By Gus Saltonstall
Sweetgreen, the popular fast-casual salad and bowl chain, has permanently closed its location at 311 Amsterdam Avenue, between West 74th and 75th streets, according to signage on the storefront.
The closure comes around three weeks after the New York City Health Department temporarily shuttered the outpost for “live roaches in the facility’s food or non-food area,” the report at the time read. The location reopened a couple of days later.
The Sweetgreen signage on the Upper West Side storefront has already come down.
“Thanks for eating with us,” a message on the front door had read. “We’re now closed, but you can find us on 67th and Columbus.” The Sweetgreen location referenced is at 159 Columbus Avenue.
On Sunday night, West Side Rag saw Sweetgreen employees hugging outside of the store. “It was a good one,” a person walking by said to one of the staff members.
Sweetgreen did not announce its specific reason for closing the UWS location.
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The not so Sweetgreen
My guess is that the issue was systemic to the building, and they could not or did not want to take the time to get the landlord to help them eliminate the problem. In other words, they would have lost so much money remaining closed while the issue was being addressed that they felt it simply wasn’t worth it.
Barzini’s continued and apparently irresolvable issues with rats and roaches seems like another example of this, which is why they are closing (are closed?).
The principal issue to this location vote was that the sales were probably one of lowest in the city
Never even considered that Barzini’s issue was endemic to the building, let alone Sweetgreens. Good perspective, thanks.
I’m going to assume that you haven’t actually been to this SG, correct? Otherwise, I think you’d probably see that a lot of issues were unique to this location and not a landlord issue or some reflection on society. It was constant chaos; 67th has their stuff together.
“…a lot of issues were unique to this locaton.” That may be true. But if there is a systemic problem with roaches in the building, or even in parts of the building, I am not “blaming” the landlord, though it IS his/her responsibility to do everything possible to minimize or eliminate the issue. But roaches are endemic to NYC, and some buildings simply have bigger issues with them than others. It is not a matter of blame.
My guess is the closure left the workers at home to discover cheating partners, who then having been caught, left their faulty relationships. Each now forced to find steady employment as well as housing. Bond that with the waiting period of qualifying for the unemployment dole left little interest in returning to slinging kale and thus with no staff business closed. My guess is equally devoid of substantiation
That makes a lot of sense, though they did manage to reopen very quickly so they must’ve fixed the problem at least temporarily.
I feel badly for the employees.
If you picked up food here frequently, you most likely ate fecal matter. So not only did you endure rude service, but you literally ate sh** and overpaid for the privilege. Think on that for a bit.
See a gastroenterologist and do some parasite testing…..
I have no reason to doubt (or beleive) you, but that’s quite an accusation.
Small point — was the fecal matter only with food “picked up there” or with any food purchased there? Can you provide proof?
It’s not an accusation. It’s a probability.
Always had a good experience at SG and its too bad they are closing that location. When a building has roach infestation and other problems if the entire building or surrounding areas aren’t addressed can be difficult to fix the problems.
Progress!
Can we book mark this article when WSR announces the next tenant in Openings. Especially a food vendor?
If there’s a silver lining, irrespective of reason … store received a poor grade and the ownership reaction was to blow up the location. Can’t say there will ever be roaches again if it doesn’t exist.
I used to be a customer of their Upper East Side location on 3rd Avenue and 84th Street. I ordered frequently from them both in the store and online. At first I was very excited about having this type of food in the neighborhood. But as time went by, the quality of all of the food disintegrated and ordering online became unreliable because items were frequently left out. Also, I think that in order to assure that proteins were cooked thoroughly , they overcooked everything . They pretended to be an upscale business in upscale neighborhoods, but they just didn’t know how to follow through. Now we find out that there were also unsanitary conditions. I hate to see people lose their job and sorry this was short notice to them.
Guess those weren’t raisins in my salad. Oh My.
It was never the same after Covid. It progressively got worse as far as quality of food.