Fresh Choice Restaurant

In our desperate late Saturday lunch trek in San Bruno, FC was our #2 choice after we were shut out at BJs. When I got there, the restaurant looked suspiciously dark. I see a guy on a ladder and asked him what the deal was. He said they were «closed.» I go «closed for remodel or closed for good?» He said, «Closed for good.» They shut down this past Wednesday.
Sad so sad. This was the biggest FC in the Bay Area (two sided salad bar!). So sad but I heard they were in a steady decline for the better part of last year and this.
RIP SB FC!

This popular chain offers very health options as far as a buffet.
Overall, this spot is good for salads, pizzas, pastas, soups and other items. They have lots of fresh vegetables and salads with most of those being great for vegans or vegetarians. Their hot foods are good too — a bit hit-​or-​miss, but still okay, especially when you consider the low price you pay for the all-​you-​can-​eat meal.
There are lots of kids here so be ready for loud sounds and children running around. This is not recommended for romantic dinners or quiet evenings with your significant other.

Fresh choice is the greatest place on earth if you want incredibly well priced ORGANIC veggies. I go there mainly for their «to go» option and you get SO much more for the price than you would at Whole Foods. Oh, and the soups are great too.
The people complaining about pizza, ice cream, and other sugary/​carby stuff should go to straight Domino’s pizza and further clog up their diabetes laden arteries there. Yeah, I said it: p

How utterly disappointing.
I realize that by coming here for cheap food we would be digging a hole for us to bury ourselves in, but I never thought the hole would be this deep. My boyfriend and I came here last night for a cheap dinner. From our childhood, we remember Fresh Choice as being yummy decent food at a super affordable price.
Unfortunately, our memories betray us. The food here was crud. Besides their salad bar and ice cream, nothing else was satisfactory.
Yes, I know I paid little money. But I do expect moderately yummy food and Fresh Choice just didn’t provide that for me. On the bright side, I won’t ever have to think about this place again.

I like the salad here a lot. Not to crazy about their Soups. Messy at times. Overall gets the job done. In case you haven’t figured out, dont go there for service, it’s a buffet — help yourself.
the $ 5.99 salad to go is an excellent deal — You can pack plenty in their to-​go containers.

Customer Service: there really isn’t any customer service besides purchasing your order and someone asking if you’re done with your food so they could take it away.
Parking: Not so hard to find parking since it’s in a pretty big plaza.
Food: salad choices are great. The pita bread was really hard though. Not that many choices in the first place for food. Clam chowder is pretty good and WOW they have phở but it’s like. top ramen with real vegetables in it. Haha. I really liked their tapioca pudding, I couldn’t stop coming back to eat it ! :)

So I like Fresh Choice, but this one was not my favorite choice. (See what I did there?) Anyways, I am used to the selections at the Fresh Choice in Colma.
So what was my gripe exactly? Well, for one, they did not have good old regular iceberg lettuce on the salad line. Bummer.
Second, they did not have the tuna tarragon type salad that I usually see at Fresh Choices.
Third, the broccoli salad was really dry and not too tasty like usual.
Fourth, pizza was unusually greasy.
Anyways, I’m still a Fresh Choice fan, but I prefer the one in Colma.

If you’ve never been to a buffet like this, you might think it was good. But that’s if you’ve never been to a buffet like this. I guess I’m a little biased, because I’ve been to Souplantation, and this place is like a really bad version of it.
Anyone who knows me knows I don’t like veggies, but I wouldn’t eat them here, anyway. The salad bar is messy and there’s stuff all over the place. On a couple of occasions, I’ve seen the people behind the counter just scoop up whatever was around and guide it back into one of the containers. Gross.
Everything else is just not good. Pizza? Tastes like cardboard. Soup? Watery and/​or over seasoned. Brownies and muffins? Dryyyyy. Plus the whole place just feels a little sad. I wouldn’t recommend going here, but I mean… it’s cheap if you want a quick meal and you’re not picky.

When you’re in this shopping center area in San Bruno and your choices are Red Lobster or Fresh Choice… you better come here.
I’ve always been a fan of Fresh Choice because of its variety. Plus, with a buffet kind of thing, you don’t have to wait — as soon as you pay, you can start shoveling food in your face.
The salad bar is great. There are a ton of extras that you don’t normally see at other establishments — stuff like shrimp, roasted vegetables, and even vegan bacon bits. Big points for also having a couple different nonfat salad dressings and posting the calorie content of everything in plain view.
In addition to the salad bar, the also have a selection of hot foods. There’s a soup/​chili station (I am so annoyed that the phở noodle soup is made with chicken broth… come on guys, use vegetable broth!!!), a pasta spot (yay mac & cheese!), some vegetable mixes, pizzas, and those fucking ridiculously good square muffins they make. Oh! Their corn, blueberry, and chocolate muffins are all so good. There’s also fresh fruit, lowfat frozen yogurt (or is it ice cream? it doesn’t say), pudding, cookies, etc for dessert.
You can go back as much as you want after paying the flat fee (I can’t remember what it costs per person — but it’s not bad). Soda costs extra of course.
Only complaint is the bathrooms. They’re pretty gross.

–a pretty quiet restaurant, especially for a buffet
–REALLY GREAT + FRESH SALAD!
–love their SELF-​SERVE ICE CREAM!
–clam chowder is not bad either, not the best, but still pretty good
better than the daly city location, but not as good as the one in san jose!
coming back? probably!

There is a joke in Hawaii that goes like this:
Q: What’s Hawaii’s favorite kind of food?
A: Buffet
This is not a joke. Local people love buffet. My family is Samoan so anytime someone wants to go out to eat, guess where they want to go?
All together now: TO A BUFFET!
I was headed out of San Francisco to go back home to Honolulu and met up briefly with my Samoan uncle who happens to live 10 minutes from SFO. I thought it would be nice to catch up for an hour over coffee but of course he drove me straight to a buffet. And that is how my Fresh Choice journey began…
I’ve heard for years from Mainland friends about Fresh Choice and for those of you who have never been to one, it’s essentially a Sizzler’s except without the bottomless deep fried shrimp. Stuffing myself to the brim with mediocre food is no longer my favorite past time so I admit that I was not thrilled to walk through the doors of Fresh Choice. My uncle smiled and said «It’s a healthy buffet!» I shook my head and said «There is no such thing.» Fresh Choice with all its salad fixings might be healthy at the beginning but once you get to the end past the cashier you can easily see that it’s full of unhealthy options. Pizza, pasta, creamy soups, desserts, soft serve ice cream, soda, etc.
I just got a small plate of salad to make my uncle happy and the lady at the cashier stand was nice enough to give me the early bird price of $ 6.99. Damn, California you are so much cheaper than Hawaii. Score! I definitely wouldn’t mind having a Fresh Choice in Honolulu so that when my Samoan mama wants to buffet her brains out I can at least have a salad.
The final synopsis on Fresh Choice? Walk in with low expectations and you’ll probably enjoy it. Be sure to come with a load of Samoan relatives and you’ll definitely get your money’s worth because we’ll eat you out of house and home.

Fresh choice is pretty amazing for its price… But don’t think you can lose weight by eating here… unless you plan on not topping you salad with any dressings, cheese, or croutons.
The salad here are delicious, for lazy people like me, there are already-​made salads available. So you can just scoop it onto your plate and move on to something else. And for those of you that likes to customize you food, there is a pretty large selections of veggie and dressing for you to choose from.
One thing that I do not like about this place… is the lack of meat. While I was getting salad, I noticed that there were pieces of chicken meat in a box and some cocktail shrimps. I was about to get it, UNTIL I realize they charge you extra for it! (it is before you get to the register) SO the only meat I got, was the small piece of meat on my pizza…
But anyways! the food here is good and they have the soft-​serve ice cream machine here and muffins and brownies. ^_​_​_​^

Buffet for $ 8??? Of course they’re not gonna get everything right. Come on, guys! The décor looks like a cafetaria and they have a hugeee space.
I really enjoy the salad bar, without the dressings. They look kinda plasticky somehow. They have a wide variety of veggies and mixed salad (I love the broccoli + raisin one).
Don’t eat the buffalo chicken (the one that you need to pay extra). It tastes pretty bad.
The soft serve + lentil soup + yams are good too.
Haven’t tried anything else, but they’re good for all the stuff I mentioned above.
Have been coming back a few times now. I’m pleased!

**Review for take out**
I only really come here for the salad because it’s always really fresh and tasty. Plus the take out box is huge!
For take out you go in and grab a tray with plastic takeout box and help yourself. Every time I manage to underestimate the size of the container and when I get to the end of the salad bar to pay it’s still only half full so end up tacking back down the line again.
The bar regularly get’s refilled and not once come across any empty container, plus the staff are always really friendly.
For $ 6.99 It’s a great price seeing as I can’t even make it for that price at home.
One of these day’s I will go and dine in, not being a big eater I tend to steer clear of buffet places but for the price you can’t go wrong.

I thought that I had actually reviewed this Fresh Choice, but maybe it was another location.
It’s really about the salad here, and they have fairly good salad with lotsa of choices. I like the caesar with added egg and croutons. Everything else is mediocre, and sometimes on the bad side of it at that. Whenever I come here, I keep going back to the mac and cheese or the herb rice. I can never finish the mac because it’s just kind of tasteless, even though I’ve sprinkled a mound of parmesan on it. The herb rice works if you slop on salt and butter. The pizza is probably the second best thing here, but it’s nothing spectacular, and the clam chowder is pretty good.
Interestingly, the corn bread cakes they have here have more calories than their chocolate cake – I don’t know what that’s about.
Anyway – they’ll fill you up okay on the salad. All the other food is hit or miss. Choose for yourself the hits and pass on the misses and you’ll have a decent lunch.

I won’t compare this to Sweet Tomatoes because that wouldn’t be fair so I’ll compare it other Fresh Choice restaurants and hands down, this is the worst Fresh Choice location I’ve ever been to.
There are 2 things I always get at Fresh Choice and that’s the chicken noodle soup and corn bread. Both were horrible last night. The soup had so much salt, it literally tasted like someone dumped a can of salt into a pot of boiling water! At first, I thought maybe that pot of soup was over salted by accident so I tried the clear phở broth. That was the exact same thing. Salty water. NASTY!
And the corn bread was so hard and dry that if I threw it at someone’s head, they would get concussion. By that point, I was so annoyed I smashed the corn bread (it broke into a million dry crumbs) and uploaded a pic on Unilocal to show how dry it was.
And finally, the meal came up to $ 26.83 for two people and we hardly ate anything. Totally jipped.

I’m a regular here when I feel like eating out but want a healthier choice.
The salads are actually very good and well-​tended so that the greens stay fresh and crisp. They are pretty creative as to new salads and combinations of flavors.
I am a big fan of their soups. Flavors are almost always excellent, especially the squash soups and the New England Style Clam chowder (although the latter has more potatoes in it than I’d like).
Even their pizzas are not to bad if you get them fresh.
Also this Fresh Choice is clean, with service that varies from no one ever clearing your table to them clearing it even before you are done. It depends on how badly the busing staff want that tip from you.

My kids love coming here. I love it cause it’s cheap… Turkey Chili is my favorite.

Anybody who knows me will tell you that I am a Fresh Choice fanatic. Everybody calls/​texts me when they’re there, just to tell me that they’re eating there! Haha.
I’ve been to my fair share of Fresh Choice’s and this one is the best. It has the freshest food and it always has everything listed on their online menu. It’s ridiculously cheap for a buffet and its super healthy too.
I’ve been to Fresh Choice frequently enough to know what’s good there. I could eat 10 of their desserts which is what I usually do. They turned me into a bread pudding fan and so far, I have yet to try bread pudding as good as theirs. I stay away from their hot foods section and I’ve heard their mac and cheese is disgusting which I’m sure it is. I never eat the premade salads either, I just create my own. They have the most delicious tofu! It’s super firm and almost cheese like.
There isn’t much meat here which is fine by me since I’m a vegetarian. I also love how they list all the calorie and nutrition information for each food.

The holiday season is rapidly approaching and I’m wanting to be proactive about my diet now so I can be bad down the road.
So for the next couple weeks, I’m striving to eat a little better — and by better, I mean more salads and greens.
The problem is the salad and veggies I bring home end up turning brown in the fridge. And you’re not suppose to eat it when it gets that color right?
What’s a temporarily semi-​health conscious guy to do?
Fresh Choice to the rescue.
I figure it’s worth paying for and eating salad and stuff now as opposed to buying it at Trader Joe’s and pretending to eat it later.
There’s a decent selection of salads, the soups are bland (so I can only assume good for you), and the pizza bread edible.
I can’t vouch for the overall freshness of the salads but as long they’re not brown, I’m good.
My lone down fall to the healthy eats is their desserts.
I usually get at soup bowl, coat the bottom with a little caramel, then place a brownie in the middle, and finally pile on as much chocolate vanilla fro yo as I can.
Well, since I didn’t have a serving of deep fried food, I deserved it.
Oh well, more good for you reviews to follow.
I hope.