SALAD DAYS
McDonald’s founder Ray Kroc once said of his restaurants, “We’re not in the hamburger business, we’re in show business.” That is perhaps the one thing he and the millennial founders of the fast-growing locavore salad chain Sweetgreen might agree on.
If you’ve never visited a Sweetgreen, picture a farm stand designed by Steve Jobs—with white walls and colorful, fresh vegetables waiting to be chopped. The stores’ open kitchens (a design trope shared by Chipotle, another fast-casual pioneer) showcase how much scratch cooking happens on-site. Salad dressings are made in-house daily. So is the falafel, which is prepared from dry chickpeas soaked overnight on the premises. (This is basically unheard of in this category; even some high-end restaurants use canned chickpeas.) The nine-year-old company also stages the Sweetlife food and music festival in Columbia, Maryland, each spring, with acts such as the Strokes and Solange. After
