Salad-centric fast-casual chain sweetgreen will further its focus on technology-enabled processes when it opens its first “sweetlane” concept. Planned to open within the next year in Schaumburg, Ill, the pilot restaurant will push digital ordering to the forefront with a drive-thru lane designed to increase convenience for digital customers.
Customers will place orders via sweetgreen’s mobile app or website, which sweetgreen says accounted for 50% of total revenue in 2021. The pilot store will include a round observation window where drive-thru customers can watch sweetgreen staff prepping orders. The location will also include dine-in service.
“Digital customers are our most habitual users and we believe this new format will provide us with more options to connect people to real food,” said Nicolas Jammet, sweetgreen co-founder and chief concept officer, in a release announcing the new concept.
The digital-ordering site aligns with sweetgreen’s already established focus on technology. Last summer sweetgreen purchased a Boston concept, Spyce, that built its business around automation and technology.
Images courtesy of sweetgreen