Salted Restaurant Group Update | Shark Tank Season 11
Entrepreneur Jeff Applebaum pitched his food service company during
If you’re short on time, here’s a quick overview of what happened to Salted after
Jeff Applebaum appeared on
| Shark: | Result: |
| Kevin O’Leary | No offer |
| Rohan Oza | No offer |
| Lori Greiner | No offer |
| Barbara Corcoran | No offer |
| Mark Cuban | No offer |
Shark Tank Salted Update
- Entrepreneur: Jeff Applebaum
- Business: Delivery-first restaurant service brands
- Ask: $500,000 for 5% equity
- Result: No deal
- Shark: None
Founder of Salted, Jeff Applebaum states that his company is the largest delivery-first, restaurant group in the country. This concept is for today’s ‘health conscience’ generation, providing healthy options to customers, without ever building a physical restaurant.
They focus on delivery and have already partnered with every delivery platform on the market.
Jeff presents one of his brands, CaliFlower, which makes guilt-free, gluten-free pizzas, with cauliflower crusts. Another of his brands is Ginger Bird, which carries a vegan-friendly, soy-free, Chinese food menu.
Moonbowls, another brand, is a healthy Korean-inspired bowl concept. However, if customers want something green, his brand, $5 Salad Co., offers salads for as low as $5.
With these brands, the company can operate all of them out of the same kitchen. This allows Jeff to operate at lower costs, and share resources.
With this style of restaurant business, they do have some pick-up, but they are mostly delivery. Further, they do not offer dine-in.
Jeff’s pitch is energetic and showcases his idea well. Though the sharks like the food, they are less impressed when they learn that Salted has been through three different versions, and each failed.
Guest shark Rohan Oza wants to know more about Jeff’s background. He says that he has always loved food, but also building things.
Unfortunately, he’s on his third version of the company, which he initially started 5 years ago. Salted was originally an online cooking class, but it never scaled the way he wanted it to.
Then, he moved into the cooking kit space. However, 50% of those customers tend to cancel after their 30-day trial period.
In the month of filming, Salted earned $250,000 in sales through locations in LA, San Francisco, and Chicago. Additionally, he’s projecting to finish the year with $3 million in sales.
While this is good, the company will be net negative by about $750,000.
However, Jeff also revealed that he’s raised $5 million from other investors so far. That said, the investors haven’t made any money.
Barbara Corcoran hears this and immediately goes out.
Rohan is out next. Jeff made him nervous, and the concept was too scary for him.
Kevin O’Leary takes issue with the valuation and says the space is too competitive. For these reasons, he is also out.
Mark Cuban can’t see where the company stands out. When given the chance to explain, Jeff doesn’t give the answers Mark wants to hear, so he is out too.
This leaves Lori Greiner, who Jeff seems to be avoiding. She doesn’t want to work with someone who doesn’t want her help, so she is out too.
Jeff and Salted leave Season 11 without a deal, but we’ll catch up with them in our
We have good news to share in our Salted update. The company is still in business and has expanded to 17 kitchens. Annual revenue is reported to be $1 million -$2.5 million per location.
Further, the company recently raised $10.5 million and plans on expanding to 60 locations by the end of 2024.
Currently, Salted runs out of Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Columbus, Houston, Austin, Atlanta, Philadelphia, and New York. They’ve also rebranded Ginger Birds to Ginger Bowls, and now have 6 brands in total.
It looks like the future is bright, and we can’t wait to see where our next Salted update takes us!
Before you go, don’t forget about the other products featured in Season 11 Episode 23:
For even more on companies and products, be sure to stop by our Season 11 products page.
Kimberly is a writer for Shark Tank Recap. She has written episode summaries and updates across multiple seasons of Shark Tank, with a focus on complete and accurate information since 2021. She believes that getting the business aspects of each deal correct is extremely important for viewers and fans. Her favorite Shark Tank products are The Wobbles and Rocketbook!