Qualcomm Cafe S

Had the korean bbq on Monday, spent about 5 minutes cutting through grizzle and bone with a plastic knife then gave up and threw the lot in the thrash. Had the Med Chicken Mac and Cheese today, would not feed the chicken to a dog. Mostly fat and grizzle — the real joy is you only find out when you’ve put it in your mouth — yum.

Came in from the San Jose office and all I can say is WHOA! Wish we had this in the Bay Area offices! Loved it!

Food = 2 stars.
Everything else = 0.
They actually serve decent food but it is way too expensive. Example, their large grab ‘n go pre-​made sandwiches are $ 5.50. $ 5.50??? For a sandwich with meat/​cheese lettuce and tomato that’s been sitting in the fridge for God knows how long? I’ve gone to Subway before and get a 6″ sandwich with tons more toppings for $ 5 bucks and a combo at Subway is only about $ 6.50 with a drink and chips. If I do get chips here the total is close to $ 8.
Their other food choices are anywhere from $ 7-​$ 10 and it’s not like it’s gourmet restaurant caliber food either. Chili’s has better offerings for this price.
Whenever I do eat here it’s because I don’t want to lose my parking spot in the middle of the day, and spots during working hours are few and far between. Some of the food choices are hit/​miss with the quality. Their spicy food is way too spicy for me and I like spicy food. It would be better to start off more bland and let the customer add hot sauce or extra spice ingredients if it’s not hot enough.
This place is more of a convenience than a choice these days.
David T’s review is also pretty right on about Café S.

Every time a new food service contractor comes in to take over Qualcomm’s cafes, their goal always seems to be to start out with good value food and then work on bringing down the quality and cost to themselves while still charging the same to the customer. The latest contractor has now sunk to serving corner shop style Mexican food for $ 7.50. They’ve been intelligently working on making the items in the salad bar heavier because it’s charged by the ounce. $ 6.50 for three Tijuana style street tacos? Friday’s Bento box that was miso soup, egg roll, edamame beans, two pieces of sushi, teriyaki shicken, and salad for $ 10.50 is now Bento box with rice, edamame, teriyaki chicken and salad for $ 8.50, and the miso is an extra three or four bucks. The grill is slower than the second coming, you’ll die of old age before getting your food. If they have a dish with shrimp you’ll get three on your plate. They know they can screw people because it’s conveniently located in a business full of wealthy engineers.

The Q café is where I suggest all of our new hires to go. It’s convenient and they can get back to the office quickly. They can get back to training and back on the phones to make more money!
I tend to go there for the same reason. There is not enough time in the day to drive anywhere for lunch anymore. If I forget to pack lunch from home I am at «The Q». Ok I am really liking their sandwiches. I usually get their BLT with extra bacon! Although everyone there is nice, Dan «The Man» makes the best sandwiches. I also like the Buffalo Chicken wraps. Get the spinach tortillas. For some reason, a green tortilla seems healthier to me. $ 5 and change for a sammich. Eat half of it and you’re probably getting full already. The Q is AOK.

You do not need to be a Qualcomm employee to dine at the Q. This place offers different food stations — an area for wraps and sandwiches, an international food section (Indian, Mexican foods and the like), a grilling station, a soup station, a salad bar and pre-​made food stuff (fruit salad and sandwiches). The food can get a bit pricey for the quality you get, but I believe convenience definitely plays a role as other reviewers mentioned. For instance, a typical veggie sandwich and a Zico coconut water costed almost $ 10. (I should’ve gone to Croutons across the street).
If I were to compare the Q to any food place… a glorified hospital cafeteria comes to mind… w/​o the thought of germs and bacteria — since folks in scrubs are not visible. Both indoor and outdoor tables are available. The indoor seating areas have televisions, too.

For a company cafeteria, the food is actually pretty good, however, the layout is really convoluted. They have a three item combo program which promises a meal under 600 calories, but you have to scavenge across the cafeteria to get the three items, and it wasn’t clear that it’s not a food item on the menu, rather a general guideline you can follow on how to pick your food. I wanted to have a salad with protein on it, and ended up getting a piece of salmon on the grill and salad separately in the salad bar – they charged me 6 dollars for the salmon (!) and the salad turned out to cost me a total of 10 dollars – at a company cafeteria! Then I realized there’s a prepackaged salad that day that has salmon on top already for 7 dollars :(. So the next day I got the turkey version of the prepackaged salad at the front of the salad bar.
The salad bar is really good – fresh ingredients with lots of options, the grill section also looks pretty decent, «fresh» baked from frozen pizza right out of the oven, and a really good selection of sandwiches, starbucks coffee – all are stables at the cafeteria. Then they have daily specials of ethnic food. This particular cafeteria, supposedly has better food than the other cafeterias a couple blocks down according to people that work at Qualcomm. Maybe partially because the CEO’s office is close to the cafeteria? :)
Overall, it’s not cheap for a company cafeteria, but food is good, nothing compare to google and apple, but beats the intel cafeteria if I remember right.