Garden Bar – Old Town

Finally a salad-​only place that has all the fixin’s you need including meats for the non-​vegetarians. Friendly staff and good prices. There are now 4 locations in Portland. Wish they were in more cities.

Super great place to grab lunch. Fast and fresh and a million different ways to make a salad.

Had a much better experience at this location of Garden Bar then I did at their Pearl location on 11^th. The folks working here were way more on the ball and not as messy when making the salads. The line moved quickly and I enjoyed my salad immensely. I’ll be back to this location when I’m craving some more Garden Bar!

Love this place! Come in all the time from the WeWork building and they consistently have fresh ingredients with great customer service. Workers are all amazing especially Nick, Jeremy and Taylor who are always extremely friendly and helpful.

After I wrote this review the owner contacted me to apologize for the bad experiences I had and even offered me a credit. I think my first visits were just a fluke. The owner definitely cares about customers and made sure to follow up.

I spent 20 minutes in line which was most of my lunch break, which is no big deal, hey they are making each salad to order. But when I get up to the guy working the salad bar, I ask for a small regular caesar salad, not the kale caesar that’s on the menu… then he looks at me like I am idiot and says «I don’t know what’s in a regular caesar, how do you make that?» WTF! I find it hard to believe that I am the only person that has ever asked for a basic caesar salad… and your a salad bar!!!
Way to make a customer feel like they can get what they want! I have come to your place three time. First time I liked it, second time I came with a friend and we shared a salad in which both of us got sick from it. Finally this time I figured I would give it one more chance… I think I’m done with Garden Bar!

Good salads but really long wait times.
Waiting in line at this place takes forever (I waited for 20 minutes yesterday). It’s also deceiving how long the line is since they basically stop the line so they can prepare online orders while everyone in the line has to wait. Pretty frustrating when my friend, who was right behind me in line, had to wait in line an additional 5 minutes for his salad even though we were having lunch together.
Meanwhile, ingredients in the salad bar were flying everywhere. I saw bacon land in the artichoke container, which is pretty gross if you’re a vegetarian like I am.
I will admit the salads are delicious, but at $ 9 – 12 apiece, it’s not exactly a bargain.
I’d give online ordering a try, but I won’t wait in line again.

Nice place to get a variety of healthy choices of fresh vegetables in a salad of your own design or one the Garden Bar has already laid out. The NW Broadway location is always overrun when I go at noon, but the staff process orders rather efficiently… with perhaps a bit too much haste, at times. It can be a challenge if you have allergies –or are a strict vegetarian — as the ingredients do mix, and though I have had several discussions with management about it, the bacon bits located at the front of the assembly fly into the surrounding vegetables with regularity… and sometimes even as far as a waiting patron’s coat pocket!
Great place for bacon lovers who want to add fresh stuff to their diet; vigolance required for those not so free in their dietary choices.

I met a friend at the Old Town location for lunch. I got there about five minutes before the lunch crowd started coming in. My salad was good and I liked that I was asked if I wanted light/​medium/​heavy dressing (FYI, light was still plenty). The price point was okay. I’m not sure I would pay more for a salad at this location (mine was $ 11).
Pros:
* Healthy eating option downtown
* Dine in/​take-​away option
* Great selection of set menu options or build your own
* Quick and efficient staff
Cons:
* No coffee or hot beverages served
* Eating and ordering space is pretty cramped during peak hours
* While staff were efficient, nobody seemed particularly welcoming or glad to be there (not really a con, but more an acknowledgement of a strange vibe)
* Street parking only

This place is amazing — beautiful choose-​your-​own-​adventure salads!

This restaurant is so good, it makes us consider moving to Portland. All the ingredients are incredibly fresh and they give a generous quantity of salad toppings. There is so much variety and amazing dressing options. I wish I was in Portland more often just to try all of them. The place is bright and open.
My husband had the kale chicken caesar — their caesar dressing is AMAZING. I don’t even know how they make it so much better than normal caesar dressing. I had the chopped salad, which came loaded with all sorts of delicious toppings. It comes with the lemon charred vinaigrette, which is good, but very lemony. The salads were both $ 11, which is very reasonable for the quality and quantity. We left feeling full for hours.

Amazingly fresh ingredients and a wide range of options make this my favorite place to grab a salad downtown.
Being able to order ahead online also makes the whole process painless and fast.
Go Box is also used here, which is awesome! Do yourself a favor and get signed up!

I LOVE Garden Bar!!! I work really close by, so I feel lucky to have them as an option on my lunch break. They have a great topping selection, and reeeeally great dressings! I appreciate how avocado comes as a topping, and you don’t have to pay an extra dollar for it (like Crisp does.) they also are very generous with their topping portions, and make it worth the money.

OMGeee, I freaking love this place! Fresh ingredients, tons of salad options and a great option for eating healthy in the city. Portland has so many indulgent options available, it’s nice to have fresh salad available. And the price was very reasonable for the GIGANTIC salad portion I was given.

I’m obsessed with Garden Bar. I’ve had 4 of their salads and each one has been perfect. It’s a perfect mix of dressing and toppings to salad. I wanted this place to exist so bad for years after experiencing great to-​do salads in NYC. My dream has come true. It’s so easy to order online and pick up fast in person with out waiting in line. Everyone has been so nice there.

This place kills it! Real great ! Huge salads! I had the yucatan and it was amazing. Seriously I’m not even a salad person and I love this place! Long live the carrot.

This place is a pretty simple concept but somehow hasn’t happened before. Take the whole subway eat fresh customize your meal thing and translate it for salads. Now put it in the pearl and allow customers to add things like green garlic, chimichurri, jicama, and crispy garbanzo beans and viola garden bar.
The salads are huge, the ingredients are top notch and surprisingly the staff are able to move the line along pretty quickly. Only couple complaints are that both locations are structured so you walk in the door and you are immediately in line so 2 or more people make the line go out the door. Possibly intentional to give it that long wait in line vibe people in Portland seem to love but when it’s raining it gets old. The other complaint has nothing to do with garden bar.
If you customize your salad you get to choose 6 ingredients. Hint to patrons, if there is a line pick your ingredients before you get to the front don’t start looking when they ask what you want. Also, while you get 6 ingredients if you pick 4 and feel pretty happy please don’t spend 5 minutes hemming and hawing over your last two. Just walk away. You will love your salad without those last two ingredients and the person behind you won’t be inclined to strangle you with grilled ramps.
Oh and yeah the prices are pretty decent for downtown lunches especially for the amount of food.

Very excited Garden Bar opened in Old Town. It’s about 2 blocks from the US Bancorp building which is a fantastic location for many business patrons. Inside the US Bancorp building there aren’t many good healthy options. So Garden Bar is a welcomed addition to the area.
I went there for the first time last week at 11:30am. I would recommend getting there before noon as it did become busier as the lunch hour drew near.
The options are great. They have tons of options with greens, fruits, veggies and protein. As a vegetarian I couldn’t be happier with the tempeh offering. The portions are huge and I felt full, but not weighed down after eating my entire bowl!
Although it’s a touch spendy, it’s on par for lunch downtown. Expect to spend about $ 10.
I highly recommend trying Garden Bar!!!

First of all, yum. Second of all, my poor dwindling bank account. That’s pretty much all you need to know, but I’ll provide more detail…
This is a quick lunch spot with some seating. The space is clean and bright. It isn’t too far from their other location, but sometimes a few blocks make a difference. You can order from a menu of salads or create your own. Either way, it’s made fresh as soon as you order. First choose your greens, next choose your toppings (6), then choose your dressing. I’m a big fan of the charred lemon dressing. Unfortunately proteins are extra, so I usually end up with a $ 12 salad. It would be $ 9 without the chicken, but I haven’t been able to convince myself to make that sacrifice. In my opinion the chicken should be included in the price. I tend to use the theory — if it costs the same or less in Manhattan, there’s an issue. This is Portland. But Manhattan has a plethora of delicious salad bars, so they have to keep their prices lower to compete. Lucky for Garden Bar, they currently have a monopoly here in PDX. Another method of frustration is the fact that you could go to a food cart and get twice the amount of food for half the price, but I find the financial sacrifice justifiable for a fresh and healthy meal. I will often return, but with a slight bitterness about the cost. Oh, they do have a loyalty program, so eventually you get a deal if you’re a member. Looks like they have me roped in!
Lastly, the service is friendly and efficient. They’re currently sparkling with that new business glow and enthusiasm.