Sweetgreen
Fast-casual salad chain achieving first profitability through automation at 12 Infinite Kitchen locations
Sweetgreen cracked what kills most restaurant chains: profitable unit economics without sacrificing speed. The company's Infinite Kitchen automation runs 500 orders per hour with half the staff of traditional locations, delivering 28% profit margins versus 19.6% system-wide. This isn't incremental improvement—it's metabolic rewiring. By fiscal 2024, revenue hit $677 million with first-ever positive adjusted EBITDA of $18.7 million. The biology: specialized organs beat generalist tissue.
The automation strategy follows modular growth patterns. Rather than retrofit everything simultaneously, Sweetgreen opened 12 Infinite Kitchens by end-2024 (6 in Q4 alone), plans 25 more in 2025, targeting 33 total out of 286 locations. Each automated unit delivers 7 percentage points in labor savings and 1 point COGS improvement versus comparable stores. This is apical meristem growth: concentrate resources at specific growth tips, prove viability, then expand. The company tests at the edges while protecting the mature base—246 traditional restaurants generating predictable cash flow.
Resource allocation discipline separates winners from failures. Sweetgreen slowed new store openings (40 in 2025 versus aggressive past targets) to fund automation infrastructure, workforce management AI, and drive-thru lanes. Sacrificing growth rate for margin expansion mirrors organisms trading reproduction for survival during resource constraints. The proof: LA wildfires killed 15% of revenue overnight in early 2025, yet the company maintains expansion plans because automated stores reduce staffing vulnerability and improve resilience through efficiency.