Sweetgreen positions to capture the dinner daypart

Sweetgreen's new Plates have 50% more chicken for a heartier meal. Photo courtesy of Sweetgreen

Sweetgreen wants to invite guests in for dinner.

The fast-casual chain on Tuesday unveiled a relaunch of the Plates category on the menu, which were first introduced in 2023 in a move away from its salad-brand positioning.

This week, beginning Tuesday, Sweetgreen is adding two new Plates to the menu, along with a new wrap sandwich and a Sourdough Chocolate Chip Cookie.

The hero of the new Plates is a rotisserie-style chicken, which CEO Jonathan Neman described as a larger-portion, “knife-and-fork” serving of roasted boneless, skinless chicken thighs, marinated in a miso-maple blend with a rotisserie seasoning blend, lemon juice, and vinegar, and served with warm roasted vegetables and various sauces.

There are no actual rotisseries involved, however.

“We love a good salad here at Sweetgreen, but sometimes you just need a plate of something warm and hearty,” said Zipporah Allen, the chain’s chief commercial officer, in a statement. “Our new plates represent everything our fans love about us — scratch-cooking, layered flavors, impeccable ingredients — but with an experience ideal for dinner, cold weather or a delicious jolt of protein.”

The three new options include:

Jammy Sunday Chicken, the rotisserie-seasoned chicken served with umami rice, sweet onion “jammy,” a double helping of spicy broccoli, warm roasted sweet potatoes, green goddess dressing and a squeeze of lemon. Prices range from $14.95 to $17.95, depending on the market, with the average at $16.31.

Wild Chicken Bello, includes the rotisserie chicken, wild rice, warm roasted sweet potatoes, warm portobello mix, Napa cabbage slaw, sweet onion jammy and charred jalapeno ranch. Prices range from $15.95 to $18.95, with an average of $17.31.

Umami Chicken Rice Wrap, includes the rotisserie chicken with umami rice, shredded cabbage, white cheddar, crumbled bacon, and sweet onion jammy wrapped in a tortilla with pesto vinaigrette on the side. Prices start at $13.95 up to $15.95, with an average of $15.03.

The 285-unit Sweetgreen is also giving its existing Plates a glow up, including the Caramelized Garlic Steak, Hot Honey Chicken, and Miso-Glazed Salmon.

The new Sourdough cookies, which are baked in each restaurant, are made with sourdough starter, unbleached wheat flour, dark chocolate chips, real butter, and egg yolks, and they are sweetened with organic agave syrup and coconut sugar, with no artificial flavors, colors, or dyes, the company said.

While reporting third quarter earnings last week, Neman said the first introduction of dinner-worthy Plates helped grow the chain’s dinner daypart and attracted more male diners. But dinner accounts for only about one-third of sales for the chain.

The new dishes are designed to help grow dinner sales further, as well as reaching new consumers.

“We see Plates as a really big opportunity to acquire new customers,” he said during the earnings call last week. “Our next major focus is making Sweetgreen a stronger choice for dinner.”

Sweetgreen’s wraps, introduced earlier this year, have also been a hit. Those sandwiches, however, were priced to be more affordable, starting at about $11.

The plates, meanwhile, are designed as a more premium option, which is part of Sweetgreen’s larger barbell pricing strategy.

“Wraps, on balance, have created a mixed headwind for us because they’re lower priced,” Neman said. “Plates will probably do the opposite as we invest more in Plates, and the new rotisserie-style chicken that’s 50% bigger, as well as the new cookie.

“So [we’re] really building out the menu, the selection of the menu, so different customers can choose their own adventure,” he added.

For the launch, Sweetgreen has been shoring up its infrastructure around ovens, tools, and kitchen leadership for a smooth rollout of the new dishes.

Sweetgreen has also shifted to a system of producing smaller batches of food more often through the day to ensure it is hot and fresh, and to reduce waste.

The moves come as Sweetgreen appears to have reached a turning point after more than a year of declining sales. For the third quarter, same-store sales were down 6.4%, including a 4.9% drop in traffic.

But that traffic decline was blamed almost entirely on a cyclospora outbreak earlier this year, which scared consumers away from fresh produce, even though Sweetgreen was not implicated.

In October, Sweetgreen’s same-store sales were up 5%, including a 4% increase in traffic.