Hard to say what the apples to apples comparison is.
The biggest difference most likely with those copy cat clones is the food supply chain. Not sure how much it has changed but one of sweetgreen's challenges has been working closer to the farm which can be more costly and harder to scale across geographies. The clones may just be getting everything from sysco.
I don't follow sweetgreen very well and it could very well be mismanaged but I suspect those clones you see are apple to oranges in comparison.
Maybe. I would like them to do a market research on what % of their customers would pay $17 for a Caesar salad for their lettuce to come from a local farm and what % would prefer to pay $17 for a tasty salad curated by a chef, but with not all ingredients sourced locally. And once they have that info, I'd like them to decide which one of the two they are from a mission perspective. Nothing wrong with being either, as long as the expectations are set.
I think they already decided? Maybe it does not work out for them but I thought this was always there pitch and along with it higher labor and food costs. Labor because they were having to do more of the prep work in-house instead of via the food distributor.
The biggest difference most likely with those copy cat clones is the food supply chain. Not sure how much it has changed but one of sweetgreen's challenges has been working closer to the farm which can be more costly and harder to scale across geographies. The clones may just be getting everything from sysco.
I don't follow sweetgreen very well and it could very well be mismanaged but I suspect those clones you see are apple to oranges in comparison.