Silvergreens, the fast-casual concept founded in Isla Vista in 1995 by restaurateur Jay Ferro, is preparing to open a new location at 1001 State St., inside the Amazon building.
Following a soft opening for Amazon employees in mid-April, the location is expected to open to the public by the end of the month.
The space combines a café, coffee shop and grab-and-go market, offering salads, wraps, sandwiches, soups, protein boxes and fresh sides designed for both immediate use and takeaway. The format allows customers to dine in or take items to go, with an emphasis on speed and ease.
While the name may read as a return, Silvergreens has remained active in Santa Barbara, most recently through grab-and-go formats at the Santa Barbara Airport. That presence ultimately led to the downtown project.
“Amazon had seen what we were doing at the airport and reached out,” Ferro said. “We’ve spent about the last year getting this ready.”
Much of the food is prepared fresh daily through Ferro’s existing Kyle’s Kitchen locations, which operate as commissary kitchens, then delivered to the downtown site.
Packaging is designed to keep items fresh until they are ready to be eaten. Compartmentalized salad bowls allow ingredients to be mixed at the time of eating.
“We’re trying to engage with that busy professional who wants high-quality food, but their lives are on the go,” Ferro said.
Coffee will be provided by Handlebar, with pastries from Renaud’s. Ferro said he selected Renaud’s based on long familiarity with the brand and chose Handlebar after surveying Amazon employees on their coffee preferences.
“We wanted this to feel very Santa Barbara,” Ferro said, pointing to partnerships with longtime local businesses. “These are brands people here already know and trust.”
The concept is designed to function as both a workplace resource and a public-facing café, offering a flexible option for quick meals as well as take-home items.
“We expect a lot of people will come in, grab lunch and pick up meals for later, almost like a meal-planning stop as much as a place to eat,” Ferro said.
The original Silvergreens, launched near the University of California, Santa Barbara, was an early entrant in what would later become the fast-casual salad category. At the time, Ferro said, few concepts centered on customizable, health-focused meals.
“I didn’t really know anyone else doing salads that way,” he said. “Ten years later, you see Sweetgreen and Tender Greens. But we were doing that back in the day.”
Ferro said the new iteration is designed to extend beyond a single location, particularly as more workplaces look for ways to provide food options on-site.
“The goal isn’t just to build cafés,” he said. “It’s to help businesses feed their teams in a way that’s affordable and nutritious.”
He said the concept reflects an effort to adapt the original Silvergreens model to current habits around convenience and flexibility.
“It’s been about taking what we started and making it work for how people actually live now,” he said. “I hope it becomes a new way for people to feed themselves and their families, something that’s healthy, flavorful and easy to come back to, and something people feel connected to.”
