The Beauty Comeback, The Great Coffee Shakeup, and The $15 Salad Problem

the one about food.....

🌶 THE GIST OF IT

Welcome to your biweekly roundup of all the contemporary cool girl news that’s fit to print. We’re breaking down the second act of a beauty founder, the rise of the casual drink, the fall of the fancy salad and so much more.

Also inside: the 50 year (!!!) mortgage and a historical fiction book rec about trailblazing women fighting for American literacy.

Let’s go.

💄 SKIMS Beauty and the Nuance of Ami Colé’s Second Act

What’s Up: Beauty industry news exploded with the announcement that Diarrha N’Diaye, founder of the recently shuttered cult-favorite Black beauty brand Ami Colé, is joining Kim Kardashian’s Skims as Executive Vice President of Beauty & Fragrance.

The Insight: This move is a fascinating, fraught case study in what it takes for a Black female founder to achieve scale in a market that loves to celebrate small brands but rarely funds them for the long haul. N’Diaye’s own essay about Ami Colé’s closure highlighted the near-impossible metrics and data-access gaps facing Black entrepreneurs. While many in the community are genuinely happy to see N’Diaye secure a powerful, well-resourced role that grants her the infrastructure and capital she couldn’t access independently—a necessary “check” and professional victory—the sentiment isn’t simple.

There is an understandable tension: some critics view the move as a loss of a vital, independent voice and express concern over the optics of a talented Black leader joining a brand that has often been accused of exploiting or appropriating Black culture for profit. The situation reveals a structural economic reality: sometimes, the only viable path to genuine influence and the ability to scale inclusivity (the goal of Ami Colé) is through the financial and logistical machine of a massive, Kardashian-backed entity. This is not a simple narrative of betrayal or triumph, but a nuanced reflection of the systemic barriers that force brilliant founders into difficult, high-stakes alliances.

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🥗 Sweetgreen’s Slowdown: What the Salad Bowl Says About the Consumer

What’s Up: Sweetgreen, the darling of the upscale fast-casual movement, is hitting a rough patch. Recent financial results show negative same-store sales growth, a drop in traffic, and widening net losses, despite efforts to automate with its “Infinite Kitchen.”

The Insight: The performance of Sweetgreen is a direct reflection of shifting consumer sentiment and the ultimate limit of the “lunch premium.” For years, the demographic of cultured, urban professionals was willing to pay upwards of $15-20 for a bespoke salad bowl, symbolizing convenience, health, and a certain aspirational lifestyle. Sweetgreen’s struggle suggests that amid economic uncertainty, this discretionary spending is the first to be cut.

This isn’t just a challenge for one company; it’s a canary in the coal mine for the entire “better-for-you” fast-casual category. Consumers are either retreating to cheaper, more value-driven alternatives (traditional fast food) or opting to save money by preparing their expensive, healthy bowls at home. It highlights that no amount of branding or efficiency (like the Infinite Kitchen) can insulate a premium product from a market that is suddenly prioritizing savings over convenience and daily health status signaling. The salad bowl, once a status symbol, is now simply too high a price for a daily habit.

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☕️ Starbucks’ China Strategy: A Smart Retreat?

What’s Up: Starbucks is offloading a majority 60% stake in its lucrative Chinese retail operations to the Chinese investment firm Boyu Capital in a deal valued at approximately $4 billion, while retaining 40% and licensing its brand.

The Insight: On the surface, this might look like a retreat, but it’s a strategically smart defensive move that echoes McDonald’s successful divestment model in the region. Starbucks faces intense, hyper-localized competition, primarily from fast-growing, cheaper rivals like Luckin Coffee, which has rapidly surpassed Starbucks in store count. By selling a controlling stake, Starbucks achieves three things: 1) It immediately pockets significant cash; 2) It insulates its bottom line from the risks of a slowing Chinese economy and rising U.S.-China political tensions (tariffs, boycotts); and 3) It gains a Chinese partner with “deep local knowledge” to navigate expansion into smaller cities, streamline operations, and aggressively compete on price and speed—areas where the foreign brand struggled. This move transforms Starbucks from a burdened, full-scale operator to a profitable minority shareholder and brand licensor, ensuring it still profits from the Chinese market’s growth without bearing all the operational and political risk.

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🥤 The Age of the Corporate Elixir: Why Fast Food is Chasing Drinks

What’s Up: Major quick-service restaurant (QSR) chains, including McDonald’s with the now-shuttered CosMc’s concept and Taco Bell’s Live Más Cafes, are aggressively investing in specialty, custom-order, high-margin beverage businesses.

The Insight: The beverage game has become the final frontier of fast-food profit. Drinks have a significantly higher profit margin than food—a few cents in syrup and ice can sell for several dollars. For QSRs, drinks solve a critical business problem: the drive-thru bottleneck. Specialty drinks, with their custom toppings and flavor combinations, demand a higher price point and are easily added to an existing order, dramatically increasing the Average Unit Volume (AUV) without requiring a major kitchen overhaul. Taco Bell’s Live Más Cafe, focused on flashy beverages, and McDonald’s’ efforts show that these giants are targeting Gen Z’s preference for complex, customizable, and visually appealing “experience” drinks. This is less about food and more about dominating the afternoon “snack and sip” market, turning existing locations into high-efficiency, liquid-profit centers.

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TT BOOK REC: The Giver of Stars

If you’re looking for an unforgettable saga of female resilience, deep friendship, and the quiet power of literature, this is it. Set in Depression-era Kentucky, the novel follows a remarkable group of women who, as part of Eleanor Roosevelt’s WPA program, form the Packhorse Library—riding out into the treacherous mountains to deliver books to the isolated, book-starved poor. It’s a beautifully written, character-driven story that moves beyond simple historical fiction to explore the constraints placed on women, the importance of education, and the enduring connection that forms between women when they unite against convention and patriarchal control.

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🧠 CULTURE CANDY (links to make you cool to talk to)

1. Generational Wealth, Deferred: The True Cost of a 50-Year Mortgage- We analyze President Trump’s floating of a half-century mortgage, dissecting whether a slightly lower monthly payment is worth nearly double the interest and a massive loss of equity for millennial homebuyers.

2. Orange is the New Power Color: The Psychology of Apple’s New ‘Black’- Why is Apple betting that the new, vibrant Orange iPhone will become the next must-have status symbol? We explore how color psychology drives tech adoption and cultural trends.

3. The Art of the Unscripted: Deconstructing the Political Speaking Style- A fascinating linguistic and political analysis of how a public figure’s unique, often rambling, speaking style—known as “the weave”—is meticulously crafted to bypass traditional media and activate core supporters.

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   🖤 UNTIL NEXT TIME...

   The career comeback is still a thing, drinks are the new dinner, and China is still a formidable power player in America-based business. You? You’re watching it all and probably counting the calories in a dirty soda.

   xx Jenn,
   Thoughtful Threads
   Your URL safe space for good taste and smart takes

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