Hale and Hearty

Hale and Hearts (that’s what we regulars call it)
love. love. love. love. love.love.love. love.
How are their red onions so good? No, like, literally, how? I think they are slightly pickled or something.
This what I usually get:
large mixed greens with the free add-​ins (cucumbers, carrots, croutons, red onions) and blue cheese. Chopped. Fat Free balsamic. They have the best FF Balsamic in all the land. ALL THE LAND.
I also get a soup – usually tomato basil w/​rice. I am not normally a rice person but it works perfectly in this soup. Whenever they have the three bean chili, I get that I (not to be confused with the 3 lentil chili, which is also good).
Fun fact: if you ask for a gluten free option for bread/​crackers you get an apple for free! I’m not GF but sometimes I don’t want bread, so once when I declined I found out this fun fact. Hell yeah, apples.
The only reason I took off a star is because they are too expensive. I know I get technically two lunches when I go there (and I pay like $ 12) but its really too much. And they changed their pricing structure – back in the day they had combo pricing, miss that all the time.

FOR SHAME!!! I usually order soup for lunch delivery — on average, twice a week. I went to do so today, and I see an «ADMIN FEE» of $ 2.50 — this is SEPARATE from the tip. So, my medium tomato soup at a cost of about $ 7.50, will end up at over $ 14 when all is included: the addition to get to $ 8 for delivery minimum, Admin Fee, Tax, and Tip. NO WAY! Over $ 14.00 FOR ONE MEDIUM TOMATO SOUP AND BAG OF POPCORN. Price gouging — as another review said. They should be ashamed of themselves!

I remember the first time I went to a Hale and Hearty soup circa mid 2000’s when I was fresh outta college (or FOC, I just made that up) and thinking
«Holy shit this soup is good» while also thinking «Holy shit this soup is expensive».
Duality.
I was a Midwestern boy.
fast forward to 2015 *cue random EDM track*
Hale and Hearty soups regularly have lines coming out the restaurant in the midtown lunch scrum, so I pretty much avoided it and went to places like pret.
But they just opened a new one right next to work and so far, I have never waited in line longer than a minute or two. money.
Even better: free samples.
Asian mothers everywhere would rejoice.
Okay, bottom line is that the soups here are amazing, and an average of $ 5 – 6 for a healthy portion of soup with a roll is standard fare in NY as we all know, but this is better than most places at that price range. Actually, it is so…
Pretty cool too, for you nerds out there (I’m a nerd) — lets you know calorie count, if its vegan, gluten free, etc.
And last but not least, they have featured chefs every few weeks with their own soups. Batali had one recently that was pretty dope — some kind of tomato/​vegetable amalgamation. anyways, I digress…
Slow clap Hale and Hearty :)

Typical Hale and Hearty location. It’s new so it’s not as crowded as some other nearby ones like the one on 3^rd bet 43^rd and 44^th. It seems their prices may be a few cents higher… could be my imagination though.
Overall, it’s clean and pretty standard for H&H. I find the service to be a little spotty. I guess they’re still trying to find their grove but some of the soup servers seem confused (not sure why. Each soup is labeled so it’s not too hard to dish out). I also wish they would rotate some of their sandwich selection. I find other H&Hs to have more of a variety. Out of the 10 sandwiches they serve, 5 or 6 have avocado on them. Mix it up a bit.

Grand Opening today.
I was in line for a small New England clam chowder.
Nice and hot.
Very filling with lots of clam and potato.