The Granola Bar is about a lot more than granola. |Photo courtesy of The Granola Bar.
You could call them accidental restaurateurs.
In 2010, Julie Mountain and Dana Noorily were moms in the Connecticut suburbs of New York City. They had left high-flying careers (Mountain was in the music industry, and Noorily was in finance) in Manhattan to raise their small children. They met at a kid’s birthday party and found they clicked.
They had lunch. A connection was cemented.
“When I met Dana, my initial reaction was, ‘Wow, I want to work with this woman,’” said Mountain.
Fundamentally, they shared a goal: They were both stay-at-home moms who dreamed of doing something more.
Now they are co-founders and co-CEOs of the eight-unit concept The Granola Bar, which later this year is reaching a milestone in the chain’s growth. Coming later in 2026 is a flagship location (No. 9) near Grand Central station in midtown Manhattan, which will be their largest yet at 100 seats.
Simultaneously, they will also open a small takeout around the corner, dubbed The Granola Bar Takeaway (No. 10), which will test a grab-and-go variation of the brand as they consider next steps for growth.
The Granola Bar in Westport, Connecticut. | Photo courtesy of The Granola Bar.
The Granola Bar has evolved into an elevated brunch-all-day concept designed to meet guests where they are, whether that’s a quick morning coffee, mid-morning yogurt parfait pick-me-up, or a 2 p.m. egg wrap sandwich.
Typically, Granola Bar locations in the suburbs close at 3 p.m. The whole idea was to allow Mountain and Noorily to pick their kids up at school, after all. But the upcoming flagship will have happy hour and dinner hours (until 10 p.m.) to serve the tenants in the office building who tend to work late.
It’s a concept, the two partners say could become a national brand.
But how Mountain and Noorily got from that first lunch conversation about balancing motherhood and entrepreneurial dreams to national restaurant chain aspirations is a bit of a journey over 13 years.
And it started with granola.
Well, it actually started with the idea of granola. At that point in her life, Mountain said she had never made granola.
“If you had asked me in my 20s or even early 30s, would you be making granola in a few years, I would have been ‘absolutely not, how dare you.’ But that shifted quickly.”
Mountain said she was looking for “low-hanging fruit,” a business they could accomplish, make successful, and have fun doing it. At the time, Bare Naked granola was a hot brand. Mountain thought it would be a good category to elevate.
“I was like, what if we made the Prada of granola? What if we made the Bergdorf of granola?” she said.
And so, Mountain started making granola.
It was really meant to be a hobby, starts Mountain—the two have a habit of finishing each other’s sentences.
“It was a hobby start, but then it was, ‘oh, let’s just do this,’” Noorily added. “And then immediately, based on our chemistry and working together, we just never stopped. It was one thing led to another.”
Making granola in Mountain’s home kitchen led to a rented commercial kitchen, and then later working with a contract manufacturer. At that point, the two realized they needed a plan.
They found a mentor, who suggested that they bring it back under their control. They found a commercial kitchen in Westport, Connecticut, where they lived. The mentor noted it even had a front-of-house space they could make use of.
To which they responded, “What’s front of house?”
Opening a restaurant was, at the time, not part of the plan. But they realized there was an opportunity for a casual spot in the neighborhood that could meet a certain need.
So the two women created a menu, based solely on what they and their families would like to eat. They didn’t think about terms like “cross utilization,” or “P mix”, or any of the things they might consider now.
“We ran it by our kids. They were little, they couldn’t read,” said Mountain, but they got feedback. They hired a chef from Craigslist.
Seven months (and a lot of checks from their own wallets) later, they opened The Granola Bar, a little restaurant that was open 7 a.m. to 3 p.m.
On Day One, they served 350 people in a 2,000-square-foot space. Noorily said she ran to Trader Joe’s seven times to get ingredients. “We couldn’t come up for air,” said Mountain. “Our chef was upset.”
And in the first year, they did $1.2 million in sales.
Very quickly, the partners pivoted on their dreams of a CPG granola business to focus on the restaurant. And, though granola does run as a theme through the menu (and is sold at the restaurants), it became about a lot more than granola.
A top seller at The Granola Bar remains the avocado toast, for example, though the menu has grown to include breakfast and brunch options, like Sweet Potato Pancakes, a Parmesan Crusted Avocado Grilled Cheese and Latkes & Maybe Caviar. JJ Henao is the chain’s food-and-beverage director.
There’s a coffee program and cocktails. Though alcohol accounts for only about 4% of sales, having a bar has become an essential component of a brunch concept.
@thegranolabar Brunch dates turn into lunch dates around here… P.S. Our Maple Banana Oatmeal is a hidden gem on the menu — thank us later 🤍😉 #TheGranolaBar♬ Man I Need – Olivia Dean
The two opened a second location in Greenwich, Connecticut in 2016, using Westport as a commissary kitchen for baked goods. Then No. 3 in a Stamford office park.
At that point, the two took on an investment from a family office that fueled the next several units, moving into Long Island. Then, in 2019, Kimco Realty, a REIT with an “opportunistic investment side” bought out the earlier investors, Mountain said. Two more recent locations are in Kimco properties.
Now the chain has an average unit volume of about $2.5 million, Mountain said.
The flagship coming to 330 Madison will serve as a building amenity, with happy hour and a dinner menu. Catering, which is already about 8% to 10% of sales systemwide, will also be a big opportunity there, with more elevated offerings at deli catering pricing, said Noorily.
The Takeaway variant, which they described as “our greatest hits album,” also has potential for growth in smaller retail locations. The menu there will focus on coffees, dirty sodas, the toast platform and yogurt parfaits, as well as hot dishes.
“We really think Takeaway could have a life of her own,” said Noorily, adding that the brand is “obviously female.”
What Mountain and Noorily have learned over the years is that their stab-in-the-dark menu at the beginning was pretty dead on. About 80% of the items from the original menu are still on today, though now the concept has more seasonal rotations.
For a time, Granola Bar brought in a CEO with restaurant experience, Richard Zoob, formerly of Black Tap. But they ended up returning to the shared CEO seat.
After a decade of questioning themselves, now they feel the concept was right from the get-go.
“I think we really had something 12, 13 years ago that remains true today, which is: people want to eat what they want to eat when they want to eat it,” said Mountain. “This is not chef-driven, it’s customer-driven.”
The Parmesan-Crusted Avocado Grilled Cheese. | Photo courtesy of The Granola Bar.
Now their children have grown up and are in college. But the business that Mountain and Noorily have developed is part of the tapestry of their interwoven families.
“It’s a big part of who they are,” said Noorily of the kids.
“We’ve been able to be present,” added Mountain. They were there for the volleyball practice, the school plays and the dances. They remember both walking out of speech by famed restaurateur Danny Meyer to take calls from their respective kids.
Life is not so much about finding work-life balance, said Noorily. It’s more of a seesaw.
And see-saws take two.
“And that’s the partnership,” they said simultaneously.
