Giardino Gourmet Salads

The best place for a quick healthy meal! The salad possibilities are endless and I love their salad of the month
I am sad they closed the location on Miami Beach.

A salad for every craving. Whether you’re looking for a green delight tossed with something tangy and sweet or garlicky and creamy, Giardino makes all of their dressings in-​house. Behind each of the salad chefs, you’ll see a fully stocked bar on wheels with an abundance of flavors.
I popped in two days ago for an afternoon meal and the dude behind the counter was on his A game. As he attentively addressed every customer who walked through the door, he made my Habanero salad to perfection. The citrus cilantro vinaigrette paired perfectly with the crispy romaine, garbanzos, Florida avocados, tomatoes and cucumber.
I ordered the same thing for delivery today and sadly, the avocado (perhaps the most key ingredient) was missed. It’s all good though. Where there is a sea of unhealthy speedy lunch time options, Giardino is a lighthouse.

Having meetings few blocks away, I was looking for a healthy and fairly priced, quick lunch. This place was absolutely great. I am a huge salad fan and mine was succulent. Whether you made your own with their fresh ingredients or pick up one of their recipes, you won’t be disappointed. Everything is fresh, healthy and made in house.
The nice touch is that the store carries tons of healthy product from special water to energy bars or low cal sodas.
Many thanks to the gentleman who serves me (maybe one of the owner) who was friendly, wise in his advices and told me all about the «spirit» and goal of this joint.

These are seriously the best salads out there. The customer service is fantastic, and the employees are always friendly and smiling. I’ve been to this location probably over 20 times in the past couple of years and have never had a bad salad.
Try the miso dressing, as well as the soaked Italian croutons!!!
PS The location on 57^th and Flagler is also great, although I’ve only been there once!

I wasn’t too impressed with this place… I was expecting more, but pretty much just got a giant bowl of iceberg lettuce. The topics lacked any oomph (maybe if there were more of them I could have actually tasted some) & I thought the dressing was pretty nondescript. Too expensive of a place for a bowl of lettuce, if you really want a salad your better off going to go go’s a few doors down.

Alas, my love of Giardino’s does not extend to their beachfront location. While generally a raving fan of this healthy, vegetarian-​friendly spot, this particular location leaves a lot to be desired.
1. Their «mixed greens» are 90% iceburg, 10% romaine. Ew. Had I known, I would have paid extra for baby greens or spinach.
2. The salad counter is hidden, so you can’t watch them make your selection.
3. They were stingy on the toppings — much more so than the other locations.
For the price I’m paying, I expect something better. You could barely detect the black beans in my Baja, or the avocado I paid extra for. Bummer.
I won’t be returning to this particular locale. South Miami’s spot runs circles, so I won’t be veering off course again.

A pretty good place to have a salad!
Owner is so friendly… some of the best service around and always has a smile.
Salads are good. Menu is a little confusing but a lot of different options, plus they basically can make anything you want.
Will return.

The homemade croutons and salad dressing alone keep me coming back for more. I love salads and Giardino’s has great ones. I particularly like their creative salad combinations. And brie on a salad?! I’m sold.

So earnest, such a good deal, what a great concept; too bad it’s just a chain. The salad lacked spark. I had a vegan with tofu. No spinach (though it was part of the recipe) and the tofu was not as interesting as it could have been. On the upside, it had beets; even if they were red.
Tip: Go Go, four blocks south, serves inspired salads, and other veggie and omnivore-​appealing dishes with a pleasant spot to sit and eat.
Props to David for excellent work. I will go back because of that.

I really enjoy these salads. I love the way I can custom build or just order one from the menu. I am particular to the Ode’s Toss with pumpernickle croutons and ginger dressing. I have come here so often and used my frequent diner card, I grabbed a free salad. Score!

The Starbucks of salad bars.
Love this place! Lots of unique, yummy salad creations. The three sizes, piccolo, basta & grande can satisfy any healthy appetite and the «Saladistas» are more than happy to alter anything to your specific tastes.
The food is so fresh & colorful and the place is always clean. My personal favorite is the Tropical salad. Best place on the beach to satisfy a salad craving!

For a quick bite this is a great place. It is fast, and super clean inside. I like the quality of salad and veggies everything is very fresh. You make your own salad and have great homemade croutons.

Friendly staff, clean place. You can choose from a wide variety of salads or build your own. We opted to build our own using greens, apples, walnuts and goat cheese.
We were pretty disappointed when we opened our bag at home. Not only did our server forget our dressing, but we basically paid $ 9 for a bowl of shredded romaine with day old croutons. We literally had to search for the apples, nuts and cheese in there. What a rip off.

If you eat salad, eat Giardino salad.
Whenever I’m in the mood for something green, there’s Giardino, waiting for me to pick up a delicous healthy-​seeming salad (not sure if it is or not with creamy dressing and toppings).
The worst thing about Giardino’s is that it’s hard to figure out how to order. The menu boards are a little confusing. Still, the end result is good and equals one of the better salad-​fast-​food places I’ve been to with a convenient location, to boot.
It would be great if they offered organic and/​or local ingredients. It’s always what I expect when I walk in but I’m fairly confident it isn’t the case.

It’s not bad — hits the spot when I’m craving a salad. Nothing special about the ingredients, though… Probably not organic, and definitely not local, which is a shame because south Florida businesses have access to lots of delicious greens from nearby farms.
Nonetheless, I split the grande Habanero salad with my boyfriend, which was definitely big enough for the two of us. So at least it’s economical. I would recommend to the average joe in search of a good, quick salad lunch on the beach — but it just wouldn’t be up to par with my foodie friends.

Out of all the places that I ate in Miami Beach, this had to be one of the cleanest restaurants in the whole penninsula. I used a coupon from those online Entertainment Books and got a BOGO free coupon. For $ 7.09 I got two awesome salads that were fresh as could be.
I ordered the Piccolo (small size) Greek Village and a Mama Mia salad and both were awesome. I’m totally a salad buff, and even compared to places in California, Giardino’s holds it’s own. I ate one salad (both kept at room temp) before I got on a flight from MIA to LAX and ate one on the plan about 4 hrs into it. Both salads were still fresh, unwilted and excellent. The Olive vinaigrette for the Greek Village was great and then the Italian Chianti for the Mama Mia. even better!
I thoroughly enjoyed my salad experience at Giardino’s and if I found myself in the vicinity of one, I would def stop in… even without a coupon!

2.5 really, but I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt.
I’ve visited Giardino’s three or four times. I was very excited when they opened — not even a block from my apartment. Unfortunately, dining there let me down. Here is why I prefer not to return:
There were far too many mistakes in the orders I placed. Once I even had to go back to the counter twice because the first edit was incorrect. Not once when I visited were there more than four customers present, so why so many errors?
I like salads when they are hearty. I like the goodies, the extras, the STUFF. Giardino’s cannot seem to decide whether they want to satisfy this craving of mine or save money on ingredients. At one point substantial, the other salads I ordered were disappointingly thin.
The good things:
The staff is friendly
It’s clean
You can build your own salad to order (or at least try)
Bottom line: I want more than lettuce on my salad!

I trekked over here for lunch when I was hankering for a good, fresh, salad. Alas, Giardino does not serve such salads. I had the «country cobb,» which I imagined would be a safe choice within the wheelhouse of a specialized salad place. Alas, I got bland ranch dressing, bacon bits, mealy tomatoes, cubes of dry, chicken breast, and croutons that tasted like the ones you can buy in a box at the grocery store. The underlying romaine lettuce might have been fine. I ate it, but only because I was really hungry.
There’s probably some way to order a salad that’s better, if you were willing to resort to enough trial and error, but with errors like this, I’m not going to try it.

I was using the Unilocal App on my Iphone and nearby was Giardinos! I was definitely in the mood for something fresh, and it was! I had the I had the Country Cobb, which had Romaine Greens, tomatoes, egg, bacon, chicken and turkey chunks with garlic country dressing and herb parmesan croutons! Wow I would decree it as delicious! It tasted like the best mix of fresh and bacon.
I was full but not overly, i felt great and it was really yummy. The staff was super friendly. I had a small one with a Pellegrino and it was $ 11.
Give it a try for a fresh healthy lunch on the beach!

Giardino, where have you been for the last 2 years? I’ve been on the desperate hunt for a salad place on the beach ever since I moved out of the Gables 2 years ago, and now, finally, Giardino has answered my prayers!
They serve nothing but salads (well, soups, and salads that you can get put into a wrap, but that’s beside the point), and boy, what a selection they have. In fact, that’s the reason Giardino gets 4 stars rather than 5, beacuse they just have too many salads to choose from. It just makes it that much harder to decide.
And then, once you pick your salad creation, you have another decision to make — whether to add a «protein» to it — be it a scoop of delicious tropical chicken (chicken salad with fruit) or a grilled chicken breast or turkey or ham or the like.
The salads come in 3 sizes — which are all in Italian — and go up $ 2 a size. The small (piccolo) is a pretty decent size and $ 6, so you can imagine how much bigger the medium and large are.
The salad creators are very friendly, but can be kind of slow — so be prepared to wait if it’s crowded. They carefully assemble your salad from their array of fresh ingredients, toss it with the dressing, and then add your protein and croutons, so it can take a hot minute to be ready.
Thank you Giardino, for fulfilling my salad dreams.