Andre Da C.
Google
I learned about SweetGreens while watching a CNBC segment at work during lunch. The vegetarian centric establishment sounded interesting. But I was always hesitant about such franchises as a dietary option. Because from personal experience salads have been more sides than a filling option.
Guess what, my opinions turn out to be true. While walking to kareoke one evening, I discovered a SweetGreens opened in my neighborhood. I said to myself, maybe on the weekend I would go try it out. After some grocery shopping I stopped in excited to place my order.
I was reviewing their menu on their website and was attracted to the well put together bowls. But don’t let those marketing images fool you, it’s nothing like that and what you actually get in the bowl is the ‘wish’ version of what you see on the website. I ordered autumn harvest bowl and kept everything intact except for the almonds, apples and kale.
Instead I substituted with romaine lettuce, cucumbers and tomatoes. The order was prepared quickly which was a pleasant surprise. Although, the store was next to empty. My thinking was with the wild rice, chicken, this would be an awesome lunch that could fill me up enough to potentially skip dinner and maybe just have a small snack for the rest of the evening.
The total came out to about 21 dollar, tips included. Far cry from the advertised $17. Your bowl is brought to you suspiciously covered up, so you can’t really tell. But my first red flag was how light the container felt. As soon as I got home opened it up, yep, it was an unappetizing wa-wa-wa.
The radiant, eye catching ingredients you see on the website, looks like someone’s left over scraps from 2 weeks ago or someone’s half eaten salad they gave to you out of pity. Here I was thinking Chipotle finally had some competition but it’s quiet the opposite.
The blackened chicken was some tiny scraps that were hard to decipher. In fact I don’t even think it’s real chicken, could be some ‘beyond meat’ imposter. Those chunks of sweet potato you see on the website are thinly sliced chips - another bait and switch. The wild rice was probably two table spoons, hidden beneath scraps of romaine lettuce and mysterious balsamic vinaigrette liquid.
It’s now 7 PM my stomach is grumbling like a mad man, saying ‘feed me Seymour’. Thankfully, I had an extra beef patty I bought at Trader Joe’s and half a challah bread I can make up for the deficiency of this farce I wasted money on. If I had gone to Chipotle, I would have certainly spent less, got a decent bowl with rice, beans, generous serving of protein, vegetables including guacamole for nearly 8 dollars less. I certainly learned my lesson and will be avoiding these up and coming establishments.
SweetGreens might be a perfect fit for those in a certain income bracket, but all the ingredients could be purchased at your local QFC with multiple servings to last you a week. It’s not about convenience, because this is a neighborhood with an abundance of groceries that supply all the ingredients that make a SweetGreens bowl in walking distance. So it’s not like you are exerting tremendous energy to get the food and prepare it.
SweetGreens is ultimately a sign of the times we are living in and reminder that the value of eating out is further becoming a pointless social activity because shrinkflation is the new norm.
