Why We Decided to Return our PPP Loan

To our sweetgreen community,

Over the past few weeks, you’ve likely seen news surrounding the SBA’s Paycheck Protection Program (PPP). We wanted to share why sweetgreen applied for the loan, and why we decided to return it.

At the end of last week, we were approved for a $10M loan through the program. That same day, we learned that the money had run out and so many small businesses and friends in the industry who needed it most did not receive any funds. Knowing that, we quickly made the decision to return the loan.

Like all restaurants, sweetgreen’s revenue has been dramatically affected during this unprecedented time. When we applied for the SBA loan, our goal was to use it as it was intended — to take care of our restaurant teams during this crisis. 100% of the loan was going to be used to pay the people in our restaurants and hire back furloughed team members faster.

COVID-19 is an existential threat for many of the small businesses and restaurants that are critical to the fabric of this country. If this crisis has taught us anything, it is that we are all in this together and we believe strongly that the restaurant community needs more support and resources to weather this storm.

sweetgreen is a private company and while we are not required to disclose any of this information, we’ve always believed in full transparency, especially in times like these.

— Jonathan, Nicolas and Nathaniel