Tender Greens in downtown San Diego occupies a ground-floor space on West Broadway adjacent to the Sophia Hotel, running the chef-led fast-casual format that co-founders Erik Oberholtzer, Matt Lyman, and David Dressler launched in Culver City in 2006. Each location operates under its own head chef who sources seasonal produce — primarily from Scarborough Farms in Oxnard — and rotates specials around local harvests, a farm-driven counter-service model that shares the Embarcadero lunch corridor with Carnitas' Snack Shack - Embarcadero. The plate format anchors the menu: a grilled protein — albacore tuna, steak, chipotle chicken — set over a choice of salad, grain, or vegetable base, with sauces made in-house from scratch. The Sustainable Life Project, which Oberholtzer founded in 2009, provides six-month paid culinary internships to foster youth, and several graduates now hold leadership roles across the chain's 22-plus kitchens. Catering trays and boxed-meal packages serve the Broadway office corridor and the adjacent convention and hotel district, the same midday market supplied by waterfront counter-service concepts like Hazelwoods On the Bay on Harbor Drive. Large-format corporate catering builds — multi-tray salad, protein, and grain stations — handle the highest-volume orders the downtown kitchen fulfills for Seaport Village and Convention Center events.