Honeygrow aims to be a national brand. Here’s where the Philly company is planning new locations.

Honeygrow keeps growing.

The fast casual eatery, based in Center City, plans to open up to 18 new locations next year, following 17 new outposts in 2025, founder and CEO Justin Rosenberg told The Inquirer on Monday.

“It was definitely a good year,” said Rosenberg, adding that the company is “just continuing to build the pipeline for 2026 and beyond.”

Honeygrow sells made-to-order stir-fries as well as salads and desserts. Since launching in 2012, the company has grown to 71 locations across several states, including Ohio, Massachusetts, Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, and New York.

Philadelphia-area stores include Center City, Kensington, University City, North Philadelphia, Bala Cynwyd, and Cherry Hill.

The company’s expansion plans include adding locations in Ohio and New Jersey, as well as in Boston. The eatery is also currently in negotiations to bring Honeygrow to the Detroit metropolitan area, a new market, said Rosenberg.

Honeygrow also aims to open a location in Middletown, Del.

As of February 2024, Boston was the company’s most profitable market, but since then, Philadelphia has caught up, he says.

“Saleswise, it’s kind of neck and neck between certain Philly stores and our two Boston stores,” Rosenberg said.

Further expansion in Philadelphia is also possible.

“We are always looking at Philly,” Rosenberg said. “We’ve been poking around South Philly for a while. We just haven’t found the right opportunity.”

The company typically seeks 2,500-square-foot locations for new stores, but Rosenberg says it’s a competitive market for that kind of real estate.

“One of the things that has made us successful — and I give credit to my team for this — is that we’ve been very disciplined on growth, just saying, look, if we can’t get the deal we need in terms of underwriting, let someone else take it,” he said.

The company employs roughly 2,000 people, and each new store adds some 30 new hires, Rosenberg said.

Some of the considerations when looking at new markets include what other fast casual concepts are in the area, and how they’re doing, Rosenberg said.

“If a Starbucks is underperforming in that market, that’s certainly going to spook us. Or a Chick-fil-A, if it’s below average unit volume, it’s probably not the right market for us,” he said.

On the flip side, if a Chipotle, Chick-fil-A, Starbucks, Raising Cane’s or another brand is doing well in an area, Rosenberg said, “we feel that those would be very similar customers to ours. We’re willing to put a restaurant in there and see what happens.”

The plans for new locations come as the company shuttered some stores in Chicago, Washington and New York in 2018 after rapid expansion plans. Some stores were “dragging down profitability,” Rosenberg has said, and he has attributed closures to growth that happened too quickly as well as poor real estate.

Since then, the company has roughly tripled in size, said Rosenberg, adding “you just keep learning with every opening that you have.”

“My mission remains the same,” he said. “I want to build something that’s from Philadelphia — make this a national, if not international, brand that we can be proud of.”