The Brown Bag

Was bored of the usual places and stumbled in. I immediately got that «where have I BEEN?» feeling. Fun and inviting concept, hip, tasty, gf/​vegetarian options and very tidy. I’ll be back soon. I had a great custom pasta dish prepared to order, with add-​ins and it was still under $ 10. Great portion size. Portable if you’ve gotta run. Lots of good impulse sides to ponder while your food is being prepared.
Reminds of the Which ‘Wich concept, only with a much broader menu and appeal. Great hot items. Also this place had a solid staff in place the day I came. Great job guys!

The Farragut area is where customer service comes to die. This place however is wonderful. If you even look like you have a question they are GLAD to help and recommend something if you need. The food is always on point, the people are very genuinely nice. First time I walked in, I was totally confused by the bags (still sort of am) but I know I can have a nice/​funny chat with whoever is working – and it’ll be a thousand times better than any other place around.
For those complaining about price… it’s DC… go have lunch in Frederick.

I guess they are under new managment. Alot has changed. There are still the same employees with a new manager of the store. There has been so many changes in a matter of a week or so that I don’t really see myself going back. In my opinion, buying a franchise is a good venture and change is good but too much change too quickly can cause you to loose long term patrons very easily. I being one of them.

Went here for breakfast two days in a row while traveling — best breakfast yet! Greek omlet amazing, along with their breakfast sandwiches and coffee. Friendly vibe with great funky music — wish there was a location near me!

I love this place. Staff is super friendly, all the ingredients taste fresh and delicious. Plus it doesn’t hurt that they play a little funk music while you eat :) I highly recommend their Miami Burger and their pasta. They also do daily specials which are good deals.

They have gluten-​free sandwiches! And the bread actually tastes really good. I found out that I was gluten intolerant this year and was getting sick of the various salads and quinoa bowls that my lunch was limited to. I was craving a good ol’ sandwich when I stumbled across Brown Bag online and saw «gluten-​free» on their menu. I had been here before and loved that I could get any of my old favorites on the Udi’s bread. My two favorites are the Coltrane Chicken (I swap out the goat cheese for fresh mozzarella) and the Chipotle Chicken. Would highly recommend this place. If you have celiac, just be sure to mention that so your sandwich won’t be grilled on the same surface as all of the other sandwiches.

I love the concept of Brown Bag. No human interaction. I just have to check a few boxes and hand it over the counter. Kidding. (Sort of).
I do really appreciate the ordering set-​up though. I always feel awkward at other sandwich places when I stand there naming EVERY single vegetable.
I also really like their salads. Perfect portions and I loved that they offered lemon juice as a dressing.
The one drawback is that they don’t have regular mustard. Only that fancy crap.

Not bad. I wanted to try something different and noticed The Brown Bag was close to my work. I ordered online around 9 AM to have it ready by 12:10. They had plenty of choices and the fact you can create your own sandwich/​salad/​noodle bowl was nice. I’m a picky eater, so this is a nice touch.
The Brown Bag is like a subway, but with much better (and Healthier) ingredients. It taste fresher in my opinion and I really enjoyed my lunch.
The downfall and loss of star was the price. I paid nearly $ 9 for a sandwich. That’s it, just a sandwich. It was a delicious sandwich, just pricey.
I’ll probably go back, I just won’t be able to go every day. However it is definitely worth a try

I ordered the Thai noodle dish today with rice noodles. Let’s just say that the dish needs some serious work. The sauce used to flavor the dish had a major identity crisis. It incorporated weird spices. Even with cilantro, salt, pepper, and extra chili peppers, the dish was bland and flavorless. Also, the rice noodles used in the dish weren’t fully cooked. I don’t know that I would return given that custom fuel is right around the corner.

It only took one moment for me to give this place an extra star. When I looked down at my plate of pasta last week and saw chunks of shaved parmesean on top of the noodles, I knew I had found a place I wanted to frequent on a regular basis. Since this place is across the street from my work, I had been trying a noodle dish each week and they were okay, but their Pomodoro noodle bowl is now my new favorite lunch in the Farragut area.
Their other pastas that I’ve tried were passable but by no means better than anything you could get at any other noodle place. Their Big Easy is unique with its Cajun seasoning but it’s just a bit too spicy. And their Big Fat Greek has some delicious feta but the overall taste was a bit bland. I expected more from the creamy tomato sauce and could taste the noodles right through it.
They do manage to get the food out relatively quickly considering that they fry up the sauces and craft the topping right in front of the customer (it is kind of cool to see pan work at a place where meals are under $ 10) but somehow it always still feels like it takes them longer than it should.
I love that they have a mission of sustainability and environmental responsibility and I have to say that the portion sizes of their pastas definitely sustains me through the second half of a work day. I have been wanting to try their breakfast menu for a while but I never wake up early enough to have time to go here before work. If their omelettes are anything like the highlight of their pasta menu though, maybe I should try a little harder.

Decent place for a sandwich. I go with their specialty grilled sandwiches, mainly the Coltrain Chicken. They also have these blueberry lemonades and other flavored drinks that are pretty good. Never had a problem with service. Nice lunch spot.

For a late breakfast (11:06 am) I had a Turkey, Egg, Cheese croissant, with minestrone soup and a Fresh Squeezed Strawberry Lemonade beverage (Fresh squeezed lemons, sugar, blended with fresh strawberries). Excellent, excellent, and refreshing.
As always great customer service!

The Thai Shrimp salad is really terrible. The shrimp is just cooked not grilled so it is flavorless and slimy. What makes a good salad is fresh ingredients and a good dressing, this salad has neither. The lettuce is just bagged iceberg lettuce and their thai peanut citrus dressing is not a good. I couldn’t eat more than 3 bites before throwing a $ 9 salad away.

I like this place for their chipotle style service. I usually get the salad or customized noodles although I recently tried the Big Easy on the menu and later found my taste buds developed some sort of craving for it. Like my glutes need more pasta in their life, oh well! Hehe

I still like their salads, but the last few times I’ve ordered a sandwich, the bread has been very STALE.
$ 10 for a stale sandwich and a soda? No thanks.
i don’t like the new paper bags for writing one’s order.

More like 3.25 but quality fluctuates so it is hard to be consistent in rating.
I usually get the Alamo salad here which is a nice mix of spring salad, grilled chicken, tomatoes, cheese, beans and tortilla strips. Fresh mix and the cilantro-​lime vinaigrette is amazing. I could eat many things just dipped in that.
I have also had the «make your own salad» option here and that is normally decent but for those who like to go light on dressing, pay attention as they tend to slop it on. Tell them you want it on the side or watch as they dress the salad to avoid getting your leafy green friends soaked in the pool before you get to them.
Sandwiches are OK. I have had the turkey Ruben-​esque one and it was good. A friend swears by their daily specials but they are almost always some chicken-​based sandwich and I get tired of chicken easily.
Another issue is packaging. Sometimes you get your salad in a cardboard box, sometimes in a plastic bowl, sometimes in a hybrid of those two options. I always do take-​out so the cardboard box is the most hated option as by the time I have walked the half block back to my office, things are dripping and oozing everywhere (and, really, who puts salad in a cardboard box?!!)
They are slightly pricey but cheaper than Devon and Blakely’s down the road. Plus they have a more streamlined ordering process which is a plus. They don’t outdo D&B as far as quality and taste but they do come very close and you don’t have to deal with the lines of people holding their plastic bowls of rabbit greens up to the counter and screaming, «Oh, wait! I want to add steak and deep friend goop to that too! How many calories does it now mean?»
Their soups are generally best to be avoided with the exception of their gazpacho. I have had both the tomato and mango (yes, and it is good) versions and they were very tasty. Their hot soups? Not so much, alas.
I wouldn’t kill myself to get here for lunch but, if you do, go with the salads (apparently the noodle bowls suck on so many levels so as not to be entertained) and the sandwiches. If they have gazpacho going, it is worth it although it may set you back almost $ 4 for a small-​ish cup.
A decent neighborhood/​lunchtime offer… particularly to those who love a rowdy salad. Just NEVER get it in cardboard, especially if you have anywhere to walk over 2 mins.

Dear Brown Bag,
You are close to work, you are consistent, and for some reason, your cashiers like to give me free rice crispy treats… especially when I’m accompanied by pregnant colleagues.
I heart your Alamo Salad… but I really don’t get anything else. Your price point is a tad high for what you get, especially now that the Devon and Blakely has moved in across the street. Still, you are a solid 3.5 stars in my book. If you instituted a frequent diners club card of some sort, I’d definitely bump you up to a four star rating.

This place is disgusting.
When you enter you think… fake Devon & Blakely but smaller and dingier? Yea… except the food doesn’t even measure up to the worst of D&B. I got Peanut Sauteed Noodles and perhaps that was a bad choice on my part because obviously this place is nowhere close to asian… but it didn’t even taste decent. I wasn’t looking for authentic but I was at least expecting something that didn’t taste like microwaved plastic strings lathered peanut butter. You cant just throw in some broccoli, carrots, and peanuts and call it decent. Also, despite the busy bee work ethic the place seems to exude with its workers flipping pans endlessly, running around filling up empty containers… it’s actually much slower than it should be. It’s totally fast food in disguise; it’s slow and it’s expensive but the food is bad. I’d actually prefer Mickey D’s to this.

My review is for the one item I have ever gotten at Brown Bag, which is always outstanding: the Veg Out salad. Nearly hitting the $ 8 mark, it’s quite pricey for a salad but I still get it every time I go to my dentist next door. Instead of using nasty iceberg or boring romaine, they fill it with a lovely spring mix, then add portabella mushrooms (cooked some), artichoke hearts, goat cheese, cucumbers, tomatoes and probably other stuff I’m forgetting. It’s a huge, substantial salad and definitely one of my favorite to-​go lunch things in the city.
I’m always in there before the lunch crowd, so I can say nothing for their performance during peak hours. But I can say that even if I show up before they are technically serving lunch, someone always comes over to whip me up a salad.
I only wish I had one closer to my work.

Would have gone back, except they forgot to put chicken on my CHICKEN sandwich. I ordered a build your own sandwich on ciabatta, «stuffed» with roasted chicken, and I added bacon, avocado, and roasted red peppers with pesto mayo. See photo.
Unfortunately I got it to go and couldn’t go back to complain, but c’mon people! Since I couldn’t get back there to complain, I figured I’d voice myself on Unilocal.
The chicken-​less sandwich was still pretty good, but after dropping $ 13 for a sandwich, chips and a drink, the lack of chicken is irritating.