How Salad and Go Grew Its Lease Portfolio by 528%

Last Updated on September 26, 2024 by Amanda Lee

Challenge: Scaling a Regional Restaurant Concept

Salad and Go takes a creative approach to leasing its properties’ locations. Rather than securing triple-net leases, the brand signs ground leases. “Most of the properties we lease are vacant, and it’s construction from there. We are not leasing someone’s existing building. Instead, we are leasing vacant land and building it out. Often, the landlord will bring utilities to the site like plumbing, electrical, and water. And, we take it from there to build out,” says Doug Lister, Asset Manager at Salad and Go.

The opportunity to build from the ground up creates the ability for the Salad and Go team to design a cohesive look and feel across all of its establishments. On the flip side, there is the added challenge of tracking the due diligence milestones associated with ground leases. “We will commit to leases, and they have not yet commenced, the due diligence timelines are starting to tick,” according to Lister.

Solution: A Single Source of Truth

Occupier has become Salad and Go’s single source of truth. “One of the un-intended values of Occupier is that we have a central place for all of our documents. In my previous role, we had an office with endless rows of fireproof filing cabinets. With Occupier, our teams can be remote, even all over the world, and access leases, legal documents, and pertinent lease information,” says Lister. Salad and Go relies on Occupier’s proprietary system and features to maintain the highest degree of control and confidence over its real estate contracts. 

The Occupier system also keeps the Salad and Go team on top of critical dates, so they can make certain not to miss key timeframes. Reports can be run anytime, giving all stakeholders the chance to sidestep timeline-related headaches or terminate an agreement in which build-out doesn’t seem viable. According to Lister, “The expiration of a due diligence period is often the expiration of our ability to terminate that agreement. In addition, we are tracking permitting timelines and working closely with our construction teams to ensure build-out milestones will be met within our permit period.”

Benefits of Occupier

Here are some of the ways Occupier has helped Salad and Go make smarter business decisions and ultimately grow faster.

• A central repository of documents: being able to see any document or record in a cloud environment instantly removes the friction of sifting through physical files
• Full visibility into lease data: every authorized user can access real-time lease information in just a few clicks
• A second set of eyes on documents: important contractual elements are abstracted and then triple-reviewed for clarity and accuracy by the Occupier team
• Milestone and timeline tracking: track permitting timelines to ensure build-out milestones are met within permit periods
• Options tracking: automated notifications when a lease expiration or renewal is coming up
• Easily generate custom reports: Custom reports power decision-making on due diligence periods

By automating everything from lease deals and critical dates to options tracking and simplified reporting, Occupier serves as a user-friendly system to meet Salad and Go’s real estate needs. 

As Salad and Go has noted, Occupier’s advantages have allowed this growth-minded brand to keep serving up great food and experiences for its burgeoning fan base of health-conscious customers.