Sweetgreen, the salad chain headquartered in Los Angeles, has announced a new compensation plan that will pay managers at its top-performing locations more than $200,000 a year starting in 2027.
To qualify for the top-tier pay, managers must have worked at Sweetgreen for at least three years. The company will also hand out revenue-based bonuses when a location beats its sales targets, and eligible managers can receive company stock based on performance. Sweetgreen went public in 2021.
Company leaders say the plan is meant to keep experienced managers from leaving. Manager tenure at Sweetgreen currently ranges from as little as three months to as long as 10 years, according to chief operating officer Jason Cochran.
“This sets Sweetgreen up to be in the top tier of restaurants for total compensation for general managers,” Cochran told Business Insider. “Our ability to be able to attract, retain, and also inspire many of our internal team members to want to be head coaches — I think it’s going to be meaningful for many years to come.”
Cochran also pointed to the reaction among staff since the plan was unveiled.
“One of the shift leads was telling me they heard the news and how excited they were for their career at Sweetgreen,” Cochran said. “She’s been with us six years.”
Sweetgreen co-founder and CEO Jonathan Neman tied the move to the company’s growth plans as it nears 300 restaurants nationwide.
“Great leaders build great teams, and great teams build a great business. As we approach 300 restaurants, we’re betting big on our Head Coaches. The restaurant industry has always been one of the great engines of opportunity, and we want to make that real for thousands of people,” Neman said.
Sweetgreen was founded in Washington, D.C., in 2006 and expanded rapidly in the late 2010s before moving its headquarters to Los Angeles in 2016. It now operates more than 290 locations across the country.
The pay announcement comes as the chain’s sales recover from a third-quarter slump tied to a Cyclospora outbreak. In October, same-store sales rose 5% and customer traffic was up 4%, according to The Motley Fool.
Sweetgreen is not the only California fast-food chain rewarding managers with six-figure pay. In September, In-N-Out Burger CEO Lynsi Snyder said managers at that chain average $200,000 a year — more than the typical software engineer or accountant in California, and well above the state’s average fast-food manager salary of $68,774.
