Pockets

Great place to grab a healthy sandwich or salad. I did not have a pizza or calzone.

Dear manager, please update your free drink offer to include WITH PURCHASE. You cannot tell people it’s free then change the deal when someone wants to redeem that a purchase is necessary.

Nice people and healthy food for lunch. Glad I found this place.

If you hate vegan diet then definitely you would hate the ingredients they have. But if you don’t mind having a vegan sandwich from time to time, then this would be a great place to visit.
Pockets have great choices for delicious and healthy sandwiches. The ingredients they use are fresh. If you want to build your own sandwich, which is an available option of theirs, you would be glad to know that there are many ingredients for you to choose from. Furthermore, you can also choose the type of dressing you want. The place is small but that doesn’t stop me from having my lunch here.

I work right across the street from Pockets and order from them frequently. They use great quality fresh ingredients. Everything I’ve ordered from them has been great! I’ve tried a variety of their pockets, calzones and salads. Ordering online is fast and convenient.

20 years after my first Pocket’s experience and it is still healthy, unique, fun, and soooo good!
Try one and you will be hooked.
~Jonathan

I walk by pockets all the time and decided to try them out this week, but unfortunately it didn’t quite do it for me. I thought that their portions were a good size and reasonably priced, but I was disappointed by the salad I ordered. The buffalo chicken was served cold and pretty flavorless; the spinach was shredded into tiny slivers. I did appreciate that the salad came with a warm piece of bread, but overall was not too satisfied with me meal.

I am not a vegetarian (which I feel this place caters to the most) but I was in a former life. I may have ordered the wrong thing but did not find the food impressive at all. Very bland and basic — sure it feels somewhat «healthy» but did not have much on flavor. I was hopeful for this place as there were several positive reviews and would have been a great option in my lunch rotation. If you are seeking salads or the like, I feel there are other better options available in the vicinity. The pockets are reasonably priced but as I have indicated, I do not see the value.

I like this place. I live near it, and if I want a salad meal– this is the place to go.
First of all, the map on the Unilocal page is wrong– the location of Pockets is a couple of blocks south, on the corner of Ohio and St. Clair (just next to the Jersey Mikes and Arami Go).
I haven’t had the Calzones, I always customize a salad pocket, which you can do in the store on a card you fill out, or you can order it online the way you like. Tons of ingredients, different types of lettuce (a new item is the all-​romaine option), filler meets, veggies, etc. I really like the chipotle ranch dressing, it’s very good.
It is kind of odd how they do it. Every salad/​pocket comes in a Styrofoam to go box, and half the salad is placed into the bread pocket (a beautiful, warm, wheat, square piece of bread that is delicious, yet doughy and filling), the other half is left on the side of the pocket. The dressing comes on the side.
It’s good, albeit unconventional way of eating a salad. The portion is HUGE, so for 9,10 bucks, you are getting either a huge lunch, or a small lunch and some snacking for later.

A Chicago fave — always have to get my fix when I’m back in the Chi :)

Pockets has the best salads, as long as you are trying to go healthy. They also have the best salad dressings! I personally always get the lite ranch, but their regular ranch is to die for! For those that don’t care about the calories, their calzones are amazing and fresh. Definitely one of the best fast food places that offer healthier food.

My friend recommended me this place. Not sure if its a Chicago only place but its a delicious salad/​sandwich shop. Very healthy and affordable! The «pocket» is like a multigrain wheat pita and they stuff your salad in there. You definitely get your monies worth cause they filled mine up and it was overflowing!
I ordered the Asian pocket, it was delicious!

Pockets is a great place to pick up a fast, tasty, and healthy meal

My fiancé and I purchased from here and had it delivered. The staff is very nice but when I went to eat my calzone it had a hair in it! Yuck! After deciding not to eat here again for a long time we decided to give it another try. This time I ordered the spinach, berry salad. This time I had taken my first bite and saw a BUG crawling in it! SOOO Disgusting! I will not be eating here ever again!

What’s NOT to like about getting a healthy, vegetarian meal of a pocket and salad for under $ 5 in under 5 mins?

«Pockets? What’s a ‘Pocket?’» you ask.
Well, let me tell you:
It’s an old dish rag left out in an alley that rats have pissed and shit on for a week, brought back inside and packed with shredded iceberg lettuce that’s started to wilt, some frozen corn and other «veggies» barely thawed out, and the leftover once-​frozen, now-​melting chicken Chili’s tossed in their dumpster last weekend. With a sauce made by combining whatever condiments they have left over in the fridge (or maybe the freezer considering everything is frozen here?) in the hope it will disguise the true nature of the «pocket o’ shit» itself.
Subway is hands down 1,000 times better and that’s saying quite a lot.

Restaurant review
Lettuce and carbs! It was hard giving pockets 3 stars instead of 2 but I believe that partially it is due to my meat loving desires when it comes to eating out… I have to be impartial which is why it gets a 3 star. If you want healthy, Pockets is the wya to go. It is a hot pita pocket stuffed to the rim with fresh salad and very small amount of protein coupled with small amount of salad dressing. Unfortunately the combination comes off dry even when attempting to saturate the inside of the salad. On the plus side, you don’t feel guilty after having lunch :)
Pro: healthy selection
Cons: small amount of protein, expensive compared to other healthy fast food restaurants
Hidden gem: Sign up online for pocket perks to get additional savings. If you refer a friend they get a 2 dollar off coupon and you earn points (not sure what you do with these?)

This was near our hotel and my son wanted to stop by here for a quick dinner and it was a good choice (he came back by himself again the next day).
We both had calzones (his was chicken, spinach & cheese and mine was chicken, broccoli & cheese) and they were made fresh to order on soft whole wheat dough w/​a tasty side of marinara sauce. In my experience, when you get anything w/​whole wheat, it generally tends to be on the more hard/​crunchy side… but this wasn’t the case and we really appreciated that.
I also got a tomato & basil bisque and that was good too. Dinner for the two of us ran under $ 14 so another winner :)

Recently I was talking to a friend about my love of calzones, and she said «Have you ever been to Pockets?» And I said, «Never heard of it. Where is it?» And she said, «Well, it’s a chain.» Then three thoughts went through my mind in rapid succession:
1. Pssh, I don’t frequent chains.
2. Wait, how have I lived here for 13 years and never heard of a local chain that sells calzones?
3. Okay, I need to give this joint a try.
So a Unilocal search showed me that there was a location near Water Tower, where I had tickets to see a show at the Lookingglass last Sunday. And, reviews for the calzones were mostly positive. So, I made a point to plan dinner for Pockets right before the show, and I was looking forward to trying this chain version of calzone.
Verdict: Pleasantly surprising. It wasn’t as good as the best pizza-​place calzones but it was far better than the worst. All the ingredients seemed quality enough, the proportions were correct, and it was a fair size. The weak point was the crust, which was slightly thicker and breadier than your typical pizza-​dough style. Honestly, if I block out the chain factor and judge based solely on what came on my plate, I have to give this calzone a B+. So the trip was a success and I owe my friend a thank-​you.
The thing takes twenty minutes to cook and the «dining room» is not the most pleasant place to pass the time, so I might try other locations the next time I want to sit down and eat one of these. But at least they have Diet Pepsi instead of Diet Coke.

Stopped by to pick up lunch. I had half and original pocket with chicken and ranch dressing. It was surprisingly good. At first I thought it was quite plain, it filled me up for about 10 mins. The actual pocket itself is soft and warm on the inside and crispy on the outside. I would definitely go back knowing I am getting something healthy.
But they could give you a bit more meat since your paying $ 1.25 extra