Home-grown fast-casual salad chain Sweetgreen is opening its first digital-only pickup location this summer.
The Sweetgreen pickup kitchen opens Aug. 1 at 601 Massachusetts Ave. NW in D.C.’s Mount Vernon neighborhood.
It is an extension of what has grown out of the pandemic for Sweetgreen, and other fast-casual and fast food restaurants: a rise in digital ordering.
For Sweetgreen, digital business accounted for 67% of its 2021 revenue. It says it is working to provide new and convenient ordering methods to elevate the digital experience and to meet customers where they are.
The digital-only restaurant concept will allow it to move quickly to fulfill orders and reach new guests in areas that would not otherwise support a full-sized restaurant.
It is also more or less a self-service operation, with no dining area or front line service. Instead, customers will pick up their orders made through Sweetgreen’s app or website from shelves. There will, however, be an outdoor patio of dining.
The new digital-only Sweetgreen is a relocation of an existing Sweetgreen at City Vista, at 1065 5th St. NW, which will close July 25.
Sweetgreen has close to 30 locations in the D.C. area. The salad chain was started by three Georgetown students in 2007, with its first location on Georgetown’s M Street.
The company, which is now headquartered in Los Angeles, has grown to more than 140 locations nationwide. It went public on the New York Stock Exchange last fall as the first salad chain IPO.
Sweetgreen also reported quarterly results this week, with a 35% increase in same-store sales. Sweetgreen raised menu prices an average of 10% last quarter. It had a first quarter net loss of $49 million.
