Green Bean

(Closed now — Old review stuck in my Drafts). Ate there for lunch today. Very impressed. They could use a few more items on the defined menu, but if you are adventurous you can just do the «create your own» option. Had one salad and one wrap.

The Green Bean boosts a healthy lunch alternative for St. Louisians with fresh ingredients and a «make-​your-​own» salad/​wrap concept. A barebones atmosphere and small space, The Green Bean, is more of a pick up and go place not somewhere to sit and enjoy lunch.
I went to The Green Bean last week. I got a southwest-​inspired salad. It was amazingly delicious. My lunch companion got a wrap and enjoyed it just as much. The problem was it took FOREVER. Seriously. We could’ve gone to a sit down restaurant and ordered something that needed to cooked by the time it took them to make a salad and a wrap.
There are not a lot of places to sit and the décor is cool but drab. It kind of reminded me of going to someone’s college apartment: Cheap tables and chairs, magazines scattered everywhere, a few chic art pieces. Not somewhere I would want to take someone for a work lunch.
Not surprisingly, you also pay for the fresh ingredients as well. Although you get a large portion, they charge an arm and a leg.
Overall, if you are in the mood for something delicious and healthy, I would suggest calling-​in and picking up a salad or wrap from Green Bean.

I just realized I still haven’t written a review for Green Bean… Ooohhh, how I love the Green Bean! The «make-​your-​own salad» concept is not a new one… Atlanta has Doc Greens, Texas has Tossed, DC has Sweetgreen… There is just something a little different about this place.
First of all, I learned that the business is owned by a Washington University undergraduate student. She designed the concept and owning the restaurant has been a hands-​on way to learn about business and entrepreneurship. She hires a lot of hard-​working students too.
Secondly, the food is incredibly fresh. By far the most affordable way in the city to get a healthy meal. They don’t skimp on toppings and have an incredible assortment (quinoa, a variety of cheeses, plenty of veggies, olives, hummus, etc) and any salad can also be made into a wrap.
My ONLY suggestion: The staff didn’t go out of their way to be helpful and weren’t overly friendly. Your interaction with them is relatively limited, so it’s definitely worth overlooking.

I finally made it out to Green Bean. I applaud the owner for the wonderful way they have been marketing this place through Social Media.
Green Bean is a nice little café style restaurant in the heart of the central west end.
When I arrived there were a couple of people in front of me so that gave me some time to look at the menu.
If this is your first time you might be overwhelmed. I was. There is a lot to choose from.
One of things I wish the staff at Green Bean did was be more engaging. I stood there looking at the options and needed help. I was hungry and having a melt down. Their menu is simple in terms of telling you what you need to know.
Eventually I decided on doing a «Create Your Own». I’m officially calling it the BIG J salad. Ingredients: Mixed Greens, Eggs, Mixed Bell Peppers, Broccoli, Parmesan Cheese and Green Goddess dressing (avocado base). Their staff mixed up my salad handed it to me in a nice bowl and it was very delicious.
Cool note: They put cucumber in their free water dispenser thingy. Loved it!
Bottom line: Neat place. Very fresh ingredients. Environmental conscious restaurant. A great edition and perfect place to have a fresh salad in the central west end.

This is a recently discovered gem in CWE. I was looking for a healthy place for lunch and found it! I have brought friends here since and they love it, too! How I described it to them: a Fro Yo approach to salad. You pick your lettuce, toppings, and dressing. They also have a few menu items to choose from.
The drawbacks are that it’s a bit expensive. For just a salad or wrap with no drink or side will put you back about $ 9 – 10. The portions are big though so you get plenty! There also is usually a wait. The process to make the salad or wrap always seems laborious and they usually have to go get extra/​missing ingredients from the back. The space is small and kinda tight, too, but that’s most places in CWE.
They have some perks, like through the Perka app which gives you free salads after so many purchases. Also, they partner with Fro Yo and if you bring your receipt to Fro Yo, you get 10% off your frozen yogurt purchase (and vice versa if you bring Fro Yo receipt to Green Bean).
My favorite is the Citrus Caesar (caesar salad with oranges :-)) on the whole wheat wrap. Yum!

I recently tried the protein wrap (quinoa, spicy chickpeas, jalapeños, feta, cucumbers, chopped red onions, lemon yogurt dressing, and mint). It’s amazing! Whoever came up with the idea of this wrap is a genius. The spiciness of the chickpeas works fantastically well with the tartness and creaminess of the feta. The chopped red onions give the wrap a nice crunch. In fact, I think that’s the most important part of the wrap. I also like adding some spinach leaves. The mint is a nice touch. This wrap is packed with protein and fiber (you’ll definitely find out about the latter the next day, lol).
I also like how durable their wraps are. They don’t fall apart with everything that’s being held inside. Which brings up the size of these wraps — they are huge! In the words of Guy Fieri, does Paul Bunyan eat here? The wraps are quite filling. The ingredients are fresh, and healthy of course.
This is my new favorite food item in the CWE area.

Just went back to Green Bean a second time and it was even better than last year when they first opened. My favorite thing to get is definitely the Pueblito wrap. So fresh, so tasty, SO filling. It’s the ultimate post-​workout dinner.
Whenever I’m in town, Green Bean has to be my first stop. My mouth is literally watering as I type this.
Everyone should try Green Bean. It’s casual and fun. The perfect lunch place. Once you try it, you’ll never be satisfied with Cosi or Panera or Chop’t. Other fast casual places just don’t compare.
I love Green Bean!

I went here once and got the turducken. It hovered somewhere between mediocre and bad.
I decided to give it another chance today. I would have ordered the Mermaid, except the green beans they had out looked truly terrible. So I got one that had roasted red peppers, hard-​boiled egg, Manchego, asparagus and Romanesco dressing. It usually comes with romaine lettuce, but, again, the romaine looked terrible so I substituted spinach. It was okay.
meh. I think this might’ve been my second and last stop there.

Décor: Simplistic, modern and in some ways, kind of awkward because it seems so empty-​looking and there were like 3 – 4 people behind to help me make… a salad.
Service: You pick your salad on the menu or you can just pick what you want in your salad and you can watch them prepare it. The people were nice, but they didn’t seem to be that… professional? They were young guys/​girls that just slathered things on.
Food: I forgot which salad I got and while it was fine and dandy, well. it’s a salad. And a darn expensive one at that!
Overall: I don’t really get this place. Is it trying to be like a salad Qdoba/​Subway? Or does it want to make nice premium salads? Come here if you want your greens, but expect to pay for it.

My absolute favorite grab-​and-​go spot in the CWE. Super fresh, lots of green stuff, and a zillion ways to customize. It’s about $ 8 – 10 salad, so not a cheap lunch, but worth every penny. The staff is always so nice, too.
Parking in this area is tough, but try the side streets and you should find something. Just keep remembering it’s worth it ;)

I honestly think the concept of having a restaurant with strictly healthy options is a very solid idea, especially in obese Saint Louis. However, is it worth paying $ 9 – 12 for a salad that you can DIY for much cheaper? Not at all.
People will come here and pay the money because they want that feeling of being healthy and that they’re doing the right thing. I truly feel the appeal of it will wear off once you figure out what the total will be once they ring you up at the register. The ingredients didn’t seem all that fresh to me either.
I ordered a custom wrap. I put in feta, chicken, romaine lettuce, sliced carrots, broccoli, apples, and the house raspberry vinaigrette which I had to wait awhile for them to go in the back to fix. Apparently they don’t keep that in stock like the rest of the dressings. They said they don’t sell it that often as the rest.
The broccoli had brown spots on top of it. He went on and tossed it into my salad bowl, but I asked him to remove it since it didn’t have any green color on it. He removed the veggie then replaced it with fresh. It wasn’t hard to miss that it was not fresh. He saw it, I saw it. So, why toss it in there anyway when I told him before he put it in there that it didn’t look appetizing?
They mixed everything in the bowl then placed it into the wrap…
The wrap itself was below par. It was supposed to be split between both myself and my boyfriend, but he just didn’t find it appealing at all. I ended up consuming my half and the rest of his. At that point I was hungry but not that hungry, so eating all of it was a bit overwhelming considering how much they give you.
The portion sizes are large sizes. You can make 2 meals out of one meal that you pay for which I guess can be a good thing and a bad thing. Personally I don’t like to eat left over salads or wraps. Especially when you have the stuff you have in it and the dressing just makes it soggy. I think it would have been the same case for the wrap if I would not have finished it, I assume it would have been not so good tasting second time around.
The teas are NOT my kind of taste. Since I had a Foursquare check-​in, they offered a free tea to us. I got the green tea for Jason and he didn’t really find it that appealing. I sampled both of them at the register when I was getting it for him. Both tasted nasty. If you’re into that kind of thing, you can pay $ 2.50 for a bottomless cup. You can get as many refills as your soul desires. One tiny taste was enough for me. I stuck to H2O.
I think the only major positive about this place minus the health nut concept was the customer service. They guys working behind the counter were extremely nice and did everything they could to make sure everyone got what they wanted. For a newbie like me, they were incredibly patience. For that, I give them kudos.
Alright, final verdict — I won’t come back. I will stick to making my salads at home and for you health nuts who want to look cool and pay $ 9 for a salad, by all means Green Bean is your type of place.

So happy that I came across this quick food spot while wandering around the CWE. Seems very similar to Sweetgreen in DC or to Doc Greens in ATL. Clean, open, modern, and very very green.
There were 8 – 10 suggested salad options for between $ 7 – 10, and there was a build-​it-​yourself salad option for $ 6 that included 3 veg +salad green +crunch + dressing. I thought the prices were reasonable, and they either give you bread with your salad or can put all your greens into a wrap.
Very large portion, filling.

The quest for healthier lunch options brought me to Green Bean this afternoon.
Hmmmm.
Well, if you really dig salads, and are really into other people making your salads for you, this is your place.
I got the Mermaid, because it was one of their lighter salads, and had seaweed in it… and ended up tasting nothing but the seaweed, and tofu. The honey flavor (which apparently was in tofu) was nowhere to be found, and the dressing was kinda «eh». It was, however, a big heaping bowl of the stuff, and made it through two meals for me. The orange-​mango flavored sparkling water was the best part of the meal (better be at $ 2.50!).
I can’t cook worth a fiddle, and even I can make a salad. So here’s how to enjoy yourself at Green Bean:
1) Order a salad.
2) Eat salad.
3) Repeat steps 1 and 2 until you find a salad you like. (I would have to repeat at least once)
4) Take note of ingredients.
5) Buy said ingredients.
6) Make it yourself at home, you slacker.
Sorry to do ya dirty, Green Bean, but it’s not often I can say, «Hey, I can make that at home for way cheaper!» but in this case… truth.

I really, really like this place. It’s modern and quaint. You walk in and it’s just a few wood topped tables and a whole lot of green. I love the jumbo boards with pre-​suggested salad and wrap combos to pick from. Take a few minutes though – there’s a lot of variety goin’ on.
The only reason this isn’t 5 stars is because I think it’s a little pricey for salad, even though portions are pretty good– it’s still kinda steep. But there are so many different options of what you can make your salad out of, what you can top it with and your protein options. The dried fruits, quinoa, and assorted nuts make this place my go to if I am really craving something but don’t want to feel guilty. at all.
Staff here are Always super friendly too, like, that healthy food is shining down on their personalities as well. Love it!

I had my first experience here and it was awesome! The salads are fantastic. There is a good variety in the menu and you can also build your own salad or wrap. They have fun toppings like fruits and different crunchy items. You even receive a piece of fresh bread on the side. And they have house made tea!
The best part, for those of you skeptical about ordering a salad as the main meal, is that it was plenty large. The greens were healthy, as opposed to iceberg lettuce with no value in it. I loved it, I will be back.

Enjoyable experience here and I can agree with it being a little pricey, but the selection is super fresh and hopefully locally grown.
The CWE may be our temp home soon so we’ll be visiting again!

Pricey yes… a healthy option, yes.
Not the most functional use of the space but the idea is almost spot on

Green Bean offers a guilt free alternative to standard lunch fare with a wide selection of vegetables and dressings.
I actually made my own salad instead of getting one of the salads on their menu because quite frankly, none of the salads on their menu looked that great. And the choice of dressing is really important to me so it was just better for me to make my own.
The things I loved:
–lots of dressings that you can try before you put it on your salad
–the «crunch» options
–the wide selection of vegetables
I did wish that instead of limiting the number of vegetables you could have (to 3), they could do like a weight option where they charged you by how much the food weighs.
I probably won’t come too often because I have easy access to a salad bar on campus. But with that said, I can see why this is an attractive option for professionals and other people looking to grab a healthy lunch.

I live in the Central West End and was thrilled when I learned Green Bean was opening — — the focus on a quick and healthy dining option was definitely appreciated.
My husband and I visited the other evening and, while I am ranking the place as 2 stars, it was probably more like 2.5.
The pros:
Again, I love the concept.
The staff were friendly.
The portions and corresponding salad prices appeared reasonable.
They serve beer.
The cons:
I was disappointed in the plastic bowls and cups for our «dine in» meal. Once more, for being an apparently conscientious business, the recycling of these items wasn’t obvious. Having actual ware would have felt less like a boxed lunch experience.
Upon passing by, the place looks great (I love the painted wall) but they were relatively slow (we were the only dine-​ins and there were two people who came in for to go orders), and it could have been cleaner — — there were bits of trash — a napkin, etc — here and there. The bathroom door stood wide open and in full view of the dining area… not great.
Also, the nice looking dark wood bench along the main wall isn’t conducive for comfortable seating per the height of the tables in front of it.
I felt they could come up with better ways to house their lettuce and tortillas (for wraps) — — keeping the tortillas in the same packaging as the store from which they came seems amateur — as if you are ordering food from a vendor at a high school sporting event.
Although I just mentioned the reasonable price per salad portion (our two salads were approx $ 6 each) and I admit we did get two beers, I was sticker shocked at a nearly $ 30 bill post tax and «tip» for what felt like a sub-​par experience.
All in all, if I were to return, I would be more likely to go at lunch (since that is the general feel of the place to me).
I noticed a place for comments in the restaurant and I hope Green Bean is receiving constructive feedback as I would love to see this place improve in a few key areas and thrive long-​term.

Finally.
Finallyyyyyyy!
A genuinely healthy and quick spot for lunch! When I lived in Chicago I worked in the same building as the most glorious salad place ever, and since then I’ve been griping that we need a place just like that in St. Louis. Well, it’s finally here, and it’s conveniently located in the West End!
Green Bean flat out looks healthy with their woods, greens colors, and tons of natural light… the simple décor is very fitting for the menu offerings. I’m in agreement with Andy D that your eyes immediately go straight towards the huge amount of healthy salad ingredients. The adorable owners told me about how they make their dressings in house, too, so extra points for that.
I had the goddess salad with mixed greens and watercress, avocado, chives, croutons, and grilled chicken, topped with their lemon tahini yogurt dressing. Yum! The dressing needed a lot more flavor but I still really enjoyed the salad a ton, and that paired with my grape flavored water was satisfying and kept me full until dinner. The salad choices are pretty simple but all really different, so I’ll keep going back to try more.
Lunch here immediately! If you don’t feel like a salad you can make your own wrap. Big fan of this little spot.