The Best One Yet · Oct 16, 2026 · 36m · 29m saved
With Jonathan Neman, Co-founder of Sweetgreen · Nicolas Jammet, Co-founder of Sweetgreen
Sweetgreen's salads average just under $15, Jonathan Neman, co-founder of Sweetgreen, told The Best One Yet in a live taping in Boston with fellow co-founder Nicolas Jammet.
The chain is often shorthand for the "$20 salad." Jonathan's answer is that Sweetgreen has raised prices less than both restaurants and grocery stores over the past five or six years.
"Over the past five or six years, we've taken 13 points less price than the industry has, and seven points less than grocery."
Jonathan and Nicolas met as freshman neighbors at Georgetown and opened the first 500-square-foot Sweetgreen with third co-founder Nathaniel Ru in their senior year.
The full interview is covered here so you can skip it. 36 minutes of audio, 7 minutes of reading.
Here are the 5 lessons that matter.
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Key Takeaways
Sweetgreen has taken 13 points less price than the restaurant industry over five or six years
Salads average just under $15, and wraps start at $11
A music festival, not advertising, built Sweetgreen's early brand
Sweetgreen judges menu items by how often they bring customers back, not profit per sale
The wrap took a year because no food-service tortilla met Sweetgreen's ingredient standards
The automated "Infinite Kitchen" handles portioning so staff can focus on service
Health alone does not sell food: it has to be delicious first
1. A Dorm-Room Start
Jack Crivici-Kramer and Nick Martell, who host The Best One Yet, opened with how the founders met. Jonathan moved into his Georgetown dorm and found Nicolas in the room next door.
Jonathan and Nicolas met on their first day at Georgetown as dorm neighbors
"Freshman year, moving day... I get in there, and Nick is in the dorm room right next to me. And so he's the first person I met when I stepped on campus." — Jonathan Neman
All three founders grew up with parents who were immigrants and ran their own businesses. The idea came from their own lunch problem: fast food tasted good but did not make them feel good, and healthy food was slow and expensive.
Sweetgreen started as the founders' fix for their own daily lunch, not as a plan for a national chain
"We then also had the same problem in our life every day. I'm not liking the food options. The cafeteria was gross. The other places that tasted good didn't make you feel good. So we said, let's build the solution." — Nicolas Jammet
