Sweetgreen Inc. will make its market debut Thursday, as investors consider how the lunchtime salad chain will operate with workers slowly returning to offices.

On Wednesday evening, shares of the Culver City, Calif.-based company were priced at $28 a share in its initial public offering, above the $23 to $25 a share range the company had set last week.

Proceeds...

Sweetgreen Inc. will make its market debut Thursday, as investors consider how the lunchtime salad chain will operate with workers slowly returning to offices.

On Wednesday evening, shares of the Culver City, Calif.-based company were priced at $28 a share in its initial public offering, above the $23 to $25 a share range the company had set last week.

Proceeds from the offering are expected to be $364 million, based on 13 million shares sold.

Founded in 2007 by three 22-year-olds, Sweetgreen is a fast-food restaurant brand with 140 restaurants across 13 states and Washington, D.C. The company has built a supply chain around more than 200 domestic food partners, such as bakers and farmers to source its ingredients.

The company is coming public as the competitive restaurant industry continues to feel the disruptions caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, which has rattled supply chains, raised labor and product costs, and kept people out of offices, a key source of traffic at Sweetgreen’s urban locations during lunch hours.

The company is led by Jonathan Neman, one of its co-founders. Mr. Neman along with co-founder Nathaniel Ru served as co-chief executives from 2009 through December 2017, when Mr. Neman took the helm solely. Mr. Ru serves as chief brand officer, while its third founder, Nicolas Jammet, is the company’s chief concept officer.

Since the beginning of this year through to Sept. 26, Sweetgreen has generated revenue of $243.4 million. In comparison, the company had revenue of $274.2 million in 2019 and $220.6 million in 2020, hurt by pandemic-related disruptions.

So far this year, the company posted a net loss of $87 million. In 2020, the company had a loss of $141.6 million.

For many restaurants during the pandemic, digital orders have become a key source of revenue and an important way to interact with its customers. From the beginning of 2021 through to Sept. 26, Sweetgreen’s total digital revenue was 68% of its total revenue.

Sales through its owned digital channels represented 43% and 56% of revenue in 2019 and 2020, increasing to 50% and 75%, respectively, when including orders placed through third-party delivery apps.

The company plans to spend the money raised on general corporate purposes, which include working capital, operating expenses and capital expenditures, as well as developing the technology acquired in its recent acquisition of robotic-powered fast-food restaurant Spyce Food Co.

It said it may also use a portion to buy other complementary businesses or technologies, adding that it doesn’t currently have any targets.

In mid-September of 2019, Sweetgreen got an injection of $150 million from investors, valuing it at the time of that funding round at $1.6 billion.

At the $28 IPO price, the company is valued at roughly $3.42 billion, based on 122 million fully diluted shares.

The top three stockholders of the company are entities affiliated with Fidelity Investments Inc., T. Rowe Price and Revolution Growth, respectively holding 13.4%, 10.6% and 7.8% before the IPO.

Mr. Neman has a 2.6% stake, but has 22.8% of the shareholders’ total voting power. Those percentages are set to drop to 2.3% and 21.5% following the offering.

Its directors include Neil Blumenthal, co-CEO of eyeglass maker Warby Parker Inc., which also recently went public; AOL co-founder Stephen Case, who is also chief executive of investment firm Revolution; and Valerie Jarrett,

a former senior adviser to President Barack Obama.