainability, let's say, which is most important to your customers? And like, can you rank them? Which is the most effective? Yeah, you know, I think for us, it's important to tell stories around our food that are really interesting and talk about how delicious it is and talk about the price value.

28:32Nicolas Jammet: Healthy for us is a very, it's subjective. Healthy to you is different than healthy to someone else. So the whole point of Sweetgreen was to have food that you trusted, that was sourced really well, that is treated with care, scratch cooked. and really delicious, but what you might want to eat every day is different than someone else. So people can self-select into that. Some people want a 2 ,000 calorie bowl and they want to have like quadruple chicken and they want to get their macros. And some people want the 400 calorie lunch to feel light. And so sweet green, the quality of the ingredients that we source and that actually goes into how we cook them, makes it food that you can eat every day.

29:02So it's important for us

29:04Nicolas Jammet: to kind of tell all those stories and really understand how do we create desire for this kind of food. And so much of that is about, you know, the taste and the flavor, bold flavors. And, but it's also about the stories we tell around the food and how do we just create excitement and desire for this food. But it's interesting, you didn't mention the sustainability part. And that's what Jack and I have been curious about because like when we've covered all birds, for example, we know from studying them that sustainability was their lead selling point and then they had to backtrack from it because it didn't sell.

29:32Nicolas Jammet: So it's just interesting to hear from these brands, like what actually works in the markets, what actually resonates with people versus what you want to resonate with people.

29:38Jonathan Neman: Yeah. You know, when you think, you look at the industry, what the things that drive consumers broadly, maybe not in like kind of niche segments, it's craveability, convenience, price, health is like in the top five or six. The Holy grail for us is you can't win on health alone. Like I've talked a lot about this idea of these four stages of food. How do you feel before you eat it while eating it right after and 20 years later, you've had food, you have food companies that are really good at either the first two or the second two. They're really good at making you crave it and tasting good, and then you feel terrible, and you're probably not really healthy 20 years later.

30:14Jonathan Neman: Or the flip side where it doesn't look good, it doesn't taste good, but you feel great, and you're really healthy. We cannot just win on health. We have to be healthy and good for you, but you have to be delicious. And so for us, it's really bringing those two together. It's like we always talk about it has to meet both taste and feel good together.

30:35Nicolas Jammet: I'm still feeling Jack's home run Grand Slam Olive Garden order from college, I believe. Nicholas, question for you. You know, Molly Baz, pickles are on the menu right now. Can you talk about limited time only offerings and how important that is given you can't just have the same menu forever? Yeah, and like that's a drop you do essentially, but it also is something other industries could do. Yeah, it is. And I think, you know, early on in Sweetgreen, it was something that really helped us build our brand and build community and tell stories around food that were more interesting and really highlight some of the core equities that we were doing differently.

31:08Nicolas Jammet: Like we had a seasonal menu. No one ever had seasonal menus that, you know, source things according to the seasons in fast casual. So we wanted to highlight LTOs that highlighted those ingredients or chefs or really bold flavors. And over the years, we've been able to kind of celebrate some like incredible stories and chefs and ingredients. And, you know, whether it's working with some of the best chefs in the world, like Dan Barber, David Chang, Nancy Silverton, to chefs today like Molly Baz, really just introducing really unique, distinct, craveable flavors and telling a story that maybe consumers aren't hearing in other places or food that they're not finding in other places.

31:42Nicolas Jammet: And I'll give you an example. My favorite LTO collab we ever did was with Dan Barber. And we basically invented and bred a new type of squash with him. So we dropped a new vegetable. And it was a coconut squash, and it was a seed that was bred for flavor. So as opposed to all the other seeds, modern seeds today that are bred for durability, price, yield, all those things, this was a squash that was bred for this deep, sweet, nutty flavor. We bought 100 ,000 seeds from him from his row seven company, planted them in six farms, 23 acres around the country, and prayed they would come out of the ground because no one had ever grown that much kogi nut squash.

32:15Nicolas Jammet: And it came out of the ground. We launched it. It was delicious. And we dropped the squash as if it was Nike dropping their Virgil shoe. And we had him on a billboard in Times Square holding a squash. I don't know if anyone's ever put a vegetable on a billboard in Times Square. And so it was really telling stories and creating a world around this kind of food that was interesting and people wanted to be a part of. And at the end of the day, the message was kind of simple. The point of it all was that it just tasted the best. But also, it's got to be, like, we're surrounded by these celebrity collabs these days, and a lot of them are kind of lazy.

32:48Nicolas Jammet: It seems like maybe the formula for a successful collab or a drop in any industry is there has to be a whole story behind it. Because people weren't just going for Dan's salad. They were going to tell someone, they invented a squash for this thing. Yeah, you got to break through. And I think, you know, we have a really hard and fast rule at Sweetgreen. We will not partner with anyone, no matter how famous they are, unless they are a true, genuine Sweetgreen customer or believer in our ethos. So all these chefs, part of the reason we collabed with them was we would see them in lunch at Sweetgreen on their day off.

33:16Nicolas Jammet: We would be dropping family meal off for their kitchen. They were investors. A lot of them were investors early on. Even when we did our Naomi Osaka collab or Kendrick Lamar, They were customers. They were eating. We didn't just say, let's go find the most famous tennis player. We found out Naomi was eating Sweetgreen four days a week to train. And we said, let's do something with her. So this point of authenticity and people that actually believe in the food and actually use it. So when can we announce the profit puppy salad together? We'll stay for the next spot. Speaking of collabs, Starbucks considered a Chipotle thing.

33:45Nicolas Jammet: Have you guys ever considered tying up with another brand in order to scale?

33:49Jonathan Neman: We are so focused on just our own core business, delivering the best experience, and we see a massive opportunity. We have about 300 stores in the United States. You look at it, Chipotle has about 4 ,000 in the US. So the runway for us is just so massive, and so we are just laser-focused on Sweetgreen.

34:07Nicolas Jammet: Well, we were going to pitch you on buying Blank Street coffee, but we can discuss it in the green room after the show. Sweet Blank Street green. You know, Jack, I think we have time for one or two more questions. Yeah. What do you think? So you guys have been executives of your own company for 19 years. You've worked at one company, basically. Still our first job. You've never applied for jobs, but you've hired people. What can this audience hear about what you're looking for in the job market right now when you're deciding to hire?

34:38Jonathan Neman: Yeah, so there's a few things that we very specifically look for. One is this matrix or balance of art and science. You know, to be a great leader or an executive really at any brand, but especially at consumer brands, you got to have the rigor and the financial, technical rigor, the data, the insights, all that. But so much of it is the taste and the instincts and the art side of it. So kind of a really good balance of those two. The second is for a company like us, which we're in this like weird adolescent stage. We're not this like huge, you know, massive company, but we're not quite a startup anymore.

35:13Jonathan Neman: So we look for people that can play high, like strategic, board-level, multi-year strategy, but also willing to roll up their sleeves, fix something. I mean, today, our executives are here. Shout out to our team right here. We're walking restaurants, and we're seeing problems, and we're fixing them with our bare hands. So the ability and the humility to do both. And then the other thing is resilience. Business is hard. Food is really hard. There's a lot of ups and downs. You get punched in the face, and you've got to be resilient enough to get up and keep going. And so those are some of the key things that we look for.

35:56Nicolas Jammet: I think the only one I'll add is I think this idea of curiosity and a skew towards optimism. The consumer and the world is changing so fast, you have to constantly be learning and curious. Otherwise, you just wake up and you're irrelevant. One thing we've got to ask before we hit our rapid-fire questions. because there's a term on Wall Street we hate. And we know you guys care about words. We actually counted you. You said the word rap 51 times in your last earnings report, Jonathan. You said raps 51 times. We were paying attention. In the earnings call transcript. Yes, yes, yes. But there's a term we had on Wall Street, which is slop bowl because we think it's been overused.

36:29Nicolas Jammet: And we find it offensive, the S word. I do too. Yeah. So can we rebrand that in real time? Let's go.

36:34Jonathan Neman: What do you got? Bonus bowl. Bonus bowl? Yeah. I mean, bonus is a great word. You know, I'll tell you, right before we came up, you guys said something that we really liked, that we have not used, but we may take. Nice. Which is fresh casual. Oh. So we heard that, and we're like, ooh, you're on to something. So we will give you credit, but you may see that as our, the new category of Sweetgreen is fresh casual.

37:00Nicolas Jammet: We'll look forward to the next earnings report transcript, Jonathan.

37:04Jonathan Neman: But time? On slot bowls, I agree. I think it's a lazy term. Yes. I think the reason the media picked up on it is because of the conversation around AI. And there is nothing slop about what we do. We source thoughtfully. The food isn't even slopped together. It's crafted and really thoughtfully put together. It's just, I've had arguments with the media about this. I think it's lazy. I think people should stop using that term. It is offensive. Damn right.

37:30Nicolas Jammet: We'll bleep it out of this episode. But time for some rapid fire questions, Jack, before our guests, before they go. All right. Jonathan, what is the best brand that you love right now? I would say either Fish Wife or District Vision. Best business leader? Right now, Jensen. What's the best business book you've ever read? Good to Great played a huge role in how we thought about it this week early on. And I love the Phil Knight book, Shoe Dog.

38:03Jonathan Neman: Oh, so good. I think it just shows the hustle.

38:05Nicolas Jammet: Oh, so good.

38:06Jonathan Neman: best restaurant in America.

38:10Nicolas Jammet: I thought we were going to say Boston or Washington, D.C. We could say Boston, but they're going to say Duncan again. I mean, I'd probably say Estella in New York. And finally, what four-letter stock ticker symbol would you be if you were traded on the stock market, each of you, individually, Jonathan and Nick? N-E-M-O. Nemo. Like finding Nemo? Yeah, it's my nickname. Probably J-A-M-M, Jam. That's good. And then finally, Jack, do you want to ask to whip up the takeaways? We always let our guests whip up the takeaways. So what's the takeaway for this audience about Sweetgreen and two buddies from college founding a company together?

38:54Jonathan Neman: You know, playing off the chew dog reference, I think everything always looks really polished and beautiful from the outside, every business. but every business is messy on the inside. There's a lot of ups and downs and it takes a lot of resilience and it's that hustle and that true belief in this mission and vision and just to keep going. I'm sure when you guys started this, you did not think you would be doing this at this scale. I think this idea that people... Yes, you have a relatively clear vision but you are figuring out as you go and I think that is, for me, one of the takeaways is just keep going.

39:34Jonathan Neman: Don't give up. Just keep, keep going.

39:36Nicolas Jammet: I would say this is a constant obsession with the customer. You know, in our world, the customer is changing so quickly. So if you don't stay close to them, I think it can be really dangerous. And then secondly, you know, you're only as good as the people you surround yourself with. So building the best team. And I can say we have the best team in the industry. But it's made us better. We learn every day from everyone that we've hired. And even, you know, in the restaurants, we learn the most. So just surrounding yourself with really incredible people. Yetis, Nicholas and Jonathan. Nathaniel's not here but we've interviewed him too the co-founders of the fresh casual chain Sweetgreen

40:16Nicolas Jammet: famous for their bonus bowls thank you for being here with us tonight give it up thank you guys congrats guys

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