Salad and Go CEO Mike Tattersfield—in week three of his new role—is on the typical listening tour.
The 140-unit chain’s culture reveals itself in many ways. People are drawn to the brand for a variety of reasons: its emphasis on health, its commitment to giving back to communities, and its restaurant experience. The appeal varies depending on the individual, but Tattersfield believes it’s the combination of all these factors that defines the brand.
As he gathers thoughts from stakeholders, one question that pops up is where they think the company should be going. Tattersfield suggests, “How about we build America’s most loved salad company?”
He knows it’s a high bar—one that demands a different level of excellence. That’s across freshness of ingredients, operations at the store level, and interactions with customers. To him, there’s no better place to begin.
“Let’s start prioritizing that, versus we just need to get more kitchens and more throughput out there,” says Tattersfield, who is a minority owner of the brand and comes with more than three decades of experience. “That’s an output of really good work. I want to make sure we do the really good work of building America’s most loved salad brand, and then we’ll figure out, how we replicate the one shop we started [in Gilbert, Arizona] and do it again and again and again. Because then you have the right mindset. It’s not about a numbers game and the chase. It’s about how you build excellence. That’s what I’m trying to make sure we do well.”
Salad and Go was founded in 2013 with a mission to change how customers perceive the better-for-you space. The brand’s growth journey began in Arizona, and from there, it expanded into parts of Texas, Oklahoma, and Nevada. It’s nearly doubled its footprint over the past two years.
At a time when many salad chains post prices in the mid teens, Salad and Go prides itself on offering several signature dishes for under $10 in a drive-thru format. The chain also features a variety of breakfast burritos and bowls, wraps, and other snacks. Soups and grain bowls could be on the horizon as well.
Tattersfield can appreciate a brand attempting to disrupt a segment, considering he previously worked for Lululemon, which plays a major part in the yoga pants craze, and Krispy Kreme, which switched its go-to-market strategy from retail shops to delivering fresh doughnuts daily to several venues like restaurants, grocery stores, gas stations, convenience stores, and warehouse clubs.
The big difference with Salad and Go, however, is the frequency opportunity it presents. Tattersfield believes it’s a brand someone could use multiple times per week.
“The repeat play is there, so you’ve really got to step up your experience and make sure you can deliver against it,” the CEO says.
One of the key learnings has been the importance of maintaining operational integrity while scaling. With central kitchens as the backbone of the model, Salad and Go stresses daily routines where fresh ingredients are prepared and shipped to individual shops for quick final assembly. This approach—essentially a “farm-kitchen-shop” pipeline—relies on a high level of discipline in areas like cleaning, cooking, produce handling, and finishing. The final product is always assembled to order. Last year, Salad and Go opened its largest central kitchen facility in Garland, Texas, which can support up to 500 locations within a 12-hour drive.
Despite its seemingly simple menu, operating Salad and Go isn’t necessarily straightforward, Tattersfield says. The drive-thru model is complex, especially when executing hundreds of made-to-order salads during peak times. That difficulty demands significant human capital—recruiting, training, and retaining the right talent cannot be rushed, according to the CEO. Likewise, real estate decisions must be made with discipline. Being a drive-thru-centric company means not compromising on site selection, even though ideal locations can be difficult to secure. Customers follow predictable patterns, and the brand must meet them where they are.
“We will continue to grow,” Tattersfield says. “We’ll just be a much more disciplined growth rate of where we are. And we really need to leverage the product aspect of our kitchens and be really innovative on things that our customers are asking us for. They constantly ask us, ‘You should try this, you should try that.’ I think we should listen and make sure to see we can scale those things.”
Tattersfield envisions continued growth through the Southwest and into the central southern U.S., eventually expanding into the Southeast. A new kitchen in that region would help support further expansion. California is also on the radar, as its proximity to the Phoenix kitchen makes it feasible to support with fresh daily—or near-daily—deliveries.
The CEO thinks Salad and Go is capable of more than just drive-thru service. He notes that the product is suited for delivery and also catering. He adds that central kitchens could take the lead on the catering channel since it may require different packaging and preparation than individual orders. There also could be a future where the kitchens become so efficient that they begin supplying salads to other restaurant brands.
“We’re about making sure people can eat more nutritious foods, so we’ll figure it out,” Tattersfield says.
