Dive Brief:
- Sweetgreen will open its first store with both a Sweetlane digital drive-thru and the automated Infinite Kitchen makeline on Tuesday, according to a press release..
- The unit, located in Costa Mesa, California, synthesizes the brand’s efforts to drive orders through digital channels and then produce those orders using robotics.
- Sweetgreen has suffered three consecutive quarters of same-store sales declines. The chain’s worsening losses pushed it to sell Spyce, the tech division responsible for developing the Infinite Kitchen, to Wonder for $186 million.
Dive Insight:
The Sweetlane/Infinite Kitchen combo could be a potent sales driver for the beleaguered brand, comments from Sweetgreen’s 2025 earnings calls suggest. On its Q1 call, CEO Jonathan Neman said the conversion of one unit to a Sweetlane store — its first such unit in Schaumburg, Illinois — cost relatively little and drove unit volume above the system average.
“We are also seeing strong performance of our Sweetlane in Schaumburg, Illinois. In the first quarter, comparable sales grew more than 20% year-over-year,” Neman said. “Schaumburg is a clear proof point of the strong cash on cash return potential of the Sweetlane format.”
Drive-thru pickup lanes for digital orders are not new — Chipotle has included such channels in a large portion of its stores for several years — but a new ordering channel could help Sweetgreen recover some traffic growth at its locations. Its efficacy, however, will depend on the cost of renovations and development. Since Sweetgreen is suffering continual losses and seeing the erosion of its market capitalization, the brand has less room to fund major strategic shifts across its store system.
On the Q2 earnings call, Neman said the Infinite Kitchen stores see higher throughput and better consistency, which drives stronger unit volumes and a higher digital sales mix. During the Q3 call, Neman said units with the automated makelines have seen significant improvements in their operating cost structures.
“The Infinite Kitchen restaurants continue to realize approximately 700 basis points of labor savings and nearly 100 basis points of [cost of goods sold] improvement compared to restaurants of similar age and volume,” Neman said on the Q3 call.
With the brand’s store-level margins under pressure — dropping from 20% to 13% year-over-year in Q3 — significant savings on higher volumes could prove invaluable to the chain.
The Sweetlane locations could also help the chain expand in car-centric suburban markets, a stated development goal since 2023. However, the chain is slowing down development in general as part of its Sweet Growth Transformation plan. While Sweetgreen is opening 40 new units this year, it plans to drop that total to 15 to 20 next year.
