Sweetgreen will drive a restaurant by car as part of the suburban insertion

The Sweetgreen salad restaurant chain will open its first location with a traffic lane and order from parking spaces next year as it expands beyond cities to the suburban United States.

It joins the flood of catering companies that have introduced new designs inspired by the coronavirus pandemic. Fast food chains such as Taco Bell by Yum Brands and Burger King by Restaurant Brands International have focused their new designs on making delivery and digital orders even more convenient.

But the casual-fast segment, which includes Sweetgreen and Chipotle Mexican Grill, has been influenced by the success of the access routes. According to The NPD Group, drive-thru orders grew 24% across the catering industry. Like Sweetgreen, Shake Shack will open its first access lane in 2021. And Chipotle, which has been building its “Chipotlanes” for several years, plans to add even more access lanes as sales to it. store in these restaurants surpasses the rest of your footprint.

Sweetgreen’s pilot restaurant will open next winter in Highlands Ranch, Colorado. Customers driving vehicles will be able to order salads and hot bowls in advance with the Sweetgreen mobile app.

Although inspired by the pandemic, it is possible that the vaccine has already stopped the spread of Covid-19 before the launch of the concept.

But, said Concepts CEO Nic Jammet, “many of our customers already have this behavior of using the Sweetgreen app to order in advance and come forward to pick it up.”

Even before the global health crisis, more than 50% of Sweetgreen’s transactions were digital orders, which fueled the private capital’s venture capital interests. The company’s last round of financing in 2019 valued it at $ 1.6 billion. Sweetgreen told The New York Times that her 2019 revenue exceeded $ 300 million. Throughout the crisis, its digital channels have experienced growth of more than 70%.

Guests wishing to place an order from the comfort of their car when arriving at the restaurant will be able to do so in dedicated parking spaces with intercom boxes under a cantilever of solar panels, similar to the ordering style of Sonic Drive. -In.

Because of the differences from a traditional drive-through restaurant, the chain calls the design “drive-in.” Guests wishing to dine in the restaurant can dine in the car or on the outdoor patio. The design of the restaurant also has exterior windows that allow guests to visit the kitchen and food preparation area from their cars.

According to Jammet, Sweetgreen has been thinking about lanes to drive for years, driven by the idea of ​​making healthy food as convenient as burgers and fries. The pilot also arrives when the chain favors its expansion into the suburbs after spending the early years focusing on urban markets.

“Definitely during Covid, our work on this accelerated and we said, ‘Now is our time,'” Jammet said. “Our customers’ behavior is changing even faster … and as we move. in addition to these suburban areas and opening up to new cities and new neighborhoods, it seemed like something we should really focus on. “