ST. LOUIS — Neon Greens, a quick-service salad concept that grows its own lettuce on-site using vertical farms, will open Tuesday, March 19, at 4176 Manchester Ave. in The Grove.
Ahead of the restaurant’s opening, owner Josh Smith is already thinking about the concept’s scalability and said he has “planted the seeds” for a second location in St. Louis.
After first picking up hydroponic gardening as hobby amid the Covid-19 pandemic, Smith quickly upped his efforts. Neon Greens sourced two, 400-square-foot hydroponic container farms from Freight Farms, a Boston-based agricultural technology company, which will allow the restaurant to grow about six-acres-worth of produce on-site year-round, he said.
The restaurant will grow three varieties of lettuce — green oakleaf, red sweet crisp and mizuna — on-site, and locally source its other produce.
The farms use what Smith called “a modified nutrient film technique” to grow its plants hydroponically, or without soil.
