We Speak Dining & Drinks

Sweetgreen Puts Warm Plates and a First Ever Cookie at the Center of Its Menu

Published

4 days ago

November 11, 2026

Fresh salad with arugula, cabbage and tomato

A fresh salad of arugula, cabbage and tomato. Photo by Horacio Cambeiro, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Sweetgreen built its name on the salad bowl. This week the chain is asking dinner guests to think bigger, with a warm plates lineup led by a new rotisserie style chicken and the first cookie in company history.

The menu, announced on November 10, 2026, centers on Rotisserie-Seasoned Chicken, made with boneless and skinless chicken thighs marinated overnight in a miso maple marinade with the company’s rotisserie seasoning blend, lemon juice and vinegar, then roasted in store kitchens. On the plates it is served in generous cuts with 50 percent more chicken than the standard portion. It stars in two new Plates, Jammy Sunday Chicken, with umami rice, sweet onion jammy, spicy broccoli, roasted sweet potatoes and green goddess dressing, and Wild Chicken Bello, with wild rice, portobello mushrooms, napa cabbage slaw and charred jalapeño ranch. The same chicken fills the new Umami Chicken Rice Wrap, and three existing Plates, Caramelized Garlic Steak, Miso-Glazed Salmon and Hot Honey Chicken, have been refreshed.

The headline act for longtime fans may be dessert. The Sourdough Chocolate Chip Cookie is baked fresh daily with sourdough starter, unbleached wheat flour, dark chocolate chips, real butter, egg yolks, organic agave syrup and coconut sugar, with no artificial flavors, colors or dyes.

“Bringing a cookie to the sweetgreen menu is a big moment for us,” said Nic Jammet, Co-Founder of sweetgreen. “We’ve always believed that every ingredient should have a purpose, and that philosophy doesn’t stop with the main meal.”

To mark the launch, the company will stage a Watch Us Cook event in front of its Union Square restaurant at 870 Broadway in New York on Friday, November 20, from 10 am to 9 pm, with two chefs cooking inside a glass enclosed kitchen and samples of the plates and the cookie for guests. The new items are available from November 10 at most of the chain’s more than 285 locations, though the chicken dishes will skip some Boston area restaurants.

Red Robin Bets Its Comeback on a Chef With 34 Years at California Pizza Kitchen

Published

4 days ago

November 11, 2026

We Speak Media

A gourmet burger, the dish at the center of the Red Robin menu revamp. Photo by Marshall Astor, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Comebacks in the restaurant business usually start in the kitchen, and Red Robin is making that literal. The burger chain has hired Brian Sullivan as its vice president of culinary and beverage innovation, handing its menu revamp to a chef who spent 34 years shaping the food at California Pizza Kitchen.

Sullivan began at California Pizza Kitchen as a kitchen manager and rose to senior vice president of culinary innovation, where he helped define the chain’s habit of putting global flavors on pizza. He also recently helped launch that chain’s first burger, an experience that translates directly to his new job. He left the pizza company in an executive shakeup late last year.

The hire reunites him with G.J. Hart, Red Robin’s chief executive, who took over in September and previously led California Pizza Kitchen with Sullivan in its kitchen. Hart has since hired a new chief financial officer and chief legal officer as part of a near total rebuild of the leadership team. “I enjoyed working with Brian during my time at California Pizza Kitchen and consider him one of the best culinary minds in the industry,” Hart said in a statement. “Menu quality and innovation is a major component of our comeback plan and Brian and his team are making great progress on menu enhancements we will roll out later this year.”

The early agenda is concrete. Red Robin plans to install flat top grills to improve its burgers, refresh its milkshakes and widen the entree selection across its 510 restaurants. “I am excited to join an iconic brand like Red Robin, known for their wide variety of gourmet burgers, bottomless fries, and creative beverages,” Sullivan said in a statement. “We are going to create an amazing menu and have a lot of fun.”

For a sit down burger chain fighting for relevance, the bet is that a familiar name in the kitchen can make the food worth talking about again.