Sweetgreen Opens in Dupont Circle
Sweetgreen, the eco-friendly salad and fro-yo shop founded by local Georgetown grads, celebrated the opening of their second location in Dupont Circle Thursday night. Sweetgreen is a little bit like Chop't meets TangySweet -- the restaurant offers a selection of signature and design-your-own salads and tart frozen yogurt with fresh fruit toppings. The restaurant also lives up to its name by using biodegradable/compostable dishware and utensils, recycled napkins, and reclaimed wood. Still not enough for you? Sweetgreen is also a certified Green Restaurant and is powered by 100 percent wind energy. To top it off, the take out menu is studded with seeds that will sprout into actual flowers if planted.
Last night's opening party featured samples of Sweetgreen's signature salads, frozen yogurt (dubbed "sweetflow"), and Honest Tea cocktails. We enjoyed the "Guacamole Greens" salad, a mix of mesclun, avocado, tomato, onion, chicken, and cilantro-lime dressing. It tasted remarkably like a bowl of guacamole but looked remarkably like a salad--in other words, a great excuse to eat guac for dinner. The "Chic P" (pronounced "sheek-p"), a combination of chicken, mesclun, spinach, roasted bell peppers, chickpeas, cucumbers topped with hummus lemon tahini dressing and pita chips, was a bit of a letdown. Although the pita chips added nice crunch, the chicken was dry, and the entire salad needed more dressing to pump up the flavor. One of Sweetgreen's signature salads will run you $8 or $9, or you can build your own starting at $6.
Now that Sweetgreen has set up shop on Connecticut Avenue, there are not two but three different options for tangy frozen yogurt in the neighborhood. (TangySweet and Mr. Yogato are only a few blocks away.) Sweetgreen's yogurt is only slightly sour, and the texture is dense and icy. If you like your frozen yogurt on the sweeter, less tangy side of things, you might prefer sweetflow's mild, clean taste. Sweetgreen only offers one flavor, plain tart, along with fresh fruit, nuts, and granola toppings. A small cup is $4 and a large is $6. Both sizes come with three toppings.
The opening also featured a DJ'd cocktail party in an unfinished commercial space next to the restaurant. We've heard rumors that a burger joint could be in the works there, but almost wish the owners would consider just turning it into a special event space. One thing that was certain during last night's festivities: Honest Tea does not make a good martini. The delicate, even watery flavor of Honest Tea's Honest Ade was completely obliterated by the sharp vodka. We appreciate the effort at a healthier, natural cocktail, but straight up fruit juice would have been a better alternative.
Sweetgreen will also be opening a Bethesda location this spring. A sweetflow fro-yo truck is also in the works.
Sweetgreen
1512 Connecticut Ave NW
Washington, DC 20036
202-387-9338
Hours:
Monday - Sunday, 11 a.m. - 10 p.m.