Can Protein-Obsessed Techies Help Save Sweetgreen?
The restaurant chain is losing its initial fan base, and as a result, CEO and founder Jonathan Neman is hungry to win over Silicon Valley’s wellness crowd.
For a little salvation, Sweetgreen co-founder and CEO Jonathan Neman has lately been looking beyond the piles of chopped romaine lettuce and maple-glazed squash that originally won his company a devoted following with the suit-and-salad lunch set in Washington, New York and Los Angeles.
The high-earning young people who used to frequent Sweetgreen are not eating there as much anymore. So Neman has partly turned his attention to winning over another group of customers: wellness-obsessed, protein-centric techies, the type who track their macronutrients as fastidiously as they monitor their sleep habits. They enjoy the newer stars of Sweetgreen’s menu, like the Hot Honey Chicken plate (49 grams of protein), the Chicken Salad Bacon Club wrap (42 grams) and the Steak Honey Crunch bowl (33 grams).
“There is a very devoted segment of our consumer that is more of the longevity-focused biohacker,” said Neman.