This Salad Chain Found a Faster Way to Grow — By Buying Up Rivals’ Locations
Crisp & Green is buying and converting MAD Greens and Snappy Salads locations and expanding into non-coastal cities.
The Coors family made its name in beer. Now it’s passing its salad business to Crisp & Green.
The Minneapolis-based fast-casual chain has agreed to buy 33 MAD Greens and Snappy Salads restaurants from Salad Collective, the Coors family’s restaurant group, QSR reports. Crisp & Green, which has about 60 locations, plans to convert them to its own brand over time. Along with previously planned openings, the deal should push the chain to 100 restaurants by the end of 2026, a decade after its founding. Financial terms weren’t disclosed.
Besides the new markets, the deal grows Crisp & Green’s footprint in Phoenix, Austin, Denver and Dallas. The Coors family will stay involved as a strategic minority partner.
Crisp & Green has largely skipped the coasts, focusing on the middle of the country, where founder Steele Smiley says healthy chains face less competition. Demand for fresh food “isn’t limited to New York, Los Angeles or other major coastal cities,” he said. The chain has grown through company-owned stores, franchising and friends-and-family money, with no VC backing.