Sweetgreen
Sweetgreen's second lawsuit in eight years. Same violations. Different plaintiff.
Filed in January 2024 in federal court in New York, this case alleged that Sweetgreen's website had unlabeled buttons, broken pop-ups, missing image descriptions, and other failures that blocked blind users — eight years after the company had supposedly fixed all of this in a 2016 settlement.
Sweetgreen settled again in May 2024. This case has become the textbook example of why accessibility is not a one-time project. Every new feature, every redesign, every third-party widget added to a site creates new ways to fail. Compliance has to be maintained the way security or uptime is maintained.
Court
Eastern District of New York
Case
Colak v. Sweetgreen, Inc.
2:24-cv-00198
Outcome
Settled May 2024 for undisclosed amount
What went wrong on the site
Each visual below shows what visitors with disabilities actually experienced.
Screen reader announces:
"Image. Image. Image."
Product images and key visuals had no alt text — screen readers announced 'image' or the file name instead of describing what users were looking at.
WCAG 1.1.1 Non-text Content
<div onClick="buy()">
<div>Buy now</div>
</div>
Custom controls had no ARIA roles, so screen readers could not announce what they were or what state they were in.
WCAG 4.1.2 Name, Role, Value
Click only — Tab key does nothing
Core interactions required a mouse. Keyboard-only users could not navigate menus, complete checkout, or operate widgets.
WCAG 2.1.1 Keyboard
Are you sure?
This dialog has no role="dialog"
Focus escapes the modal · No Escape-to-close · No focus trap
Pop-ups appeared without notifying screen readers, trapped keyboard focus, or had no way to dismiss without a mouse.
WCAG 4.1.2 Name, Role, Value
Sources & documentation
Is your site exposed like Sweetgreen's was?
Run a free scan to find out which of these violations exist on your site right now.
Scan my siteAll Restaurants cases
See the full restaurants risk landscape
Other cases, top WCAG failures for restaurants, and what to fix first.
More B2C cases
Retail / E-commerce
Target Corporation
First major e-commerce ADA settlement in U.S. history; established that commercial websites are covered by ADA and class-action exposure is real — Target paid $6M+ in 2008.
Retail / E-commerce
Fashion Nova
Largest disclosed ADA web accessibility class settlement in recent years at $5.15M — and the DOJ intervened in 2026 to argue even this wasn't enough, signaling elevated federal scrutiny.
Streaming
Netflix
Established that the ADA applies to web-only businesses with no physical stores; Netflix paid $795k in fees/monitoring and committed to 100% captioning of its entire streaming library.