- September 3, 2026
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When Erica Spector Wishnow found herself on family road trips during the pandemic, she kept running into the same frustrating problem.
A vegetarian and mother of two young children, she wanted a quick, healthy meal on the go. Instead, every highway exit offered the same familiar choices — burgers, fries and fried chicken. While her family could grab food through a drive-thru, she often settled for an apple or a granola bar.
"I remember I kept saying, 'I’m just hungry. Why can’t I just get a fresh salad in a drive thru?’,” says Wishnow, 44. “There wasn’t an option.”
Today, the answer to Wishnow’s simple question sits on busy corners across Tampa Bay, where bright green buildings bearing the name Greenlane challenge decades of assumptions about fast food — and prove convenience and nutrition don’t have to be mutually exclusive. Instead of burgers and fries, customers drive away with oversized wraps, crisp salads and protein-packed boxes — all made fresh and served with the speed consumers expect from traditional drive-thru restaurants.
Wishnow opened her first Greenlane restaurant on Gandy Boulevard in Tampa in 2023 and now operates five locations throughout the area, with a sixth ready to open in Pasco County by the end of the year.
“It takes a lot of time and energy to build something from scratch,” says Wishnow, who splits her time between living in Connecticut and working in Tampa. “But I felt like I had nothing to lose. All I saw was upside and that was like the rocket fuel behind turning this idea into a reality.”
Much like Greenlane, Wishnow's path to entrepreneurship was not traditional.
She began her career in investment banking before entering the franchising world with her husband, Judd. In 2010, despite having no restaurant experience, the couple purchased their first 11 Dunkin' locations, in central New York state.
Many questioned whether the young entrepreneurs in their 20s could succeed.
One of those skeptics was Chris Kern.
At the time, Kern, 52, worked for Dunkin' Brands, overseeing hundreds of franchise locations throughout the Northeast. He remembers meeting Wishnow and her husband during franchise orientation, when they confidently declared they intended to own 100 stores one day.
"I laughed," Kern says. "I think I literally told them, 'Sure, we'll see about that.'"
Today, the couple’s company, Southpaw, owns more than 220 Dunkin’ and Taco Bell franchise restaurants across eight states.
A core defining characteristic of both Southpaw and Wishnow's approach to innovation is, as she says, relentlessness. "Every challenge is an opportunity to figure out another way through it," she says. "It’s honestly just really, tremendously hard work but you can’t take no for an answer.”
Kern and Wishnow talked often about building a brand together someday, and when the pandemic reshaped consumer behavior, the timing felt right.
"It just felt like now was our opportunity,” Wishnow says. “It was like the stars aligned, the time was right and we had nothing to lose. We wanted to put it all out there and we wanted to create the very best product for our guests.”
The pair built Greenlane from scratch.
"We created everything," Wishnow says. "From the menu and branding to the name, the colors, the font, the design of the drive-thru — every detail came from our brains to paper to the actual build."
The pandemic accelerated two trends that convinced the founders they were onto something innovative.
The first: drive-thrus became more important than ever as dining rooms closed across the country. Second: consumers became increasingly focused on health and wellness.
And despite these shifts in the market, few if any restaurants seemed to be responding by offering healthier options with the convenience of a traditional fast food drive-thru.
"We saw a huge gap in the market," Kern says.
Rather than creating another salad shop with premium prices, the founders envisioned something different: affordable, freshly prepared meals served quickly through a drive-thru-only format. A smaller building lowers costs, allowing Greenlane to serve up premium ingredients at a low price point of around $5 to $12 per entree.
Wishnow calls it "affordable luxury."
"We believe everybody should have access to healthy food," she says "People shouldn't have to spend their entire paycheck to eat well."
Even though Wishnow was in Connecticut and Kern in New Jersey, the founders intentionally chose Tampa as Greenlane's launch market — with Kern even moving his family to South Tampa to oversee their restaurant’s debut.
One of America's fastest-growing metropolitan areas, Tampa offered more than population growth. It represented a community, the founders believed, where outdoor living, fitness and wellness are priorities.
“Year round, people are outside,” Kern says. “They’re walking Bayshore Boulevard, biking, exercising, going to the beaches, and people are constantly looking to eat healthy and stay fit.”
The region also has a reputation for embracing new restaurant concepts, making it an ideal place to test and refine a new brand.
Since opening the original Greenlane location on Gandy Boulevard in 2023, the company has expanded to Dale Mabry HIghway, Fourth Street in St. Petersburg, Lutz and Wesley Chapel, while continuing to post year-over-year sales growth. Company officials decline to disclose specific revenue figures.
As awareness has increased, so has demand for catering and large group orders, creating another avenue for expansion. The duo also found support early on from NFL legend and Tampa Bay Buccaneers Super Bowl winner Rob Gronkowski, who is both an investor and brand ambassador for Greenlane. The now retired tight end is known to make surprise visits to Greenlane, surprising guests at the drive-thru window and serving up The Gronk salads and wraps.
Building Greenlane allowed both Wishnow and Kern to rethink what a drive-thru restaurant could be, without the restrictions of the legacy infrastructure that came with their franchised stores. Wishnow remains co-CEO of Southpaw — a job title she shares with her husband, Judd.
Greenlane stores have a footprint smaller than 2,000 square feet, operating a drive-thru and pick-up only model without a sit-in dining room. Customers don’t just drive around the striking green, lenticular buildings, Wishnow says, they drive through it — ordering from bright LED screens and menu boards while teams inside prepare fresh food in fully automated kitchens.
Of course, launching an entirely new restaurant concept has not been easy.
The founders say one of their biggest challenges isn't convincing people to eat healthy, it's convincing them that healthy food can actually come through a drive-thru.
"There has to be an education process," Wishnow says. "People don't realize they can get something fresh, filling and affordable without spending $25."
While Wishnow continues to seek new opportunities for this new fast-food category, she keeps in mind the forces that drove the innovation to solve the continuous loop of a problem in the first place: That and a lot of resilience.
"Don't be afraid to keep making mistakes," she says. "Ask for help. Don't be embarrassed."
