Nic Jammet

[upbeat music] Welcome to Office Of, a clubhouse for sharp takes on confidence, drive, and being a solid man. This is a place for unfiltered stories, questions get answered, and new ones get asked with some of today's most fascinating guys. This is your space, your story, your rules. Come on in. The door is open. Nick Jammet is the co-founder of Sweetgreen, a college side hustle that grew into one of the most recognizable names in food today. He's the guy who can talk farming practices, trade stories with a musician, and still geek out over what's in season at the farmers market. In building Sweetgreen, he's made healthy feel less like homework and more like a lifestyle that you actually wanna be part of.

Plus, I eat it nearly every day. Welcome to the Office Of podcast, Nick Jammet. Thanks for having me. Dude, we're really happy to have you here. I'm excited to be here. The whole purpose of me wanting to talk to you was I eat Sweetgreen literally nearly every single day for lunch and/or dinner, and I was like, you know what? I get that kale Caesar all the damn time. I wanna be inquisitive and find out who the [laughs] guy is that actually started this whole damn thing. So that's really the purpose why I wanted to chat with you. I'm a fan of what you do. Nice. Well, thank you for being such a great customer, and I appreciate that. Before we get into sort of everything, I wanna know what you were sort of like as a kid. What did a, a Saturday look like to you when you were growing up? So I grew up in a French household here in the city, grew up in Manhattan, and I have two brothers, one twin brother, one older brother, so a lot of family time.

And my parents ran very fine dining French restaurants. Totally. So a lot of our family time was honestly spent at the restaurants. My parents ran it very old school. They were there every day, every night. If they weren't there, the doors weren't open. They wanted to greet every single customer that came in. So a lot of our weekends at times were spent there. And then just, you know, normal kid stuff in growing up in the city, Central Park and camps and lots and lots of travel. Lot of time with my brothers. I'm always curious what it's like for people who actually grew up in the city. I mean, was it as wild as I think it was? Were you exposed to everything at a young age that I assume you were? Yes, in a good way, and, you know, I think there's a right way to raise kids in the city and probably a bunch of wrong ways. [laughs] Yeah. And I think my parents did a really great job. It was a pretty strict household, French, European household.

Very strict about certain things and less strict about other things, and just really focused on values and hard work and no lying and less strict about things like drinking [laughs] before you're of age. And, you know, they, they taught you how to drink responsibly versus, uh, telling you not to, and then you have to hide and do it. So they were very supportive and trusting, but my parents, they had a tight leash until we were, like, 15. And were you in the restaurants from, like, a young age until you were sort of a teenager? At what age were you sort of spending time in the restaurants? You know, I would say from a very early age. It was obviously a restaurant that served dinner every night of the week. Yeah. So if we wanted to see our parents, sometimes they'd rush home for dinner then go back to the restaurant, but very often we would go eat at the restaurant for dinner. And I remember it being so funny because it's like, you know, it was a fine dining restaurant, white tablecloth, tie and jacket required.

Tie and jacket required. If you came in without a tie or jacket, they had a closet that Hermès had stocked with ties and jackets, and they'd ask you to put one on. Not bad. I'd forget my tie and jacket at home most days. [laughs] Yeah. [laughs] You know, we'd go there to eat dinner, and it was... You know, my older brother's 18 months older, so there'd be, like, three six-year-olds sitting at this table by themselves 'cause my parents were working the floor, and all these people would walk by being like, "How, why are these three little toddlers," you know, or, like- [laughs] ... "little kids eating in this fine dining restaurant by themselves?" And how do these three kids have, like, the corner table every night? Yeah. [laughs] Who, who are they? [laughs] Yeah. But it was great because we got to see our parents. We got to see them work. I, you know, had a, an appreciation for how much work- Yeah ... goes into running your own business. And then what was your first job? My first job was, outside of small jobs my parents would give me at their restaurants- Yeah ...

you know, I started of, at a very early age really curious about business and hospitality, and so I, I think my first internship was 13 years old for Steve Hanson's restaurant group. Oh, nice. Um, and obviously we grew up in that r- hospitality community, and Steve was like, "If you wanna learn the business, you gotta start at the bottom." So I was, like, a busboy at Ruby Foo's Times Square. That's amazing. Then I did a management internship. And so every summer I would work with different restaurant groups, Danny Meyer one summer, Joe Bastianich one summer, and so I really wanted to learn as much as I could about hospitality. I spent time working at the Bristol Hotel in Paris one summer to learn a different form of hospitality. So you were learning all the different facets of hospitality, whether it was literally cleaning the dishes or everything else that you were doing.

Yes. Did you think you were gonna do something other than work in the world of food? Growing up, I knew I could work in food, and I was very attracted to hospitality, but I tried to be more open-minded. I really thought I'd end up working in hotels. I was very attracted to the broader hospitality experience, not just food. And maybe one day I will, but that was always my childhood expectation. What do you love about hotels? 'Cause I'll tell you what I love about hotels. I love that you can kind of be anybody that you wanna be in a hotel. I used to take acting classes when I was younger. Mm. And I feel like... I don't do this anymore, but you can walk into a hotel and present yourself however you wanna be. Mm-hmm. It's usually in a different location. You're not usually staying at a hotel- Yeah ... where you live, and you can put on this persona and be perceived however you wanna be.

I love that. It's like a new you. I love that. A hotel at its best, this experience of hospitality is you make someone feel like they're at a home, at their home. Yeah, yeah. And all the personal touches that go into that and building that relationship with the customer and creating all these little moments that create a really great experience from how you greet them to what's in their room to what you remember about them is really special. And so, you know, I was really attracted to that idea of just creating this sense of- ... someone else's home. And then when you were in college, were you a party boy? Growing up in the city, I actually partied probably a little more in high school [laughs] than college. Oh my God. [laughs] Nothing crazy, but, you know, in the city you would go out and party. When I got to college, I partied like a normal college kid. My sophomore year, I stopped drinking completely- Yeah ... 'cause I walked onto the Georgetown track team, and so it was like, every day was like a [laughs] murderous tryout.

[laughs] So I decided to go all in and not drink and, you know. Do you drink now? I then resumed drinking for a while. [laughs] Yeah. I don't drink anymore. I love wine, so at times at, at a nice dinner I'll try wine or taste wine, but yeah, it just doesn't make me feel great the next day. Yeah, no, I don't think it makes- Yeah ... anybody of a certain age feel great at all. Yeah. [laughs] And I think you sort of get to the point, you're like, "I can't, I can't do this anymore." I used to be able to drink. Same. I could drink, and it was a big part of the restaurant experience for me. I loved nothing more than going to an awesome restaurant and, like, downing martinis. Mm. It was fun. Yeah. It's, like, what I did Friday and Saturday especially in New York. Yeah, it is fun. Now, if I have a martini it's, it's, it's like a wedding. Yeah. Like, it's a special occasion. I, I drink at weddings, exactly. You drink at weddings. Yeah, yeah. The idea of Sweetgreen, what was the initial nucleus of the concept?

We all know what it is now. It's this massive chain that's delicious and amazing, and it's sort of taken over the United States. But what was the actual nucleus of the idea, and where did it begin? So the core idea and premise of Sweetgreen is actually not that far off, you know, what our core purpose is today. Jonathan, Nathaniel, and I were seniors at college at Georgetown. They both had parents that were also immigrants, that were also entrepreneurs, and we realized it was always this constant conversation about, like, "What are we gonna eat today?" Like, "We're sick of this. This makes us feel like shit. There has to be a better option." The cafeteria options on campus were not good at all. [laughs] Yeah. We kinda said, "Let's create the solution. Let's write a business plan." They're from LA, I'm from New York, so we knew there were these better options that could exist, and we just didn't see it in DC. As we started to write the business plan, we realized, you know, what we wanted to build really didn't exist anywhere.

And as we learned more about fast food, we realized there was a huge opportunity to kinda reimagine and rethink what a fast food experience could be, starting with the quality of the food. Do you consider Sweetgreen fast food, though? Fast casual, fast food. Fast casual. You know, I, I, I think ultimately we, uh... It's probably defined as fast casual, but the goal for us is to ultimately redefine fast food and get to that point where we can be everywhere. Do you think you've done it? No, I think we're very early innings. Really? Yeah. I think at 260 restaurants we've... I'm really proud of what we've achieved, but it's still relatively small. If you look at, you know, some of the other chains, there's tens of thousands of them. So we're very early on. I remember one of the first early trips I came to New York, the chopped salad was introduced. Mm-hmm. And I remember my mom was, like, going crazy for the chopped salad.

I guess I loved it because she loved it. I don't- Mm-hmm ... I don't know. I wasn't making my own opinions then. But that was a massive trend for me that stood out. What was happening in the world of salad that you were seeing when you launched? You know, we didn't see much. There were, like, one or two startups here and there. Like, I think Chopped had just opened in New York right before us. There was, like, some in San Francisco. But generally, we didn't see options that, you know, were talking about the quality of ingredients we wanted to source, that were creating a brand experience and storytelling around those ingredients. You know, the whole idea was we wanted to create food that was really good for you and sourced well and high quality, and same quality of ingredients you would see in some of these fine dining restaurants, but create a brand around it that made you just wanna engage with it, not like, you know... Our, our... We always said to ourselves, "We can't tell people to, like, eat their veggies. We have to make, create desire to be part of this brand."

And so from the design of the restaurant to the brand we created, um, using things like music and, you know. Uh, it was really important for us to create a brand that people just wanted to interact with. I think my first introduction to Sweetgreen was... I can't remember if it was at the exact same time or what came first, but I was introduced to the concept of Sweetlife. Yeah. [laughs] You had a music festival- Mm-hmm ... with some, like, pretty serious headliners. It was sorta no joke. It was a real thing. Yes, it was. We built one of the largest music festivals in the northeast, and [laughs] this was before music festivals had kind of exploded everywhere, 2010 to 2016, I believe, and it started simply, honestly, as a marketing tactic for the restaurant. We opened our second restaurant in Dupont Circle, and business was dead.

We had no customers, and everyone was across the street. We had opened on the wrong side of the street. [laughs] But we opened on that side of the street because my kitchen door opened up onto the largest farmers market in the northeast, basically, the Dupont Circle Farmers Market, and we were like, "This is great. We just need people to go from one side of the street to the other." So we went to Guitar Center- [laughs] ... bought a speaker, and Nathaniel, my co-founder, is a DJ, so we just started trying to, like, attract energy [laughs] to our side of the block and hosting little, like, block parties, and it started to work. People would come, they'd try the food, they'd learn about the brand. And then we decided to do a bigger block party in the farmers market, and we did that with 1,000 people. Hot Chip DJed. That's amazing. Which was great. That's amazing. And then we said, "Let's really make this big." And then we met the folks from Merriweather Post Pavilion and said, "We wanna build a festival where we can also change out the whole food experience."

And so we took over Merriweather Post Pavilion, somehow signed The Strokes that first year. How? Were The Strokes The Strokes at that time? The Strokes were The Strokes, and they had not... This was when that, like, new album came out after five years of nothing. Damn. And we somehow convinced them to do it. And Merriweather's a very iconic venue, but the founders of Fader magazine were early investors in Sweetgreen. Got it. And so they really helped us craft this idea of what the Sweetlife Festival could be, and they helped us book bands like The Strokes. Could you see, like, food, I guess, salad specifically, and music going hand-in-hand? Because it seems like a, a duo that wouldn't make sense. You know, the, the broader idea was this tension that a music festival or concert was usually the, the most fun day of the week or month or year that you would go to, but it usually tends to be the least healthy.

Yeah. And then you feel like ... crap the next day. And so we said, "How can we create that excitement but also rethink all the food options?" And more than just salad, it was really bringing our food ethos to life. So this idea of all real food, high-quality ingredients. We would obviously have salad stands, but we'd also invite all these other chefs and farmers to build up stands. We'd replace the soda fountains, the ketchup stands with better brands. It was kinda like better-for-you food. So you'd be eating, like, a quinoa bowl listening to The Strokes, and you're like, "This is kinda great." That's incredible. When you were building the brand in its sort of infancy, did you maintain your confidence throughout all of it? Did you lose confidence? Were you doubtful that this thing would take off? You know, I think part of the balance of being a founder and entrepreneur is having this balance of confidence and doubt every single day. You know, every single morning I wake up, I'm like, "Oh my God, this is not gonna work," or, or, "This is gonna be the best thing we've ever done," about the same topic.

And so I think the doubt in a way is humility. You have to always be poking your own ideas but have a very strong sense of purpose in what you wanna build and strong vision, but you can't be, like, arrogant about it. Was there a moment where you sort of wanted to give it all up? No. Never? No. There's been a lot of hard moments. I think the hard moments make you stronger, and you learn a lot from them, and then it feels really good when you're not in the hard moments, but no. What do you think one of the hardest moments was? You know, I would say during COVID was really tough. Yeah. It kinda rocked our world, our whole industry. And we were fortunate that we had just raised a big round of fundraising, so we had a strong balance sheet, and we had just launched delivery, like, a month before. And so it kinda carried- [laughs] ... us through, but honestly, the chaos of it all, of...

And less about, like, me, but what it did to our team members and customers and, like, it was pretty crazy. It was a crazy experience. In launching a business with three of your close friends- Mm-hmm ... what did you all bring to the table? You know, very early on we realized that the three of us had the same vision. We wanted to build the same thing, but we were all very complementary and different. And so, you know, Nate leans more creative, John was more finance and business-minded, and I was kind of, like, in the middle, more focused on food and product and supply chain. And so we were very complementary in the sense that we had these, like, spheres of the business that we would each control and go deep on. But most importantly, we were aligned on what we wanted to build. And how did you maintain the friendship? I'm sure it got rocky.

I'm sure it goes up and down all the time. But how did you maintain the solid core of the actual friendship through all this, and how do you still continue to maintain it? Mm-hmm. Because I'm sure it ain't easy. Yeah, you know, I would say I'm incredibly grateful for John and Nate. I can't imagine... You know, I look at solo founders, and I'm like, "How do you do that by yourself?" So having them this whole time has been really incredible, and it's like they're my brothers. Early on, we would spend every minute of the day together almost, from working out in the morning to going to the office. For the first 10 or 15 years, we either lived next door or across the street or in the same apartment together. And then we would take trips and travel together. So, like, our social and professional life were all, like, kinda mixed. And I think we were really good at kinda, like, turning it off when we needed to have fun and not talk about business, but there was always a lot of trust between us, and so I feel like that's what made it work.

And honestly, even today we have... You know, our wives are all friends. We have kids around the same age. It's really great to have this kind of, like, family, work family that we've built. When it comes to sort of decisions outside of business, just life, who's your male ride or die, your best friend? Could be family. It could be a brother. Any- anybody who comes to mind? Yeah, I'd say my twin brother. Why? You know, he just... He... It's like a built-in best friend in life. We literally shared a womb. We shared a room. [laughs] Uh, a womb and a room. And, you know, I talk to him, like, twice a day. What does he do? He runs a marketing agency called Promoble. For years, he ran the marketing departments of some of the fastest-growing CPG marketing. You're married. I am married. Yeah. How has sort of your marriage shifted this many years into Sweetgreen?

We always used to joke that the three of us when we were single were like, "Our wives better like each other, 'cause otherwise it'll be, like, a disaster." And we're really fortunate that our, you know, our wives really like each other and, and are friends. How do you guys keep it interesting and not- Mm-hmm ... you know, mundane, all work all the time? 'Cause I'm sure work is on your mind a lot, and I'm sure- Yes ... you can talk about it all the damn time. Yes. You know, I will say before having kids, it was harder in a way, but now that I have kids, when I come home, it's like an easy, like, change channel, disconnect, and be present for the kids, and kinda, like, put all that stuff on the back burner and pick it back up later. [laughs] I think it's really important to go have, like, new and different experiences together, whether it's a trip or a restaurant or going to a different kind of party that you don't normally go to. And so we try to always introduce new experiences into the mix.

Is that your sort of hospitality mindset, making sure everybody's comfortable and trying new things and making sure everybody sort of has a seat at the table? Yeah. I, you know, I, I really believe it's important to have some, like, discomfort in your life. Like, lear- be, be uncomfortable at times 'cause I think it pushes you. When's the last time you were uncomfortable? Because I'm with you. I love comfort. It makes me feel safe. It makes me feel secure. But I think the best things happen when you're uncomfortable. Yes. Yeah, I mean, don't get me wrong. I love being comfortable. [laughs] I love... I enjoy comfort in life. But I think whether it's in work or in, you know, or in life, it- it's good to make sure to push yourself at times out of your comfort zone. That's where, like, the real growth happens. So whether it's physically or emotionally or, like, professionally, I think it's always good to have a goal that's a little more aggressive that really pushes you outside of what you think you can do.

You have two kids? I have two kids, yes. Two sons. What have your sons taught you about being a good guy today? You know, when you have kids, it teaches you a lot about life and adds a lot of joy. You know, I would say the thing that just brings me a lot of joy watching them every day is, like, the sense of curiosity and just, like, how inquisitive they are about everything. And, you know, I think that's something that adults need to do more of, and I think maintaining that curiosity as you get older, super important. I have a five-year-old and a two-year-old, and my five-year-old will just sit there f- like, asking 100 questions. And really good questions. And I'm like, "Okay." [laughs] Um, so just seeing the way he's processing and learning and absorbing information is really fascinating. I was on the subway earlier this week, and I was thinking about this interview, and I was thinking about the Sweetgreen bowl.

I don't know if this was on purpose or not, but you've made, like, a shape in a to-go product or a dine-in product quite ubiquitous. Mm-hmm. Like, it is very similar to the Bloomingdale's brown paper bag. It's very similar to the Tiffany & Co. blue, the Hermès orange, whatever it may be. You know that shape. The hex bowl. Yeah. You know it. Yes. And you can identify it. And I was watching And Just Like That... Yes. Did you see the episode with Miranda? Oh, yeah, yeah. A couple times, yeah. Like, aggressively shaking that bowl. [laughs] I was like, oh, I, I see myself in you. I do that. Yeah. Was that on purpose, the shape of the bowl? It was, actually. 'Cause, you know, for years we used a similar round bowl that was a stock bowl that everyone else used. Yeah. And I would see people walking down the street with it in their hand, and I'm like, "Is that a Sweetgreen bowl?"

And I couldn't tell. And I'm like, "That's a problem." Yeah. One of our early investors was also the industrial designer Yves Béhar. So we kinda said, "Yves, like, design us an iconic bowl." And so we worked with him for years, uh, for a year on, on designing the Sweetgreen bowl, and it was... It went through so many iterations, but we landed on this hex shape that felt like it had symmetry and balance but was distinct enough. And, um, now when someone walks down the street with a, with a Sweetgreen bowl, you know it's a Sweetgreen bowl. I remember when they used to mix in a metal bowl. Yes. Why did that shift happen? For people who are listening, the salad used to be mixed in a aluminum bowl. What was it? Metal, metal bowl, yeah. A metal bowl. Mixed up and then put back into the to-go container. Now the salad is actually mixed in the container, and you're not using the metal-A bowl or water, I guess.

Y- you know, it just... It's something we tested, and at the time it felt faster and more efficient to mix in the bowl. And if you look at our bowl, our bowl is a lot bigger than everyone else's bowl. Yeah. Which I don't think people realize as often, but the idea was to have enough space to mix or shake, and also give you a very generous filling portion. We'll be right back after this short message. In a past life, I wanted to be a nose. That is somebody who creates scents for a living. That didn't exactly pan out how I thought it would, but hey, now I have a podcast, and you're listening. So naturally, I do care a lot about what things smell like, especially in my own space. In the new year and before, I've been tightening up my routines, starting with cleaning and laundry. It's something that I like. I've been using one of my favorite new brands, Guests on Earth, and truly it works.

No bullshit, I promise. But the smell is what hooked me. It's not sweet. It's not chemical. It smells clean, sharp, and pretty grounded, kinda like fresh air moving through a quiet room. The kind of scent that makes your space feel handled, calm, and intentional. And I'm also somebody who genuinely cares about what's on my counter, and this is a perfect 10 just sitting out. Guests on Earth, it's non-toxic, it's better for the planet, and built for people who want their environment to feel considered and definitely not chaotic. Cleaning stops feeling like a chore and starts feeling like part of the routine and part of taking care of yourself. Use code Office of Yale for 20% off at Guests on Earth. Where do you wanna take Sweetgreen next? I know there's so many things that you're doing, and we'll talk about it, but, like, what's, like, the ultimate dream?

What's exciting is I think we've built a brand that would allow us to do a lot of those things. I think we are still super energized and excited by the core business model- Yeah ... of just feeding people. And so building as many restaurants in as many communities as possible. And what gets me excited is being able to get Sweetgreen to a scale and evolving our business model where it really is becoming more and more accessible. So how can we feed everyone where they're, you know, wherever Chipotle is? And really thinking about whether it's what's on our menu, the price points, the experience, the channels. Making this kinda food more accessible is ultimately the big goal. What's your Sweetgreen order? [laughs] Oh, man. I have been ordering this Japanese miso Caesar salad. Is that on the menu? No, it's a custom. Okay. It's, uh... But I mean, the biggest hack at Sweetgreen that w- you know, we should talk about more is, like, um, pairing dressings, like, mixing two dressings at once.

And so I do our miso sesame ginger with our Caesar, and then a bunch of nori, cucumber, pickled onions, chicken, and it creates this, like, miso Japanese Caesar that has been my jam for the past, like, couple weeks. I'm gonna try it. My order for the last few years has been a kale Caesar, but then I fuck it up a little bit. Mm-hmm. I don't do kale. I do half arugula- Mm-hmm ... half romaine. I add sweet potato and medium dressing, mix it up. I like to mix it up. I aggressively shake it in my bowl- Yeah, yeah ... to, like, sometimes it's, like, laughable. People are like, "It's, it's, it's mixed. You got it." Getting all your energy out. [laughs] Yeah, I get my energy out. It feels like if I didn't go to the gym, at least I did something right then and there. I wanna know, do you ever think to yourself, like, "I've made it. I'm in a good place. Like, I am very proud of what I've built," or do you not let your mind go there?

I'm super proud of the work that we've done and the team has done, and you know, I, I try to have that gratitude every day. But no, I don't think we've even close to made it. I think we're still very early in our journey, and I think we've accomplished a lot, and it's great, but I think the opportunity ahead of us is really big, and so I s- stay very motivated by that. You collaborated with Kendrick Lamar- Yes ... on a bowl- Yeah ... called Beats Don't Kill My Vibe. Beats Don't Kale My Vibe. Beats Don't Kale My Vibe, right. Yeah. [laughs] That's what I meant to say. How did this come to life? You know, I would say- Beats Don't Kale My Vibe ... Beats Don't Kale instead of the, yeah, the name of the song. [laughs] But, uh, you know, over the 18 years we've had the opportunity to kinda work with some of the world's greatest chefs, musicians, athletes, and for us it's just about telling different stories in food.

And Kendrick happened very organically because he played our SweetLife Festival twice. Damn. Once when he was smaller. He wasn't even a headliner. He was, like, third on the... His name's, like, small on the poster. [laughs] And then he headlined in 2016 with The Weeknd. That's amazing. Co-headlined. And it was the year that those new albums came out. Yeah. But you have to book them, like, six months before, so you were kinda taking a bet. And they both blew up. We had the craziest lineup. [laughs] 30,000 people, you know, like, incredible. And he was a Sweetgreen fan. He was eating Sweetgreen. He was a kale Caesar eater I think at the time. And so with his team, we were very into puns back then in 2016, so we made that T-shirt, Beats Don't Kale My Vibe. And then when we heard he was a big Sweetgreen eater, we said, you know, "Let's create a bowl together." And he really was a fan at the time, 'cause he... You know, in the green rooms we always give out merch and, like, fill the room with stuff for the artists.

And obviously we put a Sweetgreen T-shirt in there. And the day after the festival was the BET Music Awards, and he just wore his Sweetgreen T-shirt on the red carpet and to present. [laughs] And [laughs] everyone was like, "Why is he wearing a Sweetgreen T-shirt?" So then we decided to, you know, bring his order to life and create a bowl with him. Did people go crazy for it? Yes. It was very popular. [laughs] And what was it like working with him on the actual development of the bowl? It happened pretty quickly, actually. Um, but him and his team were really great to work with, so... And if you had a dream collaborator now, who would it be? Ina Garten. Why? Love her. Just love her. I'm such- Why does everybody love her? I'm a big Barefoot Contessa fan. Are you? Yeah. Do you like to cook? Yes. And what is it about Ina that people, like, really, really love? I hear from, like, so many people that they are starstruck by her.

She has this, like, presence that you can't really get too close, but she feels, like, quite familiar- Yeah ... and quite comfortable. What is it about this woman that people go crazy for? You know, I think that she's just seems very thoughtful but effortless. Everything is so chic but simple, and her food just looks really good. And you know, when you watch those videos, you just wanna be up at her house at that table next to Jeffrey- You do ... eating all the food. [laughs] You do. Yeah. You wanna be part of the conversation. What's something that you're really proud of in your life that you can't really tie back to Sweetgreen? Obviously, I would say my kids and my family. Seeing my kids grow up has really been pretty rewarding. Just seeing their little personalities develop. You know, they're just ... Even at five years old, they're such strong, sometimes very sassy personalities. And so watching that come to life is really exciting.

Outside of that, you know, really proud of the, like, community I've built- Yeah ... and relationships. Yeah. And I'm a big, you know, what they call connector. I love to, like, connect people that should meet. Yeah. What do you love about that? 'Cause I like doing that, too. Yeah. I just enjoy the idea that one plus one is two, two people that should meet that will add to each other's lives. Mm-hmm. Whether it's professionally or personally. So much of the value in my life, both professionally and personally, has been through meeting the right people at the right time to either work on something together or just to build a friendship, and it's added a lot to my life. And so I like to kinda, like, do that for other people. Have you set up people romantically? Yes. It's kinda my side hustle. I keep a singles list on my phone- Tell me more ... of all my single friends, men or women or, uh, everything. And I pair them up, and I've had some great success stories of marriages and kids.

No way. Yeah, all the things. Yeah. And what's your strategy? Understanding what people are looking for, and then just compatibility. Vibe. Yeah. Compatibility and vibe, and can I see them hanging out together, and do they want the same things, and yeah. Any disaster stories from setting up people? No disaster stories yet. [laughs] [laughs] What is happening in the world of Sweetgreen that sort of is coming up next, the next iteration that you're excited about, that you wanna talk about? You know, I would say we have a lot of exciting menu transformation stuff happening on our core menu and our seasonal menu. We have a very packed menu calendar next year 'cause we've just realized we want more newness. We wanna kinda, like, tell more stories to our customers. And I think customers are craving that drumbeat of newness in a way that they weren't before. A lot of seasonal menus coming out, a lot of cool new builds and flavors, some great partnerships.

Trying to have a lot of fun with it. For our fall menu that came out, we had Nick V. from Love Island kinda be the face of it as a... We kinda made him a country man, brought him to the farm. I don't watch Love Island, so my team had to explain it to me. Why did he make sense? It's tapping into this, like, moment in culture right now, and the following for Love Island is just so cult-like. I don't watch it either. I don't watch it either, but I've heard a lot about it. And I see it in the world, and I see everyone in the office talking about it. And so it was this way to kind of bring our seasonal menu and ingredients and ethos to life through this very relevant point of culture today. Yeah. And I guess on the show, the woman that he's with, Elandria, like, wanted him to be a country man, and he wasn't. So we brought him to the farm and turned him into a country man and kind of, like, completed the conversation. So. That's amazing. Yeah. People go crazy for Love Island.

People are going crazy for it. It's, it's wild to see the reaction. I don't have the patience to get into something else. There's a lot of competition out there. There's a lot of people in your space. But what in your mind differentiates Sweetgreen from the rest? Yeah. You know, I think it's been exciting to see more competition. It means more people wanna eat like this, and so that's always been part of our goal is to ultimately shift consumers into eating food that's good for you. I would say really what differentiates Sweetgreen starts with the quality of our food and our food ethos- Yeah ... and how we source and what we source. And, you know, we probably should talk about this more, and we plan to, but when you double-click on each category, each ingredient, you realize there's a lot of nuance and detail into what the better version is. So whether it's sourcing organic greens, regional and seasonal produce, working directly with farmers that we contract with.

Proteins with no antibiotics in them is a huge one. As you get to scale, it is hard and almost impossible to find. Most chains use proteins with antibiotics in it. So our proteins don't have any antibiotics in them. Our beef is grass-fed, grass-finished. Our salmon has no artificial colors and no antibiotics. We have a big no-no list of no preservatives, uh, natural flavors, artificial colors, and refined sugars, and no seed oils in our cooking. And you realize these things just create a product that is different than the competitive set out there. And it matters to a lot of customers. And a lot of customers that it doesn't matter to, they maybe feel or taste the difference, and it might matter to them one day. Sweetgreen is always evolving, and every time I go to a location, it seems like there's something new on the menu. When you are introducing new additions to the roster, what is the process like?

How do you- Mm-hmm ... how do you test? How do you figure it out? Yeah. So it's probably one of the most fun parts of the job that I get to spend time on, and, you know, I'm really grateful for this brilliant culinary team we have, led by our chef, Chad Brause, and our brilliant marketing and brand team that really helps lead menu strategy and understand the customer. So I would say overall the process is a, a big mixture of art and science, right? We spend a lot of time listening to customers, understanding the insights of what they want out of Sweetgreen, what they would purchase, what would excite them, what they wanna feel. And then we spend a lot of time just trying to understand the world of food and our consumer and what they're talking about and what's exciting to them. We spend a lot of time talking to our farmers, understanding what they are growing, what they wanna sell, what makes sense for the land. And so it's kind of a combination of a bunch of things. And the marketing team will write a brief around something, and then the culinary team will just get into a big creative session in the test kitchen.

We have this test kitchen in our office that is, like, a bit of our lab. And they will just be testing a bunch of things, and then we do different, you know, iterations of tastings. And when something is exciting enough, we show it to the right teams, and sometimes we put it in front of customers to kinda gauge the reaction. And so it's a mixture of understanding what we think the customer would get excited about and, and then what excites us from our ethos point of view. Are you a gym guy? It looks like it. I am a gym guy. [laughs] Um, it's part of my, you know, my mental health routine [laughs] too. I work out every morning, and I'm currently training for s- a thing called HYROX. Oh, you are? A fitness competition, yeah. So I love scrolling on TikTok, and my algorithm's pretty messed up. Mm-hmm. But HYROX content is pretty high up there. Yeah. Why are you training for one? I turned 40 this year. Happy birthday. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. And the idea was: How do I do something ... physically that challenges me that I won't be able to do in, you know, 20 or 30, or do it as well. And so really wanted to challenge myself to finish some sort of race. And so Hyrox, I do a lot of strength training- Yeah ... and cardio, and Hyrox just felt like it'd be a lot of fun. Are you doing it with somebody? I'm doing it with my trainer. Oh, you are? Yeah, yeah. What have you sort of learned about your body throughout this training process? Mm-hmm. Because it seems incredibly daunting to me, it seems incredibly difficult to me, but it seems like something I'd actually wanna do. Like, my dream is, like, one of those Tough Mudder competitions. Mm-hmm. Just it looks like such a damn good time- Yeah, yeah ... and I know I would put myself through the wringer doing it. Yeah. But it's something that turns me on. Yeah. I'd like to do it. You should do it. I don't know, man. [laughs] [laughs] I don't... It seems like... Uh, sometimes I do an hour in the gym, and I'm like, "I'm good."

Yeah. That was, that was enough. A nice, like, class, or I lift some weights for an hour. Like, "I'm good. I don't have [laughs] to go harder than that." Yeah. I just think that, you know, I l- think the feeling of accomplishment after that is like, "I did that. I did this thing that I wasn't sure if I could do." Yeah. And that feeling is addicting. The thing I've learned probably is at 40, the importance of recovery. Mm-hmm. And, like, taking care of yourself. What's your recovery? Sleep is by far the most important part. You know, whether it's, like, the stretching or the, like, different, uh, ice baths and saunas and all the- Do you do it, the ice baths? Yes. Me too. Yeah. I love it. How long can you stay in there for? You know, when I go to Remedy Place, they have the six-minute club. So they, they have you stay in there for six minutes, I think 39 or 40 degrees. You can do it? Yeah. I can do two minutes. I can do- You could probably do six minutes. Six?

Do you- After two minutes, you just go numb. Well, that's what I was gonna say. The first two minutes is the hard part, then it's easy. I think if you genuinely breathe through it- Yeah ... if you genuinely, like, focus on your breathing- Mm ... and you're not focused on the clock- Yeah ... because I'm, like, watching the clock second by second by second- Yeah ... so excited to jump outta that damn thing. Yeah. But once you hit two minutes, you're numb. Yeah. I mean, at Remedy Place, uh, to your point, they have you do, like, a 10 to 15-minute breathing ex- like, guided breathing exercise before to open up your diaphragm and just get you ready to, like- Before you go in? Before. Like, in a quiet room. And then they keep the headphones on, and you can listen to music so you're not watching the clock, and so. Do you meditate? Over my journey, I have had points where I meditate a lot and points where I don't. I've just started meditating again, and I think it's really important. What about stress? I'm sure you're stressed. We're all stressed. Do you have your methods to deal with it?

Yeah. You know, work can be very stressful, and again, having the kids and my wife at home is a huge sense of stress relief. You know, you can have, like, the most stressful day, and then you come home, and they're, like, excited to see you. And you're like, "Okay, this matters more." Yeah. And so perspective and priorities kinda are reset when you have kids. So time with them is really de-stressing. And then honestly, the working out. That's why, you know, I wake up every morning at 5:00 AM and work out because- You get up every morning at 5:00 AM? Yeah. Damn. Whether you like it or not, you're waking up and you're going to the gym? Yeah, most mornings, yeah. Four or five days a week. With a trainer? Yeah. Damn. And, like, there's a few guys that we all work out together, so it's, like, a nice little morning crew. Did you have a hard time turning 40? Was that a challenging... No. Not at all? No. Nothing? Just, like, welcoming? Uh, yeah. I was very excited for 40. 39 was kind of annoying 'cause it's like you're about to turn 40, and everyone's asking you about turning 40.

[laughs] And I was happy to be at 40. I'm embracing the 40s. I feel like we're fully baked as humans, and our life is set up, and it allows you to challenge yourself in a different way. But, uh, 40s look like they're gonna be a lot of fun. Do you ever go into Sweetgreen locations? I guess when you go in, you're going in undercover. No one necessarily knows who you are there. The staff probably doesn't entirely know who you are. When you're going into the locations, what are you looking for? You know, I spend a lot of time visiting Sweetgreen restaurants. And do we call them restaurants? Is that- We call them restaurants, yeah. We call them restaurants? Okay. Yeah. You know, we do full scratch cooking in the restaurant. Everything is being cooked and shredded and roasted and marinated in, in the restaurant. We do a lot more scratch cooking than the average fast casual or fast food restaurant. All the answers are in the restaurants for us. You know, we, we have a corporate office obviously that we call the support center, but our business is the restaurants.

We have 7,000 team members that show up every day to prep and serve and create those moments of hospitality. And so spending as much time in the restaurant observing and listening to them is where all the answers are. And then what I'm looking for is just the overall experience. Were you greeted when you came in? Does it look clean? Is the food cooked the way it's supposed to be cooked? I don't go to a Sweetgreen without tasting a bowl normally. What have you learned about yourself as a leader? You know, I think one of the most important things to be a leader is to really focus on being a good listener and trying to understand as much about your team and your customer as possible. I think the minute you think you know it all and you know the answers, then it's a really dangerous place to be. So that, like, constant curiosity and humility to be like, "What do I not know? What do I have to listen for?" And being good at listening I think is really hard.

Is there one ingredient that you've wanted to introduce to the Sweetgreen roster that's been super challenging for whatever reason? There are so many things I'd like to add to the menu that we're working on. You know, we've been really working on a new greens mix. Oh, nice. That would be really exciting. Nice. Nick, I'm so happy you came to join us. Honestly, like I said, I am a fan and a consumer of the world and the product that you've created, and I really just wanted to get the chance to sit in front of you, pick your brain, ask you some questions, and sort of get to know the man behind the lunch that I have every single day of my life, the kale Caesar with my own additions. If you are at Rockefeller Center, make sure to check out the Sweetgreen that's on the concourse level. It's amazing.

I love what you've built, and I really can't wait to see where Sweetgreen goes in the future. Thank you so much. Thanks for being here. Thanks for having me. [upbeat music]