Here’s why Sweetgreen no longer wants to be fully automatedHere’s why Sweetgreen no longer wants to be fully automated

Joanna Fantozzi

Just a little over a year after Sweetgreen CEO Jonathan Neman told investors he expects all Sweetgreen stores to be fully automated within the next five years, the Los Angeles-based fast-casual brand seems to be backtracking on that claim.

Sweetgreen CFO Mitch Reback spoke at the Goldman Sachs Global Retailing Conference on Thursday about the company’s performance and development plans, and said that while the Infinite Kitchen fully automated store model has higher margins and lower employee turnover rates, the company won’t convert every store to this model.

“I don’t think you’ll see them in every single store for the reason that we have a lot of older smaller stores in the D.C. area and Philadelphia, and we would probably not go back and retrofit,” Reback said. “We’ve disclosed that 50% of new stores will use the Infinite Kitchen model.”

Sweetgreen’s Infinite Kitchen store models were developed in partnership with robot-powered kitchen Spyce, which Sweetgreen acquired in 2021. The automation technology passes bowls down a conveyer belt rather than having humans stand at each station. The first Infinite Kitchen store opened outside of Chicago in May and saw a 26% margins lift over the first few weeks of operation.

Now, the company has four Infinite Kitchen stores running, including two built by Spyce, one retrofitted store in Penn Plaza in New York City and the company’s first square IK model (the rest have been linear assembly line models).

Related:Sweetgreen evolves beyond the weekday lunch crowd with same-store sales up 9%

“We always wanted an IK store to look and feel like a Sweetgreen — we never wanted it to feel like a robot store,” Reback said. “If you open a store with no people in it, it’s hard to get the flywheel to spin.”

While a 50% automation rate is a far cry from Neman’s claims that Sweetgreen will be a fully automated chain by 2028, it is likely the more realistic goal. Even beyond figuring out the logistics of converting old stores to robotic kitchens, a one-size-fits-all approach to operations technology could be limiting as Sweetgreen aims to grow to 1,000 stores by 2030:

“We previously just had one format, and now we like having more tools in the toolkit,” Reback said. “It allows us to meet our customers where they are [and] serve them in better ways. We have a digital pickup-only store in a crowded area in D.C.. and we’re looking to spread that format to more crowded urban centers. We continue to see the use case for more drive-thrus, and we want to open a drive-thru format with Infinite Kitchen.”

During the conversation, Reback also went into detail on the company’s development goals on the road to 1,000 stores, which will include a 15% growth rate in 2025, moving closer to 20% open rate in 2026.

Related:How Sweetgreen turned itself into a restaurant that’s known for food quality instead of a technology startup that happens to sell food

Sweetgreen currently has more than 225 stores operating in the United States, as of the end of the second fiscal quarter on June 30.

Contact Joanna at [email protected]