sweetgreen

Updated: it turns out balsamic dressing is not the one to go with Avocabbo! The sesame ginger miso is a much better choice.
——
I’ve moved away from the States for a while now and if there’s anything I’ve learned, is that the States does the best salads. Avocado, egg, kale, bacon, and shrimp. Mm mm! Oh my.
So upon my visit and seeing sweetgreen with its high reviews, I immediately jumped ecstatically and rushed here for my first meal since stepping off the plane. My prayers were answered in the form of Avocobbo, could there be a better sign?
Unfortunately, that was where all good signs stopped. For some reason it just didn’t taste very good. Perhaps substituting balsamic was a bad choice, I don’t know. I was just very underwhelmed. I’ll have to come back and try again tomorrow!

I’ll start by saying I am a Sweetgreen fan and a loyal supporter; on days I work in my Washington Heights office, I have occasionally placed an order for pickup at the West 115^th Street location, hopped on the 1, picked up, and headed back up, essentially losing my lunch break just to get a salad! (Ha!) I’ve been to many locations in NYC. I LOVE their salads and tell everyone to find a location and chow down.
My experience at this particular location was, however, lackluster, both service and product-​wise.
I needed to pick up a quick dinner on my way to a friend’s apartment. It was almost 10 on a Saturday evening. Lo and behold, I stubbed upon this UWS location without knowing it even existed! I was hoping just to get a bodega sandwich. Haha! Anyways, I strolled in; it was pretty empty, about 40 minutes before closing time. Two people were in front of me, ordering. One woman behind the counter took my order, the Strawberry Fields salad. I watched her make it. The two people in front of me, somehow, got their salad made after mine. A woman in front of all three of us was paying for her order, but, for whatever reason, the woman working the cash register input it incorrectly. The woman that made my salad came up to correct her mistake, but openly berated the cashier with a few, «Girl, you so stupid!» quips… directly in front of us customers. Needless to say, that woman looked a bit uncomfortable.
The woman that made made my salad then told the cashier, «Okay, now you have a Strawberry Fields to ring up.» She did, and after she gave me back my debit card… she slid the salad a bit behind the counter and started to have a conversation with the woman that made my salad about how stupid it is that Sweetgreen is open until 10:30 on a Saturday night. I was so confused! After about a minute of trying to break into their conversation, I awkwardly asked for my salad. The woman that made my salad seemed confused: «Oh! I didn’t know this was your salad! Why didn’t you write Strawberry Fields on it?», she asked the cashier. They bagged it, apologized, but kept talking about their work hours in front of me and those other two customers that, somehow, lagged behind me with their salads. Jeez, I hope they got them eventually!
The woman that MADE MY SALAD didn’t know that salad was for me. I need to reiterate that point!
Once I left, I found a bench, about five minutes later, to post up on to eat my salad… and it wasn’t the best I’ve had. The flavor was pretty good, but the greens were limp. I wasn’t too happy. I only ate half of it, and that never happens.
Though still a very ardent cheerleader for this amazing salad chain, this location left me with a very sour taste in my mouth in more than one way. I’ll stick to my precious West 115^th Street location. If I ever return here, I hope customer service is more professional. I sincerely hope this was a fluke and not the norm.

I love the spicy sabza! I like to come here after the gym.

If there’s one food that I so miss about after a lengthy run in central park, that will be the spring specialty salad from sweetgreen, no kidding!
I have been getting the spring chicken every single time since its debut a couple of days ago, and this time I decided to go with something else — the strawberry fields. Refreshing as its name sounded, the spring fields definitely worth a try! This is actually the first time I’m trying strawberry in a salad, exotic!
Think I have been to every single sweetgreen locations in Manhattan, loved every single on of them!

I don’t usually like eating salad, reminds me of a cow eating grass, so I walked around this place for several months’ after it opened, not wanting to pay $ 10-​$ 16 for «grass». Well, I was wrong! One day my friend wanted to try this place and after that, I was hooked. I go to Sweet Greens once a week, every week! My favorite is the «Avocabo» but recently they pulled that off the menu, but I like almost every salad they have (except maybe their Rad Thai… Now, talk about grass.!). Their salads taste great, are healthy and make you feel good about yourself, and are filling too! When was the last time you can say that about a salad? The only reason this review got 4 stars instead of 5 stars is because 1) they took my favorite salad, the «Avocabo», off the menu, 2) they are inconsistent with their pricing when you make changes to their regular menu (for example, whenever I get their Kale salad w/​o the chicken but with the avocado, I get a different price each and every time — the 1^st couple times, they kept charging me for both the chicken and the avocado!!), and 3) their service is inconsistent. Sometimes they are generous with the portions and sometimes they are stingy with the portions, it all depends on who you get and what kind of mood they’re in on that particular day/​time.

I love the salads from here. So many options to choose from. Take out ordering is easy too you can order from the sweet green app and don’t have to wait on line.

I can’t say enough good things about sweetgreen. From the food to the staff. Everything is really great. It’s a fresh new twist on a salad. I love seeing that all of their ingredients are sourced locally. It’s very clean and the staff is always happy and helpful. I’ll be coming back quite frequently. Thank you sweet green for coming to the upper west side!

This place was delicious & I like that they have a variety of toppings (like tortilla chips). The local who took me here had nothing but good things to say about it. They have ample seating, give you a nice bowl if you’re eating in, it wasn’t crazy crowded when we came later on a weeknight & I felt full without feeling sluggish afterwards. I recommend this place, as they do use «real» food in their salads.

I came here with my mom on a Saturday afternoon about 1:30pm. Maybe it’s always like this but the line was out the door the whole time we were there! It does move very quickly when you get to the front though. It’s like a chipotle but for healthy salads.
Unfortunately we didn’t have the best experience. My mom wanted the custom salad for 7.35 which includes a base and 4 sides. However, the options included in this are not listed anywhere. Some things are premium and cost extra but not all of those are listed so it’s confusing to know what you can and can’t get with the custom bowl. The premium things include chicken for $ 3, cheese costs 1.25, as does avocado. Service left something to be desired too.
I went with the pre-​designed «don’t kale my beet salad,» which included chicken, rice, beets, kale, and goat cheese. It was very good except for the fact that some of my rice was uncooked and I had to spit it out as it was inedible.
I really wanted to like this place but paying over $ 10 for a salad should deliver something great instead of a basic salad I could get at whole foods. I also didn’t like that the beets were raw and in big chunks so very crunchy… could have been grated instead.

I hate expensive salads, but for some reason I freaking love sweetgreen. I also never crave salads (except from Chickfila), but I crave sweetgreen. I took a 30+ block walk round trip after traveling back from Charlotte in the same night because I love sweetgreen. I’m so basic.
I love sweetgreen for locally sourcing their produce and using local shops for their bread among other things. I’m not usually a sucker for that kind of stuff, but I can see the goodness in the fresh greens and food that I always get from here.
Yes, it’s expensive salad, but apparently trying to eat healthy is ridiculously expensive for some crazy reason… which is why it’s hard for me to crave a salad or even want one. That and I’m hungry within 2 hours, which is not the case with these bowls and salads. Then again, all the other salad places cost about the same and sweetgreen trumps them all, hands down.
My go-​to is always the spicy sabzi — I love the flavor that the spicy carrot dressing gives and you can always kick it up a notch with Sriracha. The tofu is plentiful and delicious with lots of flavor as is the spicy broccoli. Mixed with all the greens, it’s a wonderful combination and enough flavor for the salad not to be boring. It’s also under $ 10, which is pretty reasonable for a hefty salad with lots of ingredients in NYC.
Staff have always been accommodating and friendly.
If I can, I always go to sweetgreen for my salads.

The salads are very very fresh here, and of course it’s right across from an equinox & soul cycle so the clientele is what you would expect from a high priced salad grab n go.
That being said, the price is well worth it! I ordered the kale caesar salad and added avocado to it. The chicken was good, the lettuce was the perfect amount of crispy, and the toppings that they added were perfect as well! Fortunately for my wallet, I don’t live close to sweetgreen or else I fear I would be a frequent member. The make you own salads also looked good, I will definitely try that next time. Will be back!

Attended their Spring Tasting menu event & boy was I in for a treat! Our server, Daniel was very attentive, knowledgeable & pleasant our entire time tasting the new items they’ll be launching on March 22. The items I tried were so fresh, light & very tasteful. My friend & I tried two different bowls/​salads & we were in food heaven! It was a party in my mouth lol. Can’t wait for the new spring items to launch so I can devour my tastebuds into it.

So nice to have a Sweetgreen on the UWS! I had the guacamole greens with tzaziki lime dressing — so good. This place blows Chop’t out of the water and I always feel like I’m getting my money’s worth with fresh, flavorful and filling ingredients. Enough alliteration for you?

The UWS was dying for a place like this. Sure, we’ve got Chopt and couple of Hale and Hearty’s and too many juice bars to know what to do with, but nothing of Sweetgreen’s caliber. So when I heard Sweetgreen — quite possibly my favorite salad chain — had moved into the vacancy on 75^th, I was thrilled. And though I’ve only been to one other Sweetgreen in the city (Nomad), I’m a much bigger fan of this location.
A little more on that word — location. You could not have chosen a better spot for a Sweetgreen if you tried. Located one block from Equinox and Soul Cycle, it’s prime for receiving the crazy traffic of health nuts looking for their clean/​organic fix (i.e. me, not ashamed to say so). The space itself is big, clean and pristinely designed. A lot of fun, simple details like neon signs that light up to indicate the season we’re in make this place casual-​chic. Very UWS. You order up front and if you choose to eat in, there’s a nice, spacious area in back which is pretty full at all hours of the day.
The food here, as is the case at other Sweetgreens, is divine… and pretty damn expensive. That’s why I don’t have upwards of 50 check-​ins here already. I just can’t entertain the idea of paying $ 15 for a salad consistently. But when I am up for it, you can be I’ll be here. The ingredients are as fresh as advertised, and tastier than I’m guessing a lot of non-​health nuts could ever imagine. The salads are creative, diverse and well-​balanced. And obviously «clean». Sweetgreen also offers a small handful of seasonal salads, which are just as good as its signatures. Of the winter seasonals, I’ve tried the «Bento Bowl» (roasted Steelhead, organic wild rice, organic baby spinach, cucumber, shredded cabbage, tomato, nori furikake, miso sesame ginger dressing), which was beyond delicious. I hadn’t heard of steelhead prior to ordering this salad, but I like just about every fish out there so I took a chance. As it turns out, Steelhead is a type of trout — not some weird Urban Dictionary-​esque sex term. But like some Urban Dictionary-​esque sex terms, it’s quite enticing.
Otherwise, my go-​to is the Spicy Sabzi (organic baby spinach + shredded kale, spicy quinoa, spicy broccoli, raw beets, carrots, sprouts, basil, roasted organic tofu, sriracha, carrot chili vinaigrette). I’m a happy omnivore but this is one of the best vegan salads out there — at least in terms of fast-​casual eateries. If you’re a raw/​gluten-​free/​dairy-​free/​paleo/​vegan/​yoga mat-​toting health nut, this baby is yours. And mine. And I’m only some of those things.
Lastly, I need to give a shout out to the staff here. Everyone I’ve interacted with has been incredibly pleasant, which is not always the case at fast casual spots — especially heavily trafficked spots. But here, I’m always greeted with smiles, jokes, patience when I’m rummaging around for my credit card, and general good vibes.

Not quite sure I get all the hype. Yes, the ingredients are very fresh and organic and whatnot, but I ordered the Caesar Kale — parmesan chips were salty, almost to the point of being inedible, and the salad itself was pretty tasteless.
Also got the butternut squash soup, which felt like I was drinking cardboard.
I’m not going in on the hype.

Very good, very hip, very tasty soup and salad joint. I would give this 4.5 stars to the ubiquitous Chop’t’s 4.
The good about sweet green:
— lots of organic options
— fresh leafy greens
— hipper scene, nice aesthetic
— can sit down
— friendly, almost too jovial staff
— soups as well as salads
— substantial wheat breads
— caters well to the create your own crowd
— viable for dinner as well as lunch
— very inexpensive for nyc
The not as good:
— salads are not as big as Chop’t’s (if you really want that much lettuce)
— ordering and food take out is not as formalized and hence slightly less efficient
— you may have to use a knife (gasp) to cut your greens
This is a fun place that makes an effort to source locally and organically as well as offer seasonal produce. I’d look at it as an upscale Chop’t.

I decided to check out sweetgreen after two coworkers highly recommended it. I went to their website to see around how much I would spend on salad, before going there. I decided to create my own and was disappointed at how everything I typically would want in my salad, costs extra. I chose romaine, & spinach for my base and added tomatoes and cucumbers. Paid $ 3 to add chicken, $ 1.25 for goat cheese, & $ 1.25 for avocado. My salad came out to around $ 13 which is pretty steep for a salad. Also, based on their website pictures, I was expecting grilled chicken sliced into strips. What you actually get are tiny cubes of chicken. Overall, the salad was really fresh.
I did come back to try the kale caesar because that’s the one that was recommended to me. I switched the kale for some spinach and really enjoyed this salad. Definitely will be getting the caesar from now on, and it’s around 8 bucks which is perfect!

Who says Americans are too poor to pay for College Tuition and Health Insurance? And who says folks in NYC aren’t paid high wages if they can afford this place. Judging by the lines of under 30 types all ignoring each other and glaring at their mobile phones as if they are too stoned to speak or move, this place is perfect for those with no social skills. Folks just walk up to a counter and point and grunt to order. There is no much to it.
It’s extremely overpriced for a fast food take away joint. For the same $ 12-​$ 18 per salad, go to a real restaurant and sit down with a friend and allow someone to wait on you like a civilized human being. These overpriced salad bars are opening all over NYC right now and most are dreadful; and this one is no exception. See the photos I posted of the place and see how bland the location is.
Check out the photos and see how creepy this place is – much like an elementary school cafeteria. I suppose that is why so many 20+ers enjoy it – it reminds them of what life was like when they were still living at home and being served on the school yard.
This location is one step above a food truck being that the price is the same, but it has a fixed location and tables to eat your meal at.

Stopped by sweetgreen for a quick bite to go and really loved the concept. Healthy, organic local greens that are fresh and delicious. I got the curried cauliflower salad (subbed out the quinoa for pears) and loved it!
I wish we had this back home in California because I’d eat it every day. They have a good variety of salads and if nothing on the menu suits your fancy you can also build your own. The only thing that I didn’t love was the long line but it did move quickly.

sweetgreen, uncapitalized, with the first «e» left-​side-​right, how hipster are you! Just when I thought the sweetgreen mania in NYC was gonna end, the company is creating new waves by opening new stores almost every other day. This time it landed in UWS, which has awful culinary taste according to NY Post’s Steve Cuozzo and has forced several marvelous restaurants to shutter simply because yuppies in the hood don’t appreciate good food (he called the food scene craptastic). I think sweetgreen is going to do just fine. In fact, it will thrive.
It’s a block away from Equinox and SoulCycle AND Pure Yoga. If you walk a few blocks the other way you might find the clothing boutique that sells shirts with KALE written on them, not kidding. Of course this location is going to thrive.
Space is bright and open and every employee has a smile. I got the cauliflower salad which was really tasty but the chicken had unpleasant parts of tendon and the wild rice blend was sandy. I tried to substitute hummus for one portion of the cauliflower (it comes with 2) and the guy wouldn’t let me but you can definitely do it online.
The 2 girls next to me are discussing Charlie sheen’s hiv after freaking out over how good their salads were. I decided to play around with sweetgreen’s online order site to distract myself from their convo. And I discovered that there are ways to get better deals by custom making your own salad with the exact same ingredients as the pre-​set ones. For example I paid $ 11.6 for the curried cauliflower salad but could’ve made my own for $ 12.1 with all the same toppings plus 2 more. $ 0.5 for 2 more veggies isn’t bad right… especially in this society where people are willing to pay $ 11.6 for a salad.
The 2 girls are now talking about the UTI that their friend got… Alright def time for me to go. My salad is all finished and I’m craving something sweet. I wish sweetgreen still served fro-​yo tbh. I guess the fro-​yo trend has truly died, since apparently the 16 Handles across the street has waning business and is now selling chia puddings for breakfast. Also, how do you sell fro-​yo when gorgeous 20 something year olds say no to a free piece of multigrain bread for being too unhealthy?
I’d just borrow a quote from an anonymous food writer to end this review: «The salads don’t taste any different from the stuff you get at Chop’t, Fresh & Co., etc. I think people just like it because of the hipster packaging.»