Honeygrow will hold grand opening for new State College shop. What to know
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- Honeygrow to open first Centre County shop at 170 E. Beaver Ave. Nov 17
- Menu offers customizable stir-fries, salads and honeybar desserts
- Company expects ~40 staff including Penn State students; hours 10:30 a.m. to 10 p.m.
After a delay, a new fast-casual stir-fry and salad chain is expected to open in downtown State College.
Honeygrow will launch its first Centre County shop at 170 E. Beaver Ave. with a grand opening on Monday, Nov. 17, after initially hoping to open on Halloween. The event will feature a ribbon-cutting ceremony at 10 a.m., plus a prize wheel, giveaways for guests and free T-shirts while supplies last.
Honeygrow CEO Justin Rosenberg, a Penn State graduate, said the company believed State College had strong potential as an expansion site long before opening the new shop just a block away from the university’s flagship campus.
“It’s beyond exciting,” Rosenberg told the Centre Daily Times in October. “To be on Beaver Avenue, of all places, is really a thrill. It’s a pretty big deal for us.”
The Philadelphia-headquartered company manages roughly 60 Honeygrow locations scattered across eastern and western Pennsylvania, Maryland, New Jersey, Virginia, New York, Delaware and Ohio. State College’s shop marks Honeygrow’s first central Pennsylvania location and its latest in a college town, joining sites near the University of Delaware, Rutgers and the University of Pennsylvania.
Once Honeygrow opens in State College, guests can try a wide range of stir-fry dishes and salad bowls featuring red coconut curry, sriracha tahini and Rosenberg’s favorite spicy garlic sauce, among other options. According to the company’s website, every salad and stir-fry dish is fully customizable with meat and vegetarian mix-ins, flavor preferences and other options to meet dietary needs.
The shop’s customizable dessert bowls, “honeybars,” feature fresh fruit, sweet toppings and local honey in flavors featuring key lime cheesecake, apple pie and brownie crumbles.
Rosenberg credited State College’s Green Bowl — the Chinese noodle and bowl shop at 131 W. Beaver Ave. — for helping to inspire what would become Honeygrow. He said eating a plant-based diet full of salads and stir-fry dishes helped get his health back on track after gaining weight as a college student.
“Nutrition really saved my life,” Rosenberg said. “I’ve been able to get my health together over the last 14 or so years. That was part of the influence, and a lot of it came from eating that kind of food at Penn State for four years.”
Honeygrow’s State College shop plans to operate from 10:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily. Rosenberg said the company expects to work with a staff of around 40 part- and full-time employees, including Penn State students.
Rosenberg founded Honeygrow in 2012. He joined Invent Penn State’s “Dare to Disrupt” podcast in 2024 to discuss the company’s origins, including how he pitched the concept to investors nearly 100 times before landing the deal.
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