Good salad bar?

The Spire restaurant at the Marriott was a special-events only space last I was there.

It is interesting that "the salad bar" was the craze at one point. Seemed like every meal started with "feel free to visit the salad bar whenever you're ready." Now, hardly anyone has them. What changed?

My guess is changes in food safety regulations combined with the public's image of food safety combined to greatly reduce the number of salad bars we see. I'm sure product waste also had something to do with it.

I wish we'd get a Sweet Tomatoes here. The hubby went to the one in Orlando, and raved about it...and the closest one is several states away.

Years ago I was the salad bar chica at the old Victoria Station (circa 1972 - yikes!) I remember telling one of the ladies serving herself at the salad bar to "... be sure and get the laddle to the bottom of the blue cheese dressing crock to get up the large chuncks of blue cheese that sink to the bottom!" Then I stood there and watched , horrified, as she dug around with the dressing laddle only to to pull up an ashtray from the bottom of the crock.
Yeah , I didn't have to refill anything on that salad bar for the rest of THAT lunch.

ugh.

My guess is changes in food safety regulations combined with the public's image of food safety combined to greatly reduce the number of salad bars we see. I'm sure product waste also had something to do with it.

Actually the Whole Foods salad bar was not only very wasteful but also very profitable. Getting people to pay up to $7 a pound for basic veggies or even blue cheese crumbles or other more gourmet foods like artichoke hears is very profitable for Whole Foods. Their whole direction is in prepared foods and food bars... go to any of their newer bigbox stores and you'll see this strategy in action. They now cater to the folks who don't want to cook.
But salad bars and buffets are still uber-gross in almost every case.

I'm guilty of enjoying Shoneys as a kid.

Jason's Deli on Hurstbourne. I know its a chain but it's by my office and we lunch there about once a week. They profess that all the veggies are organic and it is a salad bar with great variety. Plus at lunch, if you're just having salad or soup and salad you can bypass the order line and head right to the cashier.

I keep hearing they are looking to add a second location - perhaps in the shopping center where Wild Oats used to be? That is second hand info, however.

Jason's always looks slammed at lunch - can you get in and out in a relatively short time at, say, 12:30 or 1:00?

TP, It's all in a matter of timing - we went to Jason's on a Monday at 11:40 and there were 4 cars in the parking lot. By the time we left the line was slammed. On a Wed/Thursday, you do better later. The key is if you get the salad bar bypass the line, stay on the left and go right to the cash register.

Oh oh oh... I have a fetish for Doll's like nothing else. Seriously, I've never eaten so frequently anywhere else in my life. Been doing Doll's for nearly a decade. Spices, produce, bakery, and beer selections top my list in a big way. Locally owned and if you're location is anywhere east or central, you're probably closer to it than you think.

Oh oh oh... I have a fetish for Doll's like nothing else. Seriously, I've never eaten so frequently anywhere else in my life. Been doing Doll's for nearly a decade. Spices, produce, bakery, and beer selections top my list in a big way. Locally owned and if you're location is anywhere east or central, you're probably closer to it than you think.

Thanks for the "heads up" Jackie.

I'm constantly running into traffic on 64 West when I could cut up to Doll's and catch 71 South @ Zorn..

Years ago I was the salad bar chica at the old Victoria Station (circa 1972 - yikes!) I remember telling one of the ladies serving herself at the salad bar to "... be sure and get the laddle to the bottom of the blue cheese dressing crock to get up the large chuncks of blue cheese that sink to the bottom!" Then I stood there and watched , horrified, as she dug around with the dressing laddle only to to pull up an ashtray from the bottom of the crock.
Yeah , I didn't have to refill anything on that salad bar for the rest of THAT lunch.

Memories . . . I remember working with one place that wanted to keep large containers of everything on the salad bar, to make it look as if there were a "veritable cornucopia" of offerings. As many of the items were expensive - and several were not the most popular - they used to dump (clean/sterile) ash trays in the bottom of the containers, to fill up space and make it appear that there was more than there really was. Their blue cheese dressing container always contained a number of ash trays! (they had selected ladles which were relatively small, and ash trays which were relatively large, so it should be impossible to scoop up an ash tray)

Sort of not that dissimilar to (in the old days) having Campbell's Soup shooting commercials, but filling the bowls first with glass marbles to that all the vegetables would show up in pictures!

Rainbow Blossom on Lexington. $5.99 pound