Sweetgreen’s collaboration with Molly Baz gave customers a reason to talk about the brand—and come back for lunch. For CEO Jonathan Neman, it also offered a lesson in how the company should approach its next round of menu launches.
The pickle-heavy partnership worked because culinary, marketing, and restaurant operations came together, he said. Sweetgreen wants to carry that coordination into 2027, with six major “experience windows” and smaller drops between them. Planning further ahead gives teams more time to refine recipes, prepare restaurants, and train employees.
“The lesson is a little bit fewer, but bigger, better things,” Neman said during Sweetgreen’s third-quarter earnings call.
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That approach comes as the fast casual begins to regain traffic following a summer setback. Same-store sales fell 6.4 percent in Q3, including a 4.9 percent traffic decline. Sweetgreen estimates the disruption surrounding cyclospora headlines reduced traffic by approximately 500 basis points.
By October, comps were up about 5 percent, driven by approximately 4 percent transaction growth. Neman said momentum improved further heading into November.
The recovery is coming primarily from existing customers visiting more frequently and lapsed guests returning. New-customer acquisition is improving, Neman said, but remains a smaller contributor.
The Baz collaboration brought three limited-time offerings to restaurants, including the Big Dill Caesar Wrap. Neman described it as one of Sweetgreen’s strongest recent brand moments and sees potential to make the Chef in Residence a repeatable platform.
“The Molly collaboration really resonated both from a social and brand awareness perspective, but it was also delicious and well executed, and customers really just loved it,” he said.
Sweetgreen did not quantify the partnership’s sales contribution. But it reinforced the role wraps are playing in improving frequency and reaching younger diners. Wrap incidence has remained in the high teens, with a recent increase following the collaboration. The Chicken Caesar Wrap now has the menu’s highest return rate, according to Neman.
Those lower-priced options carry a trade-off. Wraps help bring customers back but pressure sales mix. Sweetgreen is reducing its reliance on discounts while maintaining everyday entry points alongside premium offerings.
The next opportunity sits at dinner, which accounts for only about one-third of sales after 5 p.m. Sweetgreen is preparing to put Plates back in the spotlight with larger rotisserie-style chicken and a freshly baked sourdough chocolate chip cookie.
The preparations extend beyond marketing. Sweetgreen has strengthened oven infrastructure, cooking tools, and kitchen-leader training as it expands further into hot food.
That work connects to a broader issue the chain has been addressing throughout its turnaround: getting more restaurants to perform like its best ones.
Forty locations set peak-hour records during September and October. Yet Neman said the gap between top-performing and median restaurants remains significant.
“It is a clear reminder that two restaurants can have the same menu, equipment, and systems and still deliver very different experiences,” he said. “The difference is the head coach.”
Sweetgreen’s new head coach incentive plan, taking effect in Q1 2027, ties compensation more closely to restaurant volume, sales growth, and tenure. Managers with at least three years at the company who lead its highest-volume restaurants can earn more than $200,000 through salary, equity, and a revenue-share bonus.
The company is also expanding leadership development. Its restaurateur program pairs selected head coaches with senior-leader mentorship and tailored training, plus a $10,000 bonus for each employee they develop into a head coach, with no cap on the number of bonuses.
Training starts with new hires and extends through kitchen preparation, cooking, pacing, hospitality, and managers’ business skills. Sweetgreen wants 90 percent of head coaches promoted internally.
The investment comes with near-term costs. Head coach incentives and annual team-member salary increases are expected to weigh on restaurant-level margin by approximately 25 basis points in 2027.
But inconsistent execution is already expensive. Restaurant-level margin fell to 10.4 percent in Q3 from 13.1 percent a year earlier, with labor inefficiencies and lower sales among the pressures.
Sweetgreen is adjusting staffing around demand, adding coverage at peak periods while reducing inefficiencies between rushes. It is also piloting daily counts of critical inventory items and cooking smaller batches more frequently to reduce waste. Management expects food-flow improvements to contribute approximately 150 basis points of restaurant-level margin improvement in 2027.
For now, strengthening existing restaurants takes precedence over accelerating expansion. Sweetgreen finished Q3 with 290 locations and expects approximately 10 gross openings next year. Closures will bring net growth to about half the roughly 10 net additions expected in 2026.
