“One foot in the grave, the other in an overpriced salad bowl.”

If you want proof that Americans aren’t eating enough greens, forget CDC reports, RFK Jr. podcasts, and fiber intake stats… just look at Sweetgreen’s stock price (Joe Rogan voice: pull it up Jamie).

The $15 salad slinger ($20 if you want some lean protein) is officially on life support (and things are not looking good). After a disastrous earnings report and its second straight outlook downgrade, the stock tanked 25% today alone. That brings its total loss for the year to (checks notes)… -71%. Not exactly the kind of “green” investors had in mind.

For starters, the Los Angeles-based chain reported $186 million in revenue for Q2, missing Wall Street’s expectation of $192 million. That was paired with a net loss of $23.3 million, or $0.20 per share, which was significantly worse than the expected $0.12 loss. And it didn’t stop there… same-store sales dropped 7.6%, compared to a 9.3% increase in the same quarter last year. For context, analysts were forecasting a 5.5% decline. So not only did the company miss on the top and bottom lines, but it also flopped on comps… and that’s the number investors care about most in restaurant land.

(Source: CNBC)

So what’s behind the slow and painful death? According to Jonathan Neman (their CEO and official top salad slinger), it’s a “really, really rough quarter” (his words, not ours). And to be fair, he’s not exaggerating. The company faced what can only be described as a combo meal of problems, starting with one of their own making: the loyalty program flop.

The switch from the Sweetgreen+ subscription model to the new SG Rewards was supposed to broaden appeal and boost engagement. Instead, it did the opposite. The rollout carved a painful 250 basis points off same-store sales, as some of the brand’s most frequent and valuable customers peaced out (and probably went back to Chipotle). What was intended as a strategic refresh ended up alienating the core user base, and when you lose the lunch crowd that shows up three times a week, it shows up fast on the P&L.

And while customer loyalty took a hit, so did operational performance. Only one-third of Sweetgreen locations are currently performing at or above internal benchmarks, while the other two-thirds are, in Neman’s own words, a “meaningful opportunity for improvement” (translation: they’re dragging the company down).

To turn things around, Sweetgreen’s going back to basics… and by basics, they mean bigger chicken. They’re bumping up portions by 25%, cutting prices on some salads for members, and launching “Project One Best Way.” Isn’t it funny how every time a company hits the panic button, they roll out a military-grade code name for what’s essentially just “do your jobs better”?

Neman says they’re seeing early signs of improvement… summer menus are bringing customers back, and loyalty 2.0 is showing promise. But Wall Street isn’t buying a single word of it. Look no further than the fact that the stock’s now trading below $10 for the first time in nearly two years, and analysts have been chopping price targets like crazy. UBS sliced theirs to $13, TD Cowen dropped to $10, and Oppenheimer downgraded their 2026 EBITDA forecast by nearly 50%.

At this point, Sweetgreen’s journey is starting to look a lot like the classic tech-startup parable: big promises, sexy branding, cult-like early adoption… and then a cold smack of economic reality. We’ve seen this before (Beyond Meat, Oatly, Blue Apron) all came in hot and cooled off fast.

To wrap this up… no, the brand isn’t dead (yet) but it’s definitely in a wheelchair. And unless this back-to-basics strategy starts delivering actual results (not just hopeful talking points on earnings calls), investors are going to start looking for their greens elsewhere. Probably somewhere that serves fries.

At the time of publishing this article, Stocks.News doesn’t hold positions in companies mentioned in the article.