Veggie Grill

Veggie Grill is the only 100% plant-based fast-casual restaurant chain and a leader of a rapidly growing plant-based movement. In order to capitalize on this position, it wanted to expand from its West Coast presence into Boston and New York. To drive this nationwide movement, the brand needed to redefine its purpose, positioning, and story in ways that would resonate with all stakeholders and leverage its industry leadership.

Working directly with the Veggie Grill Board, CEO, and leadership team, we developed a proprietary and differentiating brand purpose that would engage and motivate all stakeholders including front and back of house employees, as well as a new positioning, manifesto, and tagline that now serves as a rally cry for the brand across the country.

In a series of collaborative workshops and webinars, we trained Executive leadership, Regional Officers, and employees company-wide, equipping them with a purpose guidebook and team member handbook to ensure everyone at the company was aligned and activating its purpose in a unified manner. These assets were tailored for different roles across the company, ensuring everyone understood how they could personally bring the company’s purpose to life, and fortifying culture at a critical time as the global pandemic shook the restaurant industry.

With the new brand strategy defined and integrated, we provided the creative campaign for the opening of the New York and Boston restaurants and creative direction with Gensler on the new store interior designs to infuse the brand’s purpose throughout the experience. The openings were supported by our social media strategy, website creative, and sales video to launch the new restaurants. Finally, in order to secure real estate opportunities and win selection to open new doors in college campuses across the country, we created a sales video championing the brand’s purpose, plant-based menu, and superior customer experience to realtors and universities alike.

This work not only positioned the brand for ongoing leadership of the plant-based restaurant movement under its banner ‘Making food matter more’, but also ensured its culture was resilient enough to withstand the impact of the pandemic and recover quickly as the country reopened.

Steve Heely, CEO (FMR)

Veggie Grill engaged with We First after an exhaustive selection process. It was clear as we vetted companies that We First was head and shoulders above all of the other companies that we engaged with, and We First has not disappointed. They “get it” and clearly are the innovative thought leaders in the space.

We First’s approach goes broad and deep, and starts with company culture, Veggie Grill was totally aligned with culture driven approach. The team were extremely collaborative, and were outstanding at listening, taking feedback, and being open to the unique tenets of our brand. The We First team has been great at project management, and moving the process along the committed timelines and budgets.

The work that we have engaged with We First on has created the platform for the future of our brand, and their partnership has been invaluable. Everyone on the Veggie Grill team, from the board to the executive team, to the team in the field, have been impressed, energized, and enlightened by the work that we have done together.

I would highly recommend We First to any company that understands that purpose is the North Star for brands, employees, and the consumer. Their work is game-changing!