← Take-Away with Sam Oches
Take-Away with Sam Oches
Neon Greens' founder on hydroponics and the need for a better supply chain
00:57:53
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- [00:01]
A
Welcome to Takeaway with Sam Okus, a podcast for leaders of growing restaurant companies looking to take their businesses to the next level. In nearly two decades covering restaurants, I've gained access to some of this industry's most influential decision makers, and I'm letting you in on the conversations. In today's episode, you'll hear from the founder of a startup salad concept that's part farm, part restaurant about why your supply chain needs some diversification and about why the story that you're telling at your restaurant is critical to whether you succeed or fail. Josh Smith is the founder and owner of neon Greens, a St. Louis business that opened in 2024 as both a fast casual salad restaurant and a working farm. That's right, the restaurant is attached to a hydroponics operation where Neon Greens grows its greens before sending them to the kitchen via a conveyor belt. Not only does this create a great show for guests, Josh compares Neon Greens to sort of like a Willy Wonka, but with lettuce, but it also provides them with high quality hyperlocal produce at a time when foodborne illnesses are making consumers lose trust in the supply chain. Josh is not a lifelong restaurateur or farmer. He was actually in the entertainment business in New York City before a Covid driven interest in hydroponics led him to founding Neon Greens in his hometown. But his passion for a better food experience and his knack for storytelling have combined in a unique business that disrupts the idea of how restaurants can source and serve their food. He joined the podcast to talk about the state of the farm to table movement, why our supply chain needs to be decentralized, and why restaurants must have a clear why that drives their growth. In this conversation, you will learn more about why hydroponics are just one part of the solution to decentralizing our supply chain, how the nexus of quality, value and experience will drive the future of restaurants, and how big transformative ideas don't need to scale. They don't need scale to make a big impact. If you learned something from this episode, go follow takeaway Wherever you listen to podcasts and leave some feedback, it is the best way to get these lessons into the hands of a fellow restaurant leader. Jumping now into my interview with Neon Greens Josh Smith. Also, don't forget to stick around after the interview as I will share my seven takeaways from this discussion. Actionable insights that you can take with you on the go. Okay, I'm sitting down with Josh Smith, the founder and owner of neon Greens in St. Louis. Josh, thanks for sitting down with me today.
- [02:29]
B
Yeah, thanks for having me.
- [02:31]
A
Josh, I'm fascinated by what you're doing at Neon Greens. Fascinated by your story. I was just telling you I was catching up on your story and how you got into this industry, and I want to dig into that. Let's start there. Because you are not a restaurateur by trade or training. What were you doing before Neon Greens?
- [02:47]
B
No, for over a decade, actually, I worked in the entertainment industry. So I grew up a lifelong theater kid and went to school, went to Carnegie Mellon for set design and lighting design for theater, film, and television. Straight from there, moved to New York City and worked in those industries for over a decade. And now I'm slinging salads. It is. It's a little different.
- [03:16]
A
Yeah. That's quite a pivot. And as I understand, it was Covid that was kind of the reason for the pivot. Tell me about that.
- [03:23]
B
It was. Yeah. So Covid hit most of the industries, especially in the New York area. Paused, and then sort of went in fits and spurts of starting, stopping. And over that time, I went to a little cottage up in northwestern Connecticut, where I sort of spent some time and got into gardening and then bought one of those little desktop hydroponic kits and went down a very, very deep YouTube rabbit hole where I started to get all into hydroponics. It was just fascinating to me. And actually, the sort of poetic thing of having something that you really can control in a time of immense uncertainty was. Was really fun and interesting. And, you know, after a few months, I had ordered some industrial hydroponic equipment from a manufacturer in Iowa and built an NFT system in the basement and was growing about 100 different items at a time. So in the depth of winter in Connecticut, I was having, you know, incredible heirloom cauliflower and lettuce almost every. And it was such a joy, and I got so much pleasure out of it. And I started thinking, if folks had access to produce of this high quality all the time, everyone would be eating a salad. Everyone and their mother would be eating a salad every meal. And that's sort of what sparked the idea for Neon Greens.
- [04:57]
A
So some people got into sourdough, you got into hydroponics. That's how that worked, huh?
- [05:01]
B
Yeah. Potato. Potato. Right.
- [05:03]
A
Yeah, same thing. Same thing. A hundred different plants in your base basement versus having a starter for sourdough. Okay, so this is fascinating because, you know, Josh, I've covered, again, I've covered this industry a long, long time. And. And, you know, whenever I talk to founders of Restaurants, I. I often ask them, what's your advice, fellow founders? And a lot of them, only joking, only half jokingly say, don't do it. Because this is an industry that I'm sure you've discovered over the last couple of years. It is not for the faint of heart. It is a lot of work. What was for you, that thing in your brain that said, oh, I'm going to take this from this fun hobby in my basement and turn it into a restaurant? What was that process?
- [05:47]
B
Right. So in my previous career, I came from a world of storytelling. I came from a world of communicating and delivering ideas. And it's so funny, whenever I would work on a show, a new theater piece or whatever, and you would read the script and you would just know if it was going to work or not. You could tell on the page. And a lot of that has to do with the conviction of the idea. A lot of that has to do with, you know, do they actually believe the words that they're writing? And do they actually care about the story that they're telling? Is there. Do they believe there's a reason for this to be told? And it is so funny. Film and entertainment, film and television, and just the entertainment industry. There are so many parallels between hospitality and film and television and entertainment generally. More than anything, we are telling a story. We're communicating an idea. It's something that we care about and are passionate about, and it's about getting it from our idea to the plate or the screen in a way that people care about. So when I sort of had this idea, it came from a passion. It came from a passion for. And not only was I into film and television, but I've been a lifelong food nerd myself. You know, reading food encyclopedias backward and forward and getting very into fermentation. It's something that I cared a lot about. And when I started to get into hydroponics and I was aware of the quality of the product, it also kind of clued me into the food systems that we have in this country in a way that I wasn't privy to. So Neon Greens was born out of a desire to tell this story of we can have incredible food in a way that's way more accessible than we thought it was, and we can have a much closer relationship to it as well. So I think, to get back to your question, it has a lot to do with, are you passionate and do you have a story to tell? And any advice that I would give to anyone going into the industry or any industry would Be know why you're telling the story and be able to tell that well.
- [08:11]
A
That's great advice. I love that. That's really cool. So did you look at this point into the history of hydroponics and restaurants? Because you know, again, there have been others who have tried this and there have been moments in time where we all said this is the future. And it's, it's never really taken off, at least at scale. So at that point in time, did you research who had done it before and what did you make of what you were learning about that? Yeah.
- [08:36]
B
So there have been some tries and certainly none that really succeeded at scale. And it was such an interesting environment that I started researching all this. So this was around 2020. This was six years ago. A large amount of investment into industrial hydroponics started around 2010. As you were saying, a lot of that was venture backed, so you could almost say that it was speculative. And as our economy ebbed and flowed and as the actuals didn't quite meet the projections, you saw some real funny things happening with these startups. Large hydroponic, large scale hydroponic startups that were funded and a lot of them started to disappear. A lot of it comes from this impulse that I think we have to. This is the new shiny thing that will solve all of our problems. Way that I talk about hydroponics in our specific context is it is a way to solve a problem. Hydroponic growing is a tool that we have in our toolkit. It is not the end all, be all. It by no means should replace soil based farming. But we are realizing more rapidly as time goes on that we need to diversify. Our agricultural systems have become so incredibly centralized. A vast majority, close to 90% of the lettuce that we consume in this country comes from California and Arizona. That is a lot of eggs and just very few baskets. And because of that, when we have food systems that start to fail, we get into jams that really require us to think a little bit more about our diversification. So my answer to that was let's start a food concept in the Midwest, in the heartland of this country, where we are actually sourcing veget vast majority of our lettuce from a farm that's physically connected to our restaurant as a means to really tell that story, the food story and the story of where your food comes from in a really tangible way.
- [10:55]
A
All right, let's, let's get to it now because I think this is the best time to bring it up. You and I are talking At a funny time to have this conversation because of what's going on nationally with cyclospora, of course, this parasite that has been traced back potentially to a major lettuce supplier. And I think it kind of gets to what you're saying here, which is like this is now in, I think it's 45 states. They've said they've tracked cases of this and there's a brokenness to our system that would lead to something like this. What do you make of what's happening with this outbreak and why what you're doing at Neon Greens is kind of a solve for that?
- [11:33]
B
Yeah. So it's sort of two points that I would point to there. First, it's the centralization and decentralization aspect that I was talking about. So Taylor Farms is a massive, massive agricultural conglomerate that has over 600 individual farms that feed into that sort of overall conglomerate that then trickles down and sells lettuce to a bunch of sub brands, including Earthbound Farms, the Whole Foods in house brand, and all of these other sort of smaller cottage brands that it supplies. Conglomerates have become a way for farmers to have some more protection of their product and a way for them to sell what they need to sell to survive. And it's also become a necessity for them when it comes to having the resources they need and the capital they need to actually farm in a way that's sustainable, which is unfortunate. And I would say on top of that, it comes to regulation and compliance. We've seen with this current federal administration, a gigantic gutting of a lot of the safeguards that we have in this country when it comes to the regulatory agencies that actually oversee testing for cyclospora, E. Coli, you name it. Even in the past year and a half, we've seen a gutting of those very specific programs which we can point to very specifically as a reason that this happened. Generally, American agricultural practices are quite clean and quite safe. When we have any issues that we point to when it comes to cyclospora, E. Coli, you name it, a lot of that has to do with groundwater contamination. And so something that we've been talking about a lot recently here at Neon Greens, the reason that hydroponics are a great tool to have in the toolkit, especially when you have incidents like this, is that we have a closed loop water system. So when we grow our lettuce, we grow our lettuce indoors. It's a style of agriculture called cea, Closed Environment agriculture, which hydroponics fit under. And then There are other subsets of that that don't necessarily include hydroponics. We grow in repurposed reefer containers, which are refrigerated shipping containers. We have LED lights inside of them that act as the sun, have a nutrient dosing system that dose nutrients in the same way that you would dose nutrients or, you know, sprinkle some nutrients on your house plants or plants outside. And then we also have our closed looped water system. So we take treated city water and we ph balance it to make sure it's a ph level that the plants that we're growing enjoy and thrive on. And that control is something that really allows us to deliver a product that I'm so proud of. And people just keep coming back because they know it's safe and they can see it for their very. In front of their very eyes.
- [14:43]
A
Yeah, you said it. I mean, that time you're talking, I'm just thinking, oh, this is about control. This is that when you are trusting a broad line distributor, a supplier of produce to give you something, there's obviously a trust there. And to your point, this nation's food supply is vastly very safe, but there's still a lack of control that you have over that. And that's what has made this whole situation a little scary and frustrating for restaurants, which is, you know, let's use Taco Bell as the example, which is Taco Bell takes the brunt of the hit because people point fingers at it when it's really not actually Taco Bell's fault. Maybe there are some things that it could have done differently, but still, it really is that that source of where that food's coming from. Now it seems to me like you're fairly practical and you understand that Taco Bell's not about to go do hydroponics in all of their restaurants. I mean, I think like I was saying before, you know, hydroponics has been seen as this, you said a kind of shiny like, oh, this is going to be the future of supply chain. What do you think is realistic about how hydroponics could be a part of the solution for food service businesses around the country?
- [15:53]
B
Sure. So I think hydroponics are a great candidate for decentralization and that you can take advantage of very small spaces and grow immense amount of food. Amounts of food. Food. Especially when thinking of serving urban environments, you can take advantage of abandoned buildings or warehouses. It's very easy to retrofit. Well, I wouldn't say very easy, but it's possible to retrofit existing and vacant storefronts that's originally what kind of pushed off my idea to even start hydroponics or start investigating hydroponics was during. When Covid initially hit New York City, there was a dearth of vacant real estate. And it started my gears turning of, okay, we have vast urban areas that have large amounts of real estate that are available, some of it climate controlled, some of it that we could really take advantage of. And that's sort of what started me on the circuitous journey. So I would say it is a way to grow in a more protected way too. And when we think of climate change, which is rapidly affecting what we can grow and where we can grow is not foolproof, but it's certainly a protective measure we can take to decentralize our risk as a country generally.
- [17:22]
A
Yeah, I mean, of course, Covid being what it was, there were a handful of silver linings. And I think one of them was that sort of forced period of creativity where everybody was sort of forced to figure out, like, what does life look like now? How do we reinvent ourselves as a society? Probably we settled way back toward essentially what we were pre Covid at the end of the day. But some ideas kind of came with us. This, you know, that idea of taking advantage of real estate in that way, I think is. Is one of those great ideas. Now, St. Louis, I think, is. Makes a lot of sense here, because St. Louis, I imagine, has a lot of vacant real estate available. Is that your hometown, St. Louis?
- [18:01]
B
It is, yep. I grew up in St. Louis.
- [18:03]
A
Okay, so you think to yourself, probably like, you can go back home, you know, you know the people, you know the community probably pretty well. Was there also that sort of idea of like this, this city could use something like this, and you're going to get a building for a lot cheaper than you are obviously in New York City?
- [18:19]
B
Yeah, absolutely. I. That was a big impetus for starting here. It was that I had a community, of course. And on top of that, St. Louis didn't really have a concept like this. We didn't have any of the national chains chopped, just salad, sweetgreen, Crispin Green. Any of those hadn't made their way to St. Louis and still haven't yet. We have two Cavas at this point. And beyond that, not much exists in the sort of quick serve, health focused space. And. And having lived in New York for that long period of time, that was the opportunity that I saw as well, especially when it came to establishing a brand that I hope to expand is that sweetgreen chopped, just salad are fantastic concepts. And I think sometimes just based on the necessities that QSRs have when it comes to food costs and suppliers and all of that, I sometimes wasn't super thrilled with the quality of lettuce that I was getting in those environments. Um, and I sort of thought about re engineering the concept to be focused on the lettuce itself, to start from the lettuce and actually use that as a storytelling element as well.
- [19:36]
A
Yeah, it's fascinating. I. I live in Columbus, Ohio, and I think it has a lot of sort of connective tissue to a place like St. Louis. And you know, I think about if you put something like a neon greens in Columbus, on one hand, you know, you've got a lot of progressive minded folks here who I think would embrace it, but on the other hand, you
- [19:51]
B
probably have a lot of folks who
- [19:52]
A
are like, like, what is this thing? Where's our meat and potatoes? You know, it's the Midwest, so it's, you know, some of the stereotypes are true. What was that like? I mean, opening in St. Louis? You know, what is the community like around you? What is the learning curve in terms of showing them what this product is, but also teaching them more about what neon greens represents?
- [20:10]
B
Right. So I, I think the, the magic that we have or sort of the, the special sauce, it is, it's our farms and it's the story. And it's funny. I was actually inspired so much by the, the white. The founding of White Castle. So some of this is myth and lore and some of it is verified true. But in a nutshell, White Castle had, I believe, a few locations or one or two based in Kansas. And this is around the early 1920s. Upton Sinclair's the Jungle comes out. And Upton Sinclair's the Jungle, for those who are not familiar, paints this horrid, horrid picture of the meatpacking industry in this country. And it makes a huge, huge impact on the populace. So much so that a lot of steak joints and meat and potatoes places, diners, you name it, start to see sales drop significantly. And so the nation's sort of greasy spoon group of restaurants are falling into peril. And the folks who own White Castle turn it on its head and they say, okay, we need to do something about this. So we will cut open the area between the point of sale and the back of house so you can actually look in and see the meat being packaged and ground and put on the griddle, and we'll paint the entire restaurant white. And we will really embrace transparency in a way that is impactful and White Castle. Not only did they sort of save the industry to a certain degree, but they set a standard that's followed. That is the practice that we see today, which is open kitchen. You walk into any fast food joint and you will look back and see what's happening back there to a certain degree. And that was kind of a light bulb moment that I had, which was people in this country crave transparency in a relationship with their food. They want to know where it came from, what's in it, who packaged it, everything. And so we designed this whole concept to be radically transparent. That is sort of our guiding light. It's so transparent that you can actually walk in. There's a giant 6 foot by 6 foot window on the wall that's elevated 10ft high. And you can look into our harvest capsule, which is where we seed our lettuce, we transplant our lettuce, and we harvest it, and then we send it down to the kitchen with this crazy conveyor belt that goes from our farms over everyone's head in the dining room into the kitchen to a vertical conveyor belt that brings it down to service level. And it sort of seems like a Willy Wonka sort of lettuce driven experience. And everyone reacts to that. We also give farm tours on the weekends. And I would say that 98% of the people that take a farm tour and walk in there, whether it's a dad visiting his child who's in college here, whether it's grandparents, young children, ages 4 or whatever, any demographic, people's eyes light up and the biggest smile wipes across their face. And that really has to do with the fact that people are able to experience this product in a tangible way. They're able to be part of the story of their food and everything is visible. So with that, we've had an incredible response. And I would say even the most surprising folks come in here and they almost become childlike in how excited they are to be part of the journey of their food and participate in it.
- [24:00]
A
What I love about that is that that kind of harkens back to your past in the show business industry, right? That this is a show. I mean, because I think about my kids and if I went into neon greens, they're going to run up to that window and want to watch this whole process. Tell me about the unique aspect of the operation of the restaurant then, and your training of your employees. Like what, what are some elements of how to. How you need to make this work? The conveyor belt. Do you have to train your Employees uniquely, to make sure all of these systems are functioning properly.
- [24:30]
B
Yes, we do. We do. We definitely do. The conveyor itself is automated to a certain degree. But the biggest thing that we train, honestly, it has so much to do with our hospitality. And our hospitality is really driven by the experience that people have in here and have with their food. We train every employee on our core menu. There's a day of menu study that they do with myself. Usually that involves going over every menu item, every ingredient and skew that goes into it, and more importantly, the story of why that menu item exists. Every item that we have on the menu has some story, Whether it's hearkening back to a childhood memory of mine, whether it's my love of kimchi. There's a salad that's just. Just revolves around a daikon kimchi that we make in house with a partner of ours. That is fantastic. But everyone who works here is armed with the why? And more than anything, one of our most important interview questions when we hire new folks to come in here to be a member of our team. Do you like to cook? What's your favorite thing to eat? What's your favorite thing to make? And usually the folks who have an immediate answer whose eyes light up and smile are the folks, folks who end up finding their way here. And a big part of our hospitality is having conversations with customers about food. So after the lettuce goes through its crazy journey on the conveyor belt and makes its way down, everyone on our team continues that journey of both food transparency and people having a place in a relationship with their food and having engaging and exciting conversations with everyone who walks in these doors about what's in front of them and what they're about to enjoy.
- [26:21]
A
That's cool. I imagine there is some risk involved in this, too, though. I mean, if the conveyor breaks down or maybe, God forbid, something's wrong with the supply, is there some risk involved here? What are those things that you're paying close attention to that maybe another restaurant doesn't have to worry about because they don't have a supply chain like this?
- [26:40]
B
Sure, yeah. There are definitely some points of failure that are probably. We probably have a few more than your average restaurant. But yes, I mean, we've had. We've had the conveyor break, you know, every once in a while. You know, we've lost power to our farms in the past, thankfully. We have, you know, generators, emergency generators. We have a team that is just so skilled in problem solving. And I think the most important point of problem Solving is, quote, unquote, having your eye on the ball. What's the most important thing? What's the most important thing five minutes from now, five hours from now, and five days from now? And having a team that can, in real time, sort of troubleshoot and problem solve and project manage all at the same time has been a gift, and we really couldn't do it without all of them. Sure.
- [27:34]
A
All right. So when you open this thing, was there a thought at that time, this is something I want to scale? I mean, Neon Greens has only been open for about two years now. Right. I mean, so you're still very much in its infancy. But like, I imagine at the beginning of this thing, most restaurateurs, I think, think to them, this could be something I could scale. What was that idea for you?
- [27:55]
B
Yeah, it was something I definitely thought could scale. And it really sort of had to do with looking at how the market reacts to it and looking at how customers react to it. The response has been overwhelming in a way that I couldn't have imagined. I'd say what made me confident in the idea that this could scale eventually is the thing that I was talking about all the way from Upton Sinclair's the Jungle to now, and that people react so passionately and strongly when they're given an opportunity to be more in touch with their food and where it comes from. And more than that, scaling, it gives an opportunity to folks who don't normally have that opportunity to do so. I see it also as a means for education. We actually have tours of students that come in to tour our farms. We do educational visits. It's a tourist tool far beyond just the fork to plate that we have here and an opportunity that's really incredible.
- [29:04]
A
And what would scaling look like? I mean, is that go open in St. Louis and other Neon greens attached to a farm, or is that you have to go to another city to kind of start this whole operation over?
- [29:14]
B
Yeah. So we've been sort of looking at modeling it in both scenarios. The goal, I would say, eventually, is to have a hub and spoke model where we have a mothership farm that I quote, unquote, that would have one restaurant attached to it and then a few additional units per regional market that it would serve us.
- [29:40]
A
Got it. Yeah. I mean, because this is not so simple as punch these into every great piece of real estate that you want. Although I guess if you. I mean, could that. Could the farm that you have open next to the current Neon Greens, could that be something? Could it supply like three or four more locations in St. Louis. Is it big enough?
- [29:59]
B
Not big enough yet, no. So in that case, you probably want to go to a hub and spoke model only because you get diminishing returns when you have individual farm sites at individual restaurants. And that's also when we look at other concepts that have tried versions of this in the past. And it kind of goes to a whole thing that I had to pay attention to in my former career, which is personnel and resource management. It's what's the time, labor and materials that we have or have budget for and how do we execute what we need to execute with the. Given the more that you have individual satellites, the more difficult it is to manage them, the more expensive it is to maintain them. And of course, the more points of failure you have at the same time. Same time, sure.
- [30:49]
A
Well, and obviously scaling growth, I mean, we should say, I believe you also have grown within the four walls and that you introduced breakfast. Right?
- [30:57]
B
Yeah. So our first year was along the lines of what I had projected. It got a little soft and slow in the winter, which makes sense, especially for a salad concept. So that first winter we had a little extra downtime and I was sort of thinking to myself, how can we capitalize on this resource that we have? So one of our employees who's now our general manager, had a killer hand cut biscuit recipe and we were sort of just shooting ideas back and forth one day and I was like, what about a breakfast biscuit sandwich thing? And so we launched a whole separate concept called Biscuit Town. And Biscuit Town, we started as a ghost kitchen and we operated it just mornings out of neon greens, three biscuit sandwiches, Very, very tight menu. And people just, just the Instagram flew off and people just started coming in, even though we didn't advertise that we were open. And so then we had to turn it into a full fledged thing. So this past winter we were doing five days a week. In the summer we went down to two days a week. Especially since sales went a little bananas and neon greens, we had to kind of make sure that both brands were supporting each other in a way that was sustainable. But it's been a lot of fun. And I love the idea of developing brands and communicating those ideas to customers. And it's really fun to have those two concepts sitting in the same ecosystem.
- [32:31]
A
Oh, you've got the bug. I see this in a lot of restaurateurs. They get the bug and they keep opening more restaurants because, I mean, there is obviously a lot of fun to it. And you As a creative, I imagine you're discovering a lot of that fun part to it. Now, does Biscuit Town also leverage the hydroponics or what kind of systems are overlapping between these two concepts?
- [32:50]
B
It does not. We did a very funny April Fool's video where about growing hydroponic biscuits in our farms. But. But that is not. Not reality for those who were. Who were fooled. No. So we, we, we incorporate a little bit of our lettuce. There's a salsa verde that we make that has some of our Mizuna in it, but it really does stand alone as its own concept. We're actually vending at the soccer stadium with that concept as well. So we've to sort of get it out. It's another offering that we offer for catering as well. So it broadens our selections when it comes to just the sales channels that exist as well.
- [33:32]
A
Gotcha. All right, so if we took a step back and looked at sort of broadly what you're doing, and I think sort of the movements you fit within, like we've talked about earlier in the conversation, 10 to 15 years ago, you had a lot of attention on farm to fork, on local sourcing, on hydrocarbon. I think a lot of that was fueled by millennials. I mean, like, you know, I was young at the time thinking, oh, this
- [33:57]
B
is the future of food.
- [33:58]
A
My generation's going to solve everything, you know, and then in time, Door Dash shows up and kind of changes the narrative. But I don't know about you, but I get a sense that we're coming back into a season like that where Gen Z is, you know, now that they're making some of their own purchasing decisions, I think they're starting to get interested in the state of our food supply. Supply. You know, maybe farm to Fork is coming back. Do. What's your impression of where things stand with that movement of, you know, a more local supply chain and how that can benefit communities?
- [34:33]
B
I think it's. It's no question that it's coming back, but I actually think it's a. It's a facet of a bigger nexus that we're at. I think we're sort of sitting at this new nexus of quality, value, and experience. I see those being sort of the three driving factors of why people are making food decisions that they're making right now. We have seen sales continue to grow year over year, which is lucky and incredible, and I'm grateful for it. A big part of that has to do with the nexus of those three things. I think the food transparency aspect and the farm to fork aspect sit as a tenant of, of the quality aspect. Quality has a lot to do with does it taste good, does it look good, but do I know it's good. The food transparency and the farm to fork. Inform the customer and let them know this is something that has care in it. Quality oftentimes just comes from care and humans caring about the things that they're doing. It's not automation and it's not mass farming. And it has to do with something that's a little more boutique. And on top of that experience, we see so many people. I even think of interviews that you've done recently, the Panda Express conversation that you had that was so geared towards the importance of experience and getting people excited about coming back to these places time after time. And value too. We serve quality food, a lot of it grown as locally as possible or sourced as locally as possible, especially the stuff that we, we grow and, and I think people really believe in that.
- [36:21]
A
Yeah, well, you know, this is, this is a country of largess, right? I mean like we, it's a country of excess. Which is to say that I think when we find an idea that works even the smallest scale, we are primed to say, let's blow it up, let's make this huge, let's make a ton of money on it. And I sometimes wonder if that was, you know, maybe the farm to table movement, maybe hydropower 1.0, maybe became victim to that, where people made this assumption that this is going to be everywhere someday. We just had to figure it out. I mean, inherently it seems like this is going to always have its limitations and that maybe keeping it sort of one community at a time, even one restaurant at a time, might be better for it than trying to figure out how to scale this thing to feed millions of people. Does that match with what you're thinking?
- [37:10]
B
It does, yeah. And I think it boils down to intentionality. That's something that we talk so much about here at Neon Greens, and it's the why behind what we're doing. If you have a guiding light that's very, very clear, you can test everything against it. And growth is important and it's possible to be responsible with growth too, but it has to be deliberate and it has to be intelligent, intentional. And I think, you know, even with growing this brand, it's something that we're dedicated to and it's something that we are in the process of doing, but it's something that we're doing in a deliberate and intentional way. Because if you don't have all your ducks in a row and you start moving real fast. It's, of course, easy to make mistakes and waste resources, all of that. And I agree with you. I think that's something that plagued the initial sort of burst of hydroponics that we saw earlier, early on, and what I'm seeing success in now. And in fact, when we. So we grow a majority of our lettuce when we need a little extra lettuce and we have to supply from outside, we only use regional producers and we only source hydroponically to fit in line with our vision and our mission. I'm seeing more and more small, independent hydroponic farmers with a larger level label sometimes partnered with them pop up. And it's something that we've been in discussions with our broadliners to increase the availability of. It's something we're really passionate about too, about trying to grow the local and regional ecosystem with these kinds of foods. And in this sort of second swing that we're seeing of a growth in hydroponics, I am seeing more intentionality in the growth, which I think it's great.
- [39:06]
A
Yeah, it's good to hear. Yeah. I'll never forget, I remember, you know, seeing renderings of people were putting together of like skyscrapers, you know, that were all hydroponics. Right. Like that, that vision, you know, maybe someday, maybe 100 years from now, they figure something out like that. But let's take. Let's take this one step at a time. Josh, you said that this is a story that you're telling, which I love. And I'm just curious if this is a story, if in the story of neon greens. I don't want to ask you what the end of the story is, because hopefully there is no end of this story. I mean, this is going to run for a lot of seasons. What's the climax of the story, though? Like what. What do you hope can be sort of the ultimate potential of this story?
- [39:43]
B
I see it as. As having the potential to affect people's lives and lifestyles in a way beyond that affects them beyond the store. And that's something that we talk about all the time as well, which is once they get, you know, their bodies in the store, once everyone sits down in a seat and enjoys a sal and sees the salad greens swinging overhead, that's one thing. But the most important part actually happens the moment when they leave the door. The moment every customer leaves is the moment of new beginnings. And it's the moment where they say, you know what I think I'm going to go to the farmer's market this weekend. This was great. I love the idea of local farms. I'm going to go support some local farmers. Or, you know what, I'm going to get in a hydrogen. I think I want to try and just, you know, noodle and see what I can do. We've seen so much of that from, you know, we've done classes in hydroponics and had lasting relationship with people who have started their own small hydroponic farms at home. It's building a world where people continue to invest in the systems that sustain them, food systems being a really important one. And so I would say increasing awareness to the point that we build a society that puts its interests in food systems above what we've maybe been trained to think as being more important. Whether it's convenience or whether it's speed or, you name it, that's, I think, where I want people to end up.
- [41:24]
A
Yeah, that's great. All right, Josh, last question for you. You know, I asked. I told you this. I asked a lot of the founders, especially those questions. I'll throw it at you, too, because you're. You're a new. A baby restaurateur. You've been in this for just a couple of years. And especially having come from such an interesting industry, such as the entertainment industry and coming into restaurants, which I totally agree with you. I think there's so much overlap and at the core of each of these industries is humanity and people and the stories that we tell. But based on everything you've learned, what's your advice to the future Josh Smiths out there who start to noodle with something in their basement, and then it leads them to open a restaurant.
- [42:09]
B
So I would. I'm going to do like one and a half answers to that. Sure. I'll say one. Start so small, start tiny. Start with friends and family, start with a farmer's market stall. Start with anything you can think of. And it's a little bit. I followed my own advice. A little bit. I did not follow my own advice. I think it's somewhere in the middle. But I started growing food hydroponically small. And with that, instead of going into building giant hydroponic fortresses, I collected so much data over the year, plus that I was growing hydroponically. I knew what the failure rate was, what the success rate was, what the grow rate was. I was doing calculations with the micromole levels of certain LED lights that were acting as grow lights. I had enough data that I was able to model in a way that served me me well. So I'd say start small and craft intentionally. And then on top of that, I would say, which I already got to a little bit before, which is know your why. It is the most important thing in the world. And, and anyone can ask me any question about Neon Greens at any point in the day. And I am so passionate about this. Even two years in it. It's, it's, it's really special. So I would say know your why. Know why you're telling your story and be able to communicate that to people, not only verbally, but make sure you're communicating that to everyone in every way that you are presenting your product. When it comes from how it's on the plate, what it looks like, what the name is on the menu, your branding, you name it. Use your why as your guide and light.
- [44:09]
A
That's great advice. Josh has been a lot of fun. Really appreciate your time today. Josh Smith, founder and owner of neon Greens in St. Louis. Thanks again.
- [44:17]
B
Yeah, thanks for having me.
- [44:18]
A
That was my interview with Neon Greens. Josh Smith. So what should you learn from this interview? Here are my seven takeaways. My first takeaway is that restaurants are telling a story, and the operator's conviction in that story determines its success. I love Josh's story for how he started Neon Greens. The fact that he was not in the restaurant industry, he was not a farmer, he was actually in show business. And then he got this hobby in hydroponics during COVID and turned it into this successful restaurant back in his hometown. But what I love about that is how much he draws the parallels to show business, to storytelling in the restaurant industry, which I think really connects with me. I'm sure it really connects with you as well. And if you draw that parallel, he talked about the fact that in show business, when you read a script or you see a project for the first time, time, the person who wrote it or is directing it, the creator of that project, when you see their conviction on the page, when you see the passion that they have for this project, he said, that's when you often know whether or not it will be successful. You know, Hollywood and show business, you often get these retreads of retreads. You get sequels or remakes or whatever it might be. And so often they're done plainly just for money. They're not done with passion behind them. And sometimes the best movies or shows, the ones that really kind of pop out of nowhere are the ones where you can tell there's really, there's really Heart inside it. There's. There's love that goes into making that thing. And that is so true in restaurants as well. And that's the point Josh was telling me when he said, you know, conviction from the founder, the owner, that is what really determines whether you're successful or not. If you're telling a story in your restaurant and you're passionate about that story, whatever that story might be, then you set yourself up for success. My second takeaway is that the supply chain needs to diversify, and hydroponics is just one solution. So Josh and I spoke, obviously, at a very fascinating time in the restaurant industry and specifically for supply chain, as we are seeing this cyclospora outbreak that is now all over the country, has sickened thousands of people and really bringing this discussion about the supply chain front and center for millions of consumers. Because the fact of the matter is cyclospora, no matter the source of this thing, it resulted from kind of a breakdown in, in supply chain safety and tracing. And so now there's lots of questions going around and lots of finger pointing. And the fact of the matter is, as Josh said, is we've really kind of gotten to this place where so much of our supply chain has been centralized around specific farms. You know, he pointed to lettuce as an example, where he says, you know, 98% of our lettuce is sourced from California and Arizona, Zona. And the more we've really centralized around that, you know, kind of small source for lettuce, it opens us up to more and more problems because we do not have a diversified approach to sourcing our food. And that's what he says needs to happen. Now, the crux of our conversation was really around hydroponics and farm to table and whether or not, you know, that like, local food movement that was really hot about 10 to 15 years ago, you know, whether or not that's coming back, if it will be bigger than it was before. And I think Josh has a really pragmatic approach to that idea because, you know, he says hydroponics is just one solution. The fact of the matter is, when it comes to supply chain, when it comes to feeding Americans, we have to have a diversified approach to food and sourcing so that hydro, hydroponics is a solution. Certainly the farms that we have existing today are a solution, but there are other solutions out there. And at the end of the day, if you decentralize it and, and diversify where those sources of food are coming from, then we stand a better chance at protecting that supply chain and making sure that things like cyclospora are less likely to happen. My third takeaway is that consumers crave transparency in their relationship with food. I think that's been true forever, but it's especially true today. You know, he told that story. Josh told the story of White Castle and the result coming out of Upton Sinclair publishing the Jungle, you know, over a hundred years ago, and the impact that that book had on the meat packing industry and consumers being their eyes being open to how the. The meat was getting to their plate. And he drew that, you know, comparison. He told that story. I've also heard the story before, too, about how White Castle kind of adjusted its operations in order to make their production more transparent. Because at the time, people were really not trusting the food source. And I think that, you know, that shows you that a hundred years ago, people were thinking about this, and today they're thinking about this. Certainly when foodborne illness happens, they think about it. And really, when it comes to social media and the fact that everything is constantly front and center all the time, you know, that especially makes transparency all the more important. And for neon greens, that transparency is about the hydroponics that's happening next door, the salad greens that are coming in via belt to the kitchen. Everything is right there for the guest to see. Josh said that customers want to be a part of the story of their food, you know, and. And certainly the conveyor belt shows that the window that they have into the hydroponics operation, it accomplishes that. It creates this great experience where your guests can see what's happening, can trust the source of their food, and can have fun while they're at it. I mean, I can tell you, I said in the interview, I'll say to again here, that would really impress my kids and might make them want to try a salad once in a while. My fourth takeaway is that every menu item has a story, and your employees should know how to tell it. You may be sensing a theme here when it comes back to this concept of story. Obviously, Josh talked a lot about that and so much of what his career has been rooted in to date. And I am so supportive of that notion, again, that everything about your restaurant is a. A story. And he pointed out that, you know, even the menu items, individual menu items, have a story. He says they have a why? Why did you put that menu item on the menu? What's the story of how it came to be? You know, depending on what kind of restaurant you have, and certainly if you're a franchisee this might be a little bit harder, but the more control you have over your menu decisions, the more I would suggest you think about that story you're telling in the food. Because again, it goes back to that transparency idea, that kind of customers are interested in this stuff. They want to see where their food is coming from, they want to see how it's coming together. And for the food on their plate, it's best if you can tell them a story of why those ingredients work well together. You can do that in presentation of the food, you can obviously do that in the flavor of the food. But one thing I wanted to call out here is that as Josh said, the employees get a chance to tell that story. So especially if you're a fast casual, you're walking down the line, picking your ingredients or something, telling the employee what you want to order. The employee should be trained to talk with the guest about that menu item, about those ingredients, about the story of the food. It pulls the customer in further into your concept and really solidifies that relationship that the guest has with your brand. My fifth takeaway is that the nexus of quality, value and experience will drive the future of rest restaurants. That was kind of a direct quote there from Josh and I totally agree with it. And again, getting back to this idea of what I see neon greens doing is very familiar to me in that if you had plucked neon greens out of 2026 and dropped it into 2012, it wouldn't have been so out of place because we saw a lot of this kind of excitement around local sourcing, farm to table hydroponics. Certainly the fast casual salad kids category really start to come up in the early 2000 and tens. And at that time, you know, I think we all thought this stuff was the future. It was going to take over. Everything was going to be healthy eating, everything was going to be locally sourced. And you know, fast forward now to 2026 and we know that really didn't, that wasn't the case. Yes, sweet green and chopped and just salad became national success stories to some degree. But we know that other parts of this really kind of fell away. Maybe they were just a little bit more, more trendy. So now as they start to become a trend again, as they take over, you know, the narrative today, the local sourcing coming back into vogue, Salad, fast casuals certainly having a moment for better or worse, about, you know, healthy eating being important, of course, and social media helping to tell that story at this moment of time. I was just so curious to know from Josh whether he thought These things were here to stay. Whether this was not a fad, a trend, but this was here. This was a movement that would kind of take, take over. And that perspective I think was so fascinating, that idea that he said no matter what happens from here, he's not sure it's definitely going to be hydroponics, a restaurant that is also a farm, farm to table. He does not sure those things will necessarily be big national success stories, but he does know that quality, value and experience, where those three things come together, that's where the customer is going. And I totally agree with that. Quality is always important. Of course, value right now we see especially important experience is coming up that that's more and more important. What is the intersection of those things? How do they all interact? Gen Z, I think is going to be exact, especially the barometer for this where Gen Z is driving so much of the narrative in restaurants today. They're pushing it all onto social media. You know, they come from a world that's all digital, but they're discovering what it means to be analog. They're discovering what it means to care about higher quality things. And we could go further in that direction to where hydroponics and local sourcing, all of those things are important again. But with the backdrop of being at a value and with the backdrop of including that experience, it will be fascinating to see. And I think again I agree with Josh that no matter what value and quality and experience are going to be the three things to think about how those three things intersect. My sixth takeaway is that your why isn't just your purpose, it is your decision making, making compass. Now I sometimes just see the universe speaking, saying this is, you know, this is can't be ignored. This is a trend. Something's happening with this. And I've got to tell you, I've had like five different people tell me in the last week use that idea of having a why about how that important that is. Now, of course, Simon Sinek wrote that book Start with a why, Gosh, ten years ago at least, right? I read that book. I mean I totally, I've heard this for years and years, but it's feels like, you know, more business owners, more leaders are coming back around to that idea of why do we do what we do. When you tap into that why, you can tap into that passion, that drive you have for success and it will feel more authentic to the guest as well. Josh brought that up over and over and over in this interview. That idea of a why. The menu items, he said each have to have a why. Neon Greens as a business has a very clear why. Why. But, you know, I like that part when he said toward the end of our interview, the fact that he makes every, every decision with intentionality. He's very intentional about any changes he brings to the business. And he vets all of those decisions against that guiding light. That is his why. And when he does that, as he says, it becomes a lot more straightforward as to what he needs to do with the business. Again, it's the guiding light. It's the compass. It's pointing the direction that Neon Green Z needs to go. What I so appreciate about Josh and his story at Neon Greens is that he's not telling me that he's going to go open a hundred of these. Josh is not here to go scale this thing quickly, make millions of dollars and sell it off and get rich. I mean, it's so clear that it's not as important to become gigantic as it is important to him to make some influence, to make an impact, to back up that why that he has at Neon Greens. And I just think that's so important to remember for every business out there, as you have a why, you need to stick to it and use that as your, your compass, your guide into what comes next. That leads me into my seventh and final takeaway, which is that big transformative ideas don't need scale to make an impact. Again, Neon Greens is one restaurant in St. Louis, but it's making an impact in its community, as Josh said. You know, he hopes that it can be influential to the people who come into Neon Greens and see this operation, it started even smaller than that. It started in his basement during COVID and now it's grown into this one restaurant. Maybe it grows into, including several, dozens maybe of locations. Maybe it goes to other cities. But again, going back to what I was just saying, it doesn't need to accomplish that to be transformative, to be influential to the people who experience it. Who knows how many kids are going to come through Neon Greens and be inspired to become farmers or test out school high hydroponics for themselves. That is where that transformative nature is not necessarily in the scale. And I think that's where, you know, he pointed out that if you go back to 2011, 12, 13, when we were first having that first wave of hydroponics, and we thought we were going to have skyscrapers growing vegetables all over the country, you know, that was. That was the mistake we made, that we immediately jumped to, how do we scale this idea? Josh isn't interested in necessarily that. He just wants to start small, start with that impact in his local community and go from there. Those are all my takeaways for today. I hope you enjoyed this episode. Please remember to subscribe to Takeaway wherever you listen to podcasts and leave some feedback. You can also email me@sam okasinforma.com thanks again and talk to you next week.