(Image: Sweetgreen)

The unusually large Capitol Hill commercial space at 11th and Pine that boarded up just before months of pandemic restrictions and missed some of the most intense clashes between police and demonstrators at the corner during the CHOP occupied protest is finally going back into motion — at about half the size.

A Seattle outlet of the “Fast-casual salad” chain Sweetgreen is being lined up for the corner with plans to transform the former pub into a 2,672-square-foot restaurant for the company that has made headlines for its big bet on robots, big hopes on Wall Street, and big controversy over comments from an executive about the big size of Americans.

Like other recent Hill food and drink construction projects, Sweetgreen Capitol Hill, the company’s first location in Seattle, could be a slow path to opening due to permit bottlenecks and contractor demand.

Turns out, Sweetgreen is also very busy right now.

Founded in 2007, Sweetgreen has opened more than 140 restaurants around the juiced-up salad bar concept and a mission of “scratch” ingredients, a “strong food ethos and investment in local communities,” and social and environmental campaigns. It is also pushing forward on efforts to automate food preparation and service, gobbling up startup Spyce and its two Boston-area automated restaurants.

And it also living down comments from CEO Jonathan Neman criticizing Americans for being too fat and calling for “health mandates” to help end the COVID-19 crisis. Sweetgreen, like most of the food and drink industry, was hit hard by the pandemic. The company’s filings reveal its same-store sales fell 26% in 2020.

Monday, the Culver City, California company filed for its initial public offering with plans to be listed on the New York Stock Exchange trading under the ticker symbol SG.

(Image: Sweetgreen)

(Image: Sweetgreen)

(Image: Sweetgreen)

Its latest restaurant at the World Trade Center in New York City could show what is to come at the corner of 11th and Pine. The 2,360-square-foot space has now indoor seating and “features a state of the art pick-up station, catering to a growing number of customers who prefer to order their meals online through their laptops or smartphones.”

Sweetgreen replaces Stout, a pub concept that stretched out into a full 5,000 square feet at the corner but didn’t last five years. It’s not clear what will come next for the rest of the old Stout space.

But Sweetgreen’s plans for the ground floor of the preservation-boosted, seven-story Sunset Electric development are part of a wave of what feels like a new era of Pike/Pine food, drink, and entertainment projects. Some, like the nearby new 11th Ave home for Cafe Racer, wouldn’t have felt out of place in the neighborhood a decade ago. Some, like the millennial pink arrival of Glossier show that something new is truly afoot in the neighborhood. Some, like 11th Ave virtual golf bar Five Iron Golf somehow feel both inevitable… and bizarre.

Sweetgreen, and its “fast casual” salads, is now set to join that mix — as soon as the company takes care of the other big things it is working on.

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