For years I believed it would be possible to open plant based restaurants throughout the country. I still believe that an individual like myself could open a store in any top ZIP code and, as long as I’m there keeping an eye on things, it would succeed. But as a chain, these businesses turn into something entirely different. The message, the brand, the retail details get lost in a chain, and there has to be incredible profit margins to maintain the brand integrity that people really admire and look forward to in our New York stores.
I came to this conclusion simply by looking at what was out there, and realized that humans still behave like carnivores, partly because of what’s being marketed to them, and partly because of what feels satiating after years of habit. If someone’s going to spend twenty dollars on food, they want to be stuffed. A brand like Sweetgreen can give them that feeling because you can always add animal protein to a salad. In some ways, that salad can end up with more calories than a steak dinner by the time you’re done with the dressings, the toppings, and the animal protein.
I feel like if you opened a store in most major cities, and you didn’t declare yourself a vegan restaurant, people would still look at the menu, look at the staff, and say, where’s the beef, where’s the chicken, where’s the fish, how come there’s no Parmesan cheese. We will struggle to have a business in places where vegetarianism, at the very least, isn’t trendy, isn’t something people want a couple of days a week.
So how do you overcome this? You have to keep attracting people and converting them. You have to make the juice bar a place where people want to go. Every member of the family should think to themselves, okay, there’s something here for me, I get my calorie intake needs, from grandma to the teenage daughter to the five year old. There has to be something for everyone. The bakery is a big draw.
The Bakery excludes refined sugar, dairy, eggs, and is gluten free. The good news is everything there is really delicious, the product is perfect, so this is an exciting new category to help be the gateway product. I think the smoothies attract all kinds of people, and the cooked food is an important component.
On improving cooked food beyond grab and go, a few directions worth considering.
- Build a rotating chef driven menu that changes seasonally or even weekly, so regulars have a reason to come back specifically for food, not just juice or smoothies. This also gives you material for content and keeps the kitchen team engaged rather than repeating the same six dishes forever.
- Offer family style bundles and meal packs people can take home for dinner, not just single grab and go portions. A busy parent who already trusts your bakery and smoothies is a strong candidate for a heat and eat dinner for four.
- Build out a subscription or standing order option for cooked meals, similar to what you have thought about for catering kits, so cooked food becomes a recurring revenue line instead of a walk in impulse buy.
- Create a small tasting or sampling ritual at the counter, so staff can hand someone a bite of something cooked while they wait for their smoothie. That converts curiosity into a sale on the spot, which fits your point about needing to keep attracting and converting people.
- Pair cooked food with a wellness framing, like a post workout bowl or a high protein plant based plate, so it competes directly with the mental image someone has of a steak dinner, since that is the comparison you are already fighting.
- And consider a limited corporate or office lunch drop program in the neighborhood, since cooked food travels and holds up better than smoothies for that kind of order, and it puts your kitchen output to use during slower midday hours.