California Crisp

it’s great, if you like digging through piles of lettuce to get at the little bits of chicken & other things in your salad. seriously, about 90% lettuce.

Chicken Tostada Salad with Spicy Ranch dressing? Yes, Please! It’s delicious and addicting. I love the crunch added by the tortilla chips.

How do I describe California Crisp… something you can certainly make at home for much less? Yes, I’ll go with that.
I used to come here often when I had worked downtown years ago and it really wasn’t bad. Back then I think I paid around $ 6 for a large salad and for some reason I remembered it came with bread of sorts like a roll or corn bread. Ingredients seemed fresh, and it really was A-​OK and a healthier option in the food court. Of course, this was also over 5 years ago or so.
Fast forward to present day and the Pioneer Square food court is a sad, sad place. 3 Asian places all serving the same foods essentially. Really?! Pizza, gyros,…there was really not many healthier options so I settled on California Crisp as I had remembered it being fairly decent.
I ordered a southwest chicken salad. Chicken, kidney beans, avocado, cheese, olives, tomato, onion, salsa dressing… sounded decent.
Paid my $ 7.95. No bread came with it. Salad was a good size. Lady working there seemed bored and almost annoyed that I was her one and only customer. She had been messing around with her cell phone and took her a bit to even notice me. She just wasn’t very friendly or even semi professional.
All in all it wasn’t the worst salad ever, but not good. Chicken was a bit over salted and had some odd seasoning on it. But really. For what I got, I could have made it at home. None of the ingredients seemed super fresh. It was kinda just quickly slapped together. What should I expect? I dunno. There wasn’t much chicken on it and it was overall kind of MEH. There was really nothing ‘crisp’ about it.

Got the California turkey wrap and she put two slices of turkey on it! I’m sorry but when your ordering a turkey wrap, it should have a decent amount of turkey in it. I couldn’t even taste it.

I wouldn’t eat this again even if I were captured and held prisoner by pirates. In a hurry I sought out something semi-​healthy in a sea of fried/​cheese/​mystery meat madness and opted for a «BBQ Chicken» salad from this place. The lady that was working looked like she would have rather been getting a colonic than making a salad. She threw together some salad and tossed a few stale tortilla chips and slopped some chicken on top. Told me to grab a roll that was in saran wrap in a basket and suddenly I felt like was in a middle school cafeteria. The salad was so bad that I thought perhaps I would just eat the bread and move on. The roll was worse than the salad. I seriously would have rather eaten my sock. Being from San Diego, I am actually quite offended that you call yourself «California» Crisp. The only thing crisp was the stale tortilla chips.

So disappointed. Passed by the pizza, the sushi, the Greek and even Subway for what seemed like fresh and tasty. We had the chicken Caesar wraps. The tomato and lettuce were okay. The Parmesan was less than sparse. The chicken was dry. The wraps were so stale and hard that we ended up dumping out the lettuce and having a dry salad. Almost embarrassing. I was going to tell the nice young lady at the counter until I looked over and saw a man changing his tshirt just inside the cooking area. Two stars for fresh lettuce.

I am surprised by the bad reviews for California Crisp. I have been going there for years on my lunch hour since I work downtown. I will admit that I don’t normaly order anything other than a salad and most of the other complaints were about non-​salad items. Their selection is good and interesting for salads and they offer just about any combination you want. I am now hooked on the chopped salad with chicken and spicy ranch dressing. Can you say «YUM»?

For fast food, California Crisp is 4 stars. With the fresh veggies, you won’t feel guilty picking this place. The salads are a great choice. From the looks of the other reviews, it might be the only sure thing to order here. I’ve never had anything other than the salads, and will probably stick to the delicious salad choices. The portions are huge and they have low-​cal dressing!

Went there expecting a panini and what I got was a cold regular sandwich. And it was pricey for what I received… Will not go back!

I usually would not spend time reviewing a food court trip at the mall, but on my trip to Portland we had to stop in at the Apple store and happened to try California Crisp for lunch and was delightful pleased.
I liked everything about my chicken Caesar salad — the greens were actually green, the croutons were buttery and crisp, the chicken was moist and tender, and the portion was fab for the price. The employees are nice too. I also like the choice of roll or wrap.
This is a great place for a quick lunch… yum!

The only way I can describe California Crisp is a cheaper version of Paradise Bakery. They reallly try, salads, sandwiches, cookies, chips everything. The only problem is the flavor of what they serve. I had jury duty this past week and went here for lunch (line at Paradise Bakery would have taken me an hour to get thru). My tuna sandwich was tasteless, I didn’t even eat the whole thing and the chips THE CHIPS were terrible, no salt, no flavor, just grease. I tried putting them on my sandwhich to make them taste better but it made everything worse. Thinking back I should have waited in line at the other place and just brought my lunch back to the juror holding cell.