Sweetgreen Store Formats

Designing a modular operating model that enabled expansion across new restaurant formats.

Service designRetail experience designJourney mappingCross-functional strategyService blueprinting

100+ New Sweetgreen locations supported in a single year

2 New retail models designed

Rendering of a Sweetgreen drive-thru location, with pickup bays and directional signage — Fig. 1A modular format, designed to expand or contract with the location.

As Sweetgreen expanded into new markets, the company needed an operating model that could adapt to different restaurant formats without creating entirely new customer experiences.

I partnered with restaurant design, operations, and technology teams to define the company’s first drive-thru and curbside pickup experiences, ensuring each new service felt like a natural extension of the Sweetgreen brand.

Rather than designing each format independently, we developed a modular operating model, a flexible system of customer journeys and employee workflows that could expand or contract depending on the needs of each location.

Service blueprint diagram mapping the drive-in order flow across customer, front-of-house, and back-of-house swimlanes, from place order through pickup — Fig. 2The service blueprint: every step, mapped across customer and team.

Site plan and renderings of the seven-step drive-in journey at the Highlands Ranch location, from entry to exit — Fig. 3The drive-in journey, mapped step by step on site.

← Back to Selected Work Next project → Verizon Express