Sweetgreen

Sweetgreen was founded in 2007 by Georgetown University students Jonathan Neman, Nicolas Jammet, and Nathaniel Ru, who opened the first location in Georgetown, DC while still in school. The concept, which centered on fresh salads with quality sourced ingredients at a fast casual price point, grew from its Georgetown University neighborhood origin into one of the most significant fast casual brands in American food history: Sweetgreen went public in 2021 with a valuation that recognized the company as a transformational force in the American quick-service restaurant category.

The Georgetown Wisconsin Avenue location at 1044 is among the earliest Sweetgreen addresses and carries the specific significance of being near the birthplace of the brand. The three founders who started the company across the street from Georgetown University have built a national chain from the Georgetown neighborhood, which makes the Wisconsin Avenue address a form of historic site in the story of the American fast casual salad category.

The Sweetgreen menu philosophy, which emphasizes seasonal ingredients sourced from local and regional farms, was a radical departure from the commodity supply chain that the fast food industry had standardized. The company’s investment in supplier relationships and its seasonal menu changes reflect a food sourcing approach that the Georgetown founders embedded in the brand from the beginning and that has become the defining feature of the Sweetgreen identity across all of its locations.

The warm bowl format that Sweetgreen added to its original salad menu expanded the brand’s appeal beyond the cold salad customer to the customer who wants the warm grain bowl, the roasted vegetable, and the protein combination in the fast casual format.

The Georgetown original location at 1044 Wisconsin operates daily from 10:30am. The Sweetgreen founding story, which has been told extensively in business and food media, is significant because it locates the brand’s origin specifically in Georgetown: the three Georgetown University students who graduated and immediately opened a restaurant on Wisconsin Avenue rather than taking the consulting or finance jobs that their Georgetown University diplomas would have facilitated created a brand that has since been used as a case study in entrepreneurship education at the business schools their classmates attended. The seasonal menu that Sweetgreen emphasizes at all of its locations, which changes with the availability of local and regional produce and is informed by the company’s supplier relationships with specific farms, is the expression of the founders’ original intention to make the fast casual restaurant as connected to its ingredient sources as the farm-to-table fine dining restaurants of the same era. The Georgetown original location on Wisconsin Avenue has the specific significance of being the first, which makes a visit to the Georgetown Sweetgreen a visit to the location where a significant American company began. For the business school student or the food industry professional who wants to see the origin point of the Sweetgreen story, 1044 Wisconsin Avenue is the address. Hours run daily from 10:30am.