Honeygrow officially opened its downtown State College restaurant Monday morning with a ribbon-cutting ceremony at 10 a.m., following a weekend of preview events leading up to launch day.
The restaurant, located in the Pugh Centre at 160 E. Beaver Ave., hosted a family-and-friends event Saturday and a public preview Sunday before opening its doors to customers on Monday. Free T-shirts were available to guests on opening day while supplies lasted.
The restaurant chain features Honeygrow’s signature open-kitchen setup and menu of made-to-order stir-frys, salads and honeybars.
General manager Patrick Joy said the opening has been years in the making and represents a significant milestone for the company.
Its launch marks a return to Penn State for founder and CEO Justin Rosenberg, who graduated from the university before starting the Philadelphia-based chain in 2012. The company now operates nearly 60 locations across multiple states.
“It means a lot to finally be back in Penn State,” Joy said. “Our founder, Justin [Rosenberg], is a Penn State alumni, same with our COO, Walt [Harkins]. So we’re really glad to be in State College… It was definitely a process, to say the least, to get this place open. We wanted to open a while ago, but had a few delays with construction and some other things, but we’re glad to be finally opened.”
Honeygrow had sought a State College location for more than a decade as it continued expanding throughout the Northeast and Midwest over the years.
“It’s a huge deal,” Joy said. “They’ve been trying to open up one here since 2012. They just want to be able to support it, and make sure it was exactly what it had to be to support the community, the students, the locals, everyone. We’re just really glad that it’s open. I’m really happy that my team’s here. They all stuck with me through the whole process. So we’re just super excited to get going.”
The restaurant’s staff is largely made up of students who were hired well before the opening date but stayed on through construction delays.
“I want to say at least 90 to 95% of my staff are Penn State students,” Joy said. “Some of them were hired way back in September when we thought we were going to open up in October. So the fact that they stayed with us the whole time was just great.”
According to Joy, the location plans to begin offering catering and will participate in community partnerships and events once operations stabilize.
“Here in a little bit, we’ll be back up to open up for catering, doing fundraising nights,” Joy said. “We have two things planned with THON that we’re working on, so we’re really excited to get all that started.”
Honeygrow is open everyday from 10:30 a.m. to 10 p.m.
