Operations
Former Sweetgreen CMO building a fast casual 'Wonder'
Daniel Shlossman reveals the strategy behind Wonder, a digital-forward food hall concept created by former Walmart eCommerce CEO and Jet.com founder Marc Lore.
February 26, 2024 by Cherryh Cansler — Editor, FastCasual.com
After spending over five years building Los Angeles-based Sweetgreen, former CMO and Chief Growth Officer Daniel Shlossman left the brand last year to
join Wonder, an 11-unit food hall concept created by former Walmart eCommerce CEO and Jet.com founder Marc Lore.
Although the 5-year-old startup's initial plan was to cook and deliver food via 500 food trucks from chef-driven brands, such as Tejas Barbecue, Yasas by Michael Symon and Fred's Meat & Bread, Lore scrapped the mobile kitchens last year to focus on building what he calls a "mealtime super app" via brick-and-mortar locations centered around pick-up and delivery.
"Our goal is to make Wonder a Northeastern staple, with an emphasis on the New York boroughs," Shlossman said in an email interview with FastCasual.
The company, which has raised $900 million in venture capital and was valued at nearly $3.5 billion last year, opened its first location within Walmart in Quakertown, Pennsylvania, and will focus expansion plans on New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Connecticut. Openings are coming soon to the East Village as well as locations inside Walmarts in Teterboro and Ledgewood, New Jersey.
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| Wonder employees celebrate the grand opening of Wonder inside a Walmart in Quakertown, Pennsylvania. |
"The relationship between Walmart and Wonder is focused on the adaptability of our food-hall-style model, and Marc's history with Walmart definitely helped us develop and launch this partnership," Shlossman said. "We believe Wonder has product-market fit everywhere, so will continue to discuss and seek out location opportunities throughout the Northeast."
Wonder's selection of restaurants and chef partners is curated to be the best in the country from bringing Michelin-starred Middle Eastern (Maydan) to the best of authentic Texas barbeque (Tejas Barbeque) to restaurants designed with celebrated chefs like Bobby Flay, Jose Andres and more, Shlossman said.
"We don't currently feature any larger chains, but we're focused on the best selection and always adding restaurants to our locations," he said.
From food trucks to food halls
Although operating Wonder as a mobile restaurant business was working, Shlossman and his team discovered last year that replacing the mobile kitchens with physical locations offering delivery and pick-up as well as dine-in options would allow them to scale in a more capital-efficient way.
"Our original thinking was that the best way to get high-quality food delivered fast to your door was by bringing the entire kitchen directly to you," he said. "But our culinary engineering proved to be so effective — and consumer demand so high — that it opened the possibility to consider other delivery alternatives where we could still provide the same (and in many ways better) customer experience.
Customers may download and order from the Wonder or app or may order in person via kiosks; most locations feature small in-house dining areas.
"These locations give us the ability to offer multi-restaurant ordering through a single kitchen, utilizing the same technology from our mobile restaurants, all while making our great food even better, faster and hotter, delivered right to your door in a tight delivery radius," Shlossman said. Through this brick-and-mortar process, we see faster order-to-eat times, higher NPS scores, better customer value and cost-savings on the Wonder side through less overhead and infrastructure."
How it works
Unlike standard virtual kitchen models where restaurant brands hire and train their employees, Wonder operates as a vertically integrated model, meaning it controls every step of the process from the sourcing and preparing of food to the cooking, delivery and in-app experience.
"(That) gives us such a strong footing, and an ability to deliver exceptionally high-quality food to customers, Shlossman said. "Employees at our Wonder locations are set up to handle customer orders across all of the restaurants featured in that location — only when an order is placed is it made to order.
Also, Wonder works closely with its chef and restaurant partners when recreating dishes.
"We get approval every step of the way," Shlossman said. "This ensures that when our employees are making these dishes to order, they come out consistently and to the chef's spec every time.
As for revenue sharing, there are no ongoing royalties; all partnerships follow the same framework.
"Our deals consist of a cash payment upfront and equity (stock) in Wonder for the licensing rights of the brand in perpetuity," Shlossman said. "This creates a win-win situation whereas Wonder grows, so does the chef or restaurant partner's value gained from the deal. And it enables a situation where all of these incredible chefs and brands do what they can to help Wonder succeed. It's a true partnership."
Digital meets old school
Although Wonder, which acquired the meal kit company, Blue Apron, last year, is known as a digital-forward company, it also relies on old-school marketing techniques, including direct mail.
"As a new brand in the food space, acquiring new customers and bringing awareness to the Wonder platform and our individual restaurant concepts is critical," Shlossman said. "When we first open a location, direct mail in particular offers us a unique way to hyper-target the specific households within a community that has access to Wonder via delivery. Combined with several other marketing channels we use, this forms a robust marketing strategy across performance and brand marketing."
About Cherryh Cansler
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