Mad Greens launched about 20 new salads, warm bowls, wraps and sides to reimagine the menu. | Photos courtesy of Mad Greens
When Golden, Colorado-based Mad Greens opened its first location 20 years ago, the better-for-you fast casual segment was in its infancy. Fast-forward to 2026 and concepts serving bowls, salads, wraps and smoothies with a health focus are everywhere.
Competing on health claims alone is no longer enough.
“There’s a ton of competition out there and nine times out of 10, they lean towards just the healthy aspect of the menu. We wanted to lean into food that’s a little bit better for you but also craveable,” said Jeff DiSanto, director of culinary for the now 23-unit Mad Greens. For him, that meant taking a step back and rolling out a major menu makeover, building out items that deliver more flavor and more variety while still staying grounded in fresh, made-from-scratch food and nutritious ingredients.
Working with San Francisco-based consultancy The Culinary Edge, the team overhauled 80% of the menu, introducing 20 new dishes across every category: Salads, warm bowls, wraps and sides.
“We did it in three phases because we knew that if we just plopped this in front of our operators all at once, it would be a recipe for disaster,” said DiSanto. “It was a year-plus in the making.”
Leading with flavor
Salads are still a key menu category, but the new chef-driven builds and elevated flavors set them apart. The Cowboy Cookout Steak Salad, for example, features warm, grilled steak tenderloin—not the more common sirloin—with avocado, corn, black beans, crispy onions, chipotle ranch and a barbecue drizzle. The same marinated and grilled steak goes into the Blue Moon Steak Salad, which gets its name from blue cheese in the dressing and more crumbles in the salad.
A Chili Lime Chop Salad layers lemon herb-roasted shrimp with cotija cheese, avocado and pickled red onions tied together with a cilantro chili lime dressing, while the Orchard Salad combines Fuji apples, candied pecans, cranberries and goat cheese with a honey balsamic vinaigrette. DiSanto and the team even upgraded the Caesar salad, adding Parmesan crisps for texture to the mix of herb-grilled chicken, chopped romaine, house-made focaccia croutons and shaved Parmesan. It’s tossed with a thicker creamy Caesar dressing made in house.
“We used to add tomatoes to the Caesar, that’s what made it ‘Mad,’” he said, “but you don’t typically go to a restaurant and get a Caesar with tomatoes. Nine out of 10 guests would ask for no tomatoes, so we now leave them out and serve it with a lemon wedge to add the necessary acid.”
The MADiterranean Bowl boasts a rainbow of colors and flavors.
Warm bowls are now a larger menu category, as Mad Greens rolled its mac ‘n cheese bowls into the grain bowl section. The latter are built on a new five-grain rice blend and include the best-selling Heart & Seoul Steak Bowl with that same grilled tenderloin, charred broccoli, rainbow slaw, edamame, cucumbers, wontons, sesame seeds, sesame ginger dressing and gochujang drizzle. “We’ve also developed a MADiterranean Bowl, my favorite,” said DiSanto. Herb-grilled chicken, whipped feta and a really fresh green herb drizzle are points of difference.” It also includes pita chips, tomatoes, cucumbers, pickled red onions, chopped fresh mint and green goddess dressing. For vegetarians, there’s a Sriracha Sesame Tofu Bowl.
Of the eight warm bowls, three are mac ‘n cheese-based, incorporating the flavors of green chilies, elote and other bold ingredients. Wraps are also heartier in flavor and texture, filled with some of the same proteins and condiments. The expanded Sides section includes dips like Loaded Mediterranean Hummus and Creamy Whipped Feta with honey and spice; all are served with focaccia or raw veggies.
The steak bowls are the most expensive menu items, averaging around $16.95, but the premium ingredients, chef-driven cooking technique and generously-portioned items deliver value, DiSanto believes. Sides are on the low end, priced about $4.95.
Pacing the change
The makeover did mean omitting some menu items, but “we really didn’t think that would have a huge negative impact because we were reloading the menu with a lot more craveable options,” he added.
The first phase was relatively easy—a couple of side dishes and two salads were added to start. “Phase two was the heavy lift for us,” said DiSanto. “We launched five salads, four grain bowls, some wraps and several dressings.” Stage three was less complex.
Implementing the changes in stages was beneficial both to operations and the guest. “The team really got to learn about the new items and new flavors so that they could describe them and speak positively about them to customers,” he added. “And who knows, there may be a Phase Four.”
The Spicy Street Corn Wrap is overstuffed with flavorful ingredients.
One would assume that this menu makeover must have required adding a lot of new SKUs.
“We tried to use as many pre-existing SKUs as possible, but by the time we got to the end, we were probably sitting on 10 to 15 new ingredients,” said DiSanto. “But those are all cross-utilized across the menu. For example, a salad dressing turned into a base for either a marinade or a secondary sauce. We were super-mindful of that piece, taking care not to overload the kitchens since they have to work in a small footprint.”
Mad Greens is now in three markets—Arizona, Colorado and Austin, Texas—and DiSanto couldn’t always source the exact same ingredients for all three. So one brand of sherry vinegar may have to be swapped out for another, but the recipes remained pretty much the same.
DiSanto comes from a fine-dining background, so presentation of the bowls, salads and wraps was top of mind. “A color component was really important, as was the way the ingredients were mixed together. I wanted them to stand out,” he said. He also paid attention to the cut size of the proteins and vegetables. “These are all new dishes so they had to have a newer look,” said DiSanto.
Keeping the favorites
Overhauling 80% of the menu means 20% of the items are still around. What made the cut?
“The Mangocado, also known as the Don Quixote, was our No. 1 best-selling salad, so that remains,” said DiSanto, “but it has fallen down in the menu mix. I think the others stand out more.”
The Mad Cobb salad is still on the menu, as a cobb salad is a must-have, like a Caesar, he noted. And the classic Mad Mac Bowl made with cavatappi pasta, white cheddar and cheese sauce remains.
Additionally, guests can still build their own bowls and salads, customizing ingredients and builds to their taste.
But to ease execution, Mad Greens ditched the fresh-pressed juice section previously in each restaurant. “We knew going in [to the overhaul] that this was a heavy lift for us,” said DiSanto. “We offered four to six juices, and all the fruits and vegetables had to be washed, cleaned, cut down and weighed, which amounted to one-and-one-half hours of prep a day. Once we front-loaded with the new recipes, we took the juice category off the board.”
Also eliminated were the panini presses, used to heat up pita breads. Focaccia replaced the pitas, so that equipment was no longer needed.
In the end, Mad Greens’ new menu is “paying attention to what people crave and we’re making sure it’s worth the visit. That means serving something you can’t easily recreate at home, giving guests a reason to come back again and again,” said DiSanto.
