The Secret Ingredient Fueling Your Favorite Lunch Bowl

If you were in the office recently, what did you have for lunch? If it wasn’t meal prep, there’s a high chance it was…the bowl. You know the bowl: a delicious mix of greens or grains, a scoop of protein, a handful of textured or pickled things, and a drizzle of sauce, all packed together in a brown recyclable container.

For a while, we’ve been desperately searching for a lunch option that’s healthy, convenient, and satisfying. The bowl answers those asks, and more: it’s incredibly fast (both to eat and acquire), super versatile, and shockingly re-orderable.

But the things that make it appealing (variety, freshness, proximity to where you are) can’t be taken for granted. The success of America’s favorite bowls are immensely dependent on the right growth strategies executed quickly and precisely.

The truth is, we all love a bowl

The idea is simple and the format is genius: take the assembly-line logic of a salad bar, then expand the ingredients to create endless combinations.

They’re quick and desk-friendly. They’re nutritionally balanced, easy to customize, and offer a rotation of globally inspired flavors. From Sweetgreen’s “KBBQ” bowls to Cava and Naya’s Mediterranean options, almost anything can be turned into a bowl.

“I get a bowl almost daily, especially if I’m traveling,” Claire Fontaine (Pulley Permitting team) shared with me. “I know I’m getting the nutrients and protein I need. And the convenience and fresh ingredients are worth it for me.”

The businesses behind bowls are thriving. Walk into any Sweetgreen, Cava, Naya, Just Salad, or Chopt on a weekday at noon, and you’ll see lines out the door.

Bowls aren’t just popular—they’re profitable

The bowl isn’t a passing trend. It’s now powering a fast-casual restaurant market projected to reach $302.5 billion by 2028.

In 2024:

• Sweetgreen reported over $675 million in revenue (a 16% increase from 2023) and plans to open 40 new stores in 2025.
• Cava earned $954 million, growing 33% year over year, and planning to open up to 66 new stores in 2025.
• Just Salad plans to open 30+ new stores in 2025—an almost 30% growth rate.

Growth at this scale doesn’t just happen on its own. It’s the result of highly choreographed operations. We all love to enjoy a bowl, but not all of us know the immense planning it takes to deliver a single multigrain or arugula-based bite.

What’s key to the bowl’s success?

High consumer demand fuels their growth, and for these businesses it takes a lot to meet that demand at scale. They rely on fine-tuned, systems-based operations to expand consistently and profitably. Growth isn’t just important here: it’s existential. Businesses like Sweetgreen and Cava have built incredibly smart systems to make it happen.

The pressure to be everywhere

Growth is important for every company, but for the bowl, expansion is critical. In order to continue their success, these brands need to be visible, accessible, and consistently entering new markets.

This makes site selection a critical growth lever. The difference between a high-performing unit and an underperforming one can come down to square footage, neighboring tenants, co-tenancy mix, and daytime population density. Top-tier sites are in high demand, and these brands must compete aggressively to secure the best locations for their growth strategy.

Every bowl must be prepared quickly, onsite

While the kitchen of a Sweetgreen or Cava looks simple, the backend operations are anything but. Every bowl must be prepared quickly and onsite, which requires custom buildouts to support assembly-line workflows, refrigeration for perishables, and digital ordering systems.

That means full tenant improvement scopes and multiple layers of permitting coordinated well in advance. It’s not uncommon for a single store opening to require 6 to 12 months of lead time. Every detail needs to be synchronized across departments.

Supply chain is everything

Sourcing fresh, globally inspired ingredients requires a complex supply chain. These companies need to procure, prep, and deliver high volumes of perishables across multiple markets, and that’s not an easy feat. To align procurement with store launches, it’s incredibly important to have predictable opening timelines. That means if permitting or construction timelines slip by even a few weeks, it throws off vendor onboarding, hiring, marketing spend, and ingredient logistics, creating a lot of waste and added cost.

Your favorite lunch bowl is an operational feat

Next time you’re about to dig in to your bowl at lunch, take a second look. The bowl in front of you is the result of incredible amounts of operational precision and execution.

One example of that precision is fast, predictable permitting. Better permitting helps these business grow fast and build quickly. It enables them to get the type of buildouts they need to prepare bowls efficiently. And it allows their teams to plan ahead to get the right, fresh ingredients they need.

In a way, you can assume: the fresher and better your bowl, the better their permitting.

The real growth hack: predictable permitting

You would never think permitting is so important to the enjoyment of your lunch, but it is.

The continued quality, availability, and success of your favorite lunch bowl hinges on a critical thing: opening new stores quickly and on time. And no matter how refined the operational playbook is, you’re only as fast as the slowest part of your process.

Permitting is often the last uncontrolled variable for retail businesses. A delay in an approval stalls construction, and ripples out to impact hiring schedules, marketing timelines, supplier readiness, and revenue projections.

Don’t let permitting slow your roll

When your growth model depends on opening 30, 40, or 100 stores a year, small permitting delays compound into millions in lost opportunity.

Pulley’s mission is to help project teams break ground faster by making permitting more predictable and less costly too. That means ensuring high speed, high quality, and increasing visibility into every step of the permitting process.

Want to learn more? Read about why permitting is a skills-based game.

Or, reach out to chat.

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