MBA alumnus David Silverglide is the business brain behind the newest and greenest of America’s quick service concepts. Mixt Greens is a multi-unit, quick service eco-gourmet® restaurant concept that operates out of San Francisco, California.
David co-founded the operation after graduating from his MBA in 2004 and opened the first restaurant in April 2006. Two more followed in rapid succession and the company was named "the Greenest Restaurant in the San Francisco Bay Area" by a regional environmental non-profit that certifies eco-friendly restaurants. Jump forward three years and Mixt Greens has gone on to collect a number of accolades and has proved so successful that the investment vehicle of a large multinational corporation recently acquired the franchise with a view to rolling it out across the USA.
Not bad for a self-funded venture. Mixt Greens is the collaborative effort of David Silverglide, his wife Leslie Swallow (who did an MSc in Biodiversity, Conservation and Management at Oxford) and her brother, Andrew, a fine dining chef with over 13 years experience. All three share a passion for food and environmental sustainability and saw a gap in the market for a high quality, quick service restaurant serving environmentally responsible food.
The food is organic, sustainable, seasonal and sourced from local farms and it is served in containers made from one hundred per cent compostable corn. The buildings the company occupies are built with renewable, recycled, and environmentally friendly materials and kept clean with non-toxic biodegradable products.
Inventages Whealth Management has acquired Mixt Greens and will put it into a holding company with another restaurant group that will be converted into Mixt Greens outlets, enabling the brand to expand into Washington DC, Seattle and Los Angeles. “This has allowed us to grow our brand nationwide, almost overnight,” says David.
David credits his MBA with helping him found Mixt Greens and take it to the next level. “The courses in valuation and finance gave me the background to navigate the acquisition,” he says. “It allowed me to do the calculations myself and since day one, with the running of the business there have been aspects of the MBA course that I use all the time. To reduce costs we needed statistical predictions and models to work out what we produced daily, plus HR and marketing skills. The MBA equipped me with essential tools that I use every day.”