California Fresh

I’ve only had the soup here, but it is delicious and from scratch… as for the guy that said you have to pay cash only… not true… there is a sign that says they appreciate if you can pay cash… but they take credit… cause that is the onyl way I pay there. is with my credit card…

This place is so nasty! They have a sign at the cashier desk saying «To BETTER serve you please pay cash» (what? How will that help you SERVE me better?) On top of that the cashier lady was extremely rude. We went to lunch here today and I’m angry. My two friends and I are wearing our scrubs. She rings up my first friend gives her a discount. We are like «cool we get a discount? «so she continues to finish ringing us up when she finally gets to me. I have on the same EXACT scrubs as my friends the only difference is that my friends are Philippinos and I’m African American. The cashier lady takes my card and rings me up full price. I aske why didn’t I get a discount. She looks at me and says «well you don’t have a name badge on» I look at her then at my friends and only one of us had our name badge on. I bring this to her attention and she signals her manager and asks her if I can still have the discount. They made it a big ordeal when I pointed out there is no signs stating that. Its October 1^st not 31^st I’m not wearing a costume. Who walks around in hospital scrubs for the hell of it?! After that I brushed it off and kept going. Non of the staff spoke clear English and non of them actually understand you. But you can understand very clearly that they hate everything. They would pick up dirty plates and slam them in the tub to clean off tables. They were so loud at one point it sound like were were yelling at each other in order to continue our conversation. The chairs suck it felt like I was being sucked into them. They also had duct tape on everything. It was so hood I felt like they all hated the fact that we were there eating. Not only that this is walnut creek get your shit together if the rent is that high I would be doing all I could to get people in and the simplest way is just smile. Stop looking at people like they have poop on their face. I just felt like we needed to get the hell out of there. I will never eat there again and I am telling all my hospital friends not to go too.

This place is terrible. Big mistake going here. We should have walked out when we got there. All the kids trays has food stuck to them. The floors were dirty. The staff would not make eye contact or help. The food was bland with little or no flavor. Seats has tears and were covered in multi color duct tape. I expected some level or service but was I wrong. Stay away from this place.

Horrible.
Came here yesterday for lunch. I will never return.
This place looks like its barely making ends meet. There is white printer paper over their sign inside cause it is no longer «california fresh” — just fresh choice. Ghetto!
They have s sign that says «pay in cash only so we can stay open». Uhmmmm wtf?!? Sorry but i used credit.
The woman who rings you up cant speak english. No bueno, lady.
The salad was very low quality ingredients. The caesar and Chinese chicken were poor quality and seemed to have been sitting out for sometime.
They have chips and salsa on the salad bar. The salsa was amazing, the chips were stale!
The pizza seemed like it was frozen kind. The soup was awfulll!!!
My chicken noodle was so soggy. The chicken was chewy! EW!!!
Tried the chili. The beans were undercooked!!! Ew! Hard beans are hard to swallow. Both soups were watery and lacked flavor.
The cornbread was like cake. Gross.
The garlic bread was good. Not very cheesy.
The seating is so weird! They have all of this old furniture and an old coffee bat in a corner where patrons can see. Dusty and seemed to be leftover from when it was Fresh Choice.
This place feels like it was going to shut down, and now the kitchen staff bought it and are trying to keep it going.
I was expecting something close to Sweet Tomatoes. This place does not come close! Yuck.

Few. Vegetarian choices. Food is decent.
Soup is excellent
Location is easy to access.
Too crowded for weekday lunch

Hadn’t been to this restaurant for a few years and took my 9 and 13 year old here for lunch today. Restaurant is run down. There is a note at the cash register begging customers to pay by cash instead of credit/​debit card. There is a bunch of restaurant furniture shoved to an unused part of the dining room. Some flickering lights. Salad bar was ok. They no longer have the soft serve ice cream which my kids were very disappointed about. Can’t imagine this place will survive much longer.

Horrible. Still have the old Fresh Choice signs so we thought it was Fresh Choice. Dressings were watered down, muffins tasted like sugar, pizza no flavor and no ice cream machine. I could go on but I’ll just say don’t go there.

Listening to Kool and the Gang while killing little gnats buzzing around my food was wonderful. The warm food bar was all cold, and due to their impounded froyo machine because they couldn’t keep to health code laws, I went without that as well. Hardly anyone here either on a Friday around lunch time. It reminds me of a wake. A lot of older people and they all look sad. My best suggestion is to tear this place down, get new management and make a sweet tomato!

I was in the area to get my car serviced when I noticed this Fresh Choice. Coming from the Peninsula side of the Bay Area where most of these restaurants have closed, this was a pleasant surprise.
The salad bar had an array of choices and most looked and tasted fresh (mixed greens & spinach). There’s a large dining area that was clean and had plenty of space for sitting.
The ice cream machine has been removed but there’s other refreshing dessert choices. Management was friendly and even offered to take my tray to the table of choice.
Overall, my experience was satisfying. I left full and happy.

I used to love Fresh Choice growing up, but they started closing from left to right. My bf and I were out shopping one day and we were craving Sweet Tomatoes. I saw that Fresh Choice was around the corner and decided just to eat here for the convenience. BIG MISTAKE!
This place was ghost empty when we walked in. The salad bar was OK, but I can tell the lettuce and other veggies were not that fresh — I’m guessing they’ve been sitting out for a while and there’s nobody that goes here. They had build you own phở bowls, but it wasn’t very tasty. They did have baby corn in the salad bar — something Sweet Tomatoes doesn’t have.
Now the restaurant interior needs a major makeover! It’s very dated and the seat cushions are torn apart and held together by duct tape. :(
Don’t even try the hot food. They do try to be a little different than Sweet Tomatoes, by offering rice bowls and nachos. Food is OK, but its no better than microwavable TV dinners.
On a plus side, show your AAA card and save $ 1!

Being this place is in Walnut Creek by all the ritzy stores, you would think it would be better. The cheese for nachos was watery, the ice cream machine was out of order and had a health department tag on it, there were no meatballs for the spaghetti, and part of the dining room was in disarray.
The clam chowder and bread was decent and the Thai noodle salad and phở was ok. I would not recommend or come back to this place.

Just the worst, I cannot recommend anything positive about this place.
I came in, grabbed a few different salad options and was excited about their «phở» that they had available, the phở resembled nothing close to legit phở, the broth tastes like boiled ginger, the noodles were actual phở noodles, but the offerings of items to go with the broth were laughable at best.
The salads were all below average, I didn’t know it was possible to mess up a Chinese chicken salad but they sure found a way. Clam chowder tasted… off, I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, I feel like 90% of the clam chowder you encounter taste pretty similar, this one did not. The breadsticks were stale, macaroni was overly watery and after two bites I could not eat any more (I hate wasting food and normally will power through flavorless food). I had no interaction with the staff besides getting rung up at the register, no one cleared any plates from my table (nor did they from any other tables that I saw, the dining room looked very dirty/​messy with tons of dirty plates.
I DID have one slice of pepperoni pizza that wasn’t terrible, but upon my next trip to get food (and the remaining 20 minutes I was at the restaurant) there was no more pepperoni. I kept checking back to see if they put out more but it didn’t look like any was being made or that anyone even cared.
One thing I was looking forward to was some soft serve ice cream (another hard to mess up offering). When I got to the machine there was a large sign that said «Out Services» and upon closer inspection there was a warning sign from the Contra Costa Health inspector (seriously, look at the pictures I uploaded for proof) that mentioned that the machine was not to be used because it did not keep the cream cold enough at a safe temperature. The sign was dated almost 3 months before my visit, I couldn’t believe that they would have something like this sitting in their food area for so long without fixing the problem, it definitely shows how much they care about food safety and how much they value their business. Also, before leaving, I noticed a long black hair amongst my plates, awesome (more picture proof of this)
During the entirety of my visit, the manager was sitting in a booth with a few friends chatting it up without a care in the world. I wanted to grab him by his shoulders, shake him, and tell him to get their stuff together l, but alas I think this place is way beyond a lost cause. Please take my advice and avoid this place like the plague, you’re better off getting a salad from a grocery store or asking a homeless guy for a swig off his unmarked bottle

My 85 year old Mom likes this place and has been coming for years, and so we came. I generally steer clear of salad bars (having worked one as a teenager– ugh you just don’t want to know). Basically if it’s crowded it’s a good sign as the greens and such are being replenished frequently. And it’s a bad sign if not. That was the case here. Many wilted greens, tho the baby spinach was fresh. Stale breads. Pizza wasn’t bad (frozen style) bc it had just been baked. The bright spot on my plate was the tabbouleh– despite the pale tomato it was surprisingly bright flavored. I had seconds of that and spinach (dressed with oil and vinegar) and that was it. The fruit looked awful and the soft serve machine was out of order. Sadly this place seems past it’s prime.

Killer salad bar!!! I walked in just past opening time on a Saturday. I strolled along, and happily chose what I wanted from a dazzling array of all-​things salad bar. Everything looked clean and fresh. It pays to come early!
My favorite items:
–Pre-​mixed salad of baby spring greens, cranberries, a few other ingredients I can’t recall, and a light, slightly sweet vinaigrette
–The soups: they were hot, super-​flavorful and not too salty — chicken pozole, clam chowder, creamy squash
–Make-​Your-​Own-​Rice Bowl: I chose brown rice w/​a slightly spicy lentil stew sauce
–Honey sticky bun — you can’t find this at the other buffet place!
Sure, the ambiance is a bit lacking (dark and tired), but this place beats all others when it comes to the wide variety of healthy food choices. Other pluses: I can walk to my table without having to dodge running children; the noise level is reasonably quiet.

AVOID AVOID AVOID. I came here tired on a Thursday night after work. The salad bar (that you see before you pay) was pretty kept up, basic salad bar, no biggie. The hot food, however, was disgusting. There were films on top of sauces, old, DRY AND CRUNCHY pasta, and the bread was so stale my boyfriend hit it against the table and it didn’t even break. To make things worse, once we got up and left I tried to politely let the manager know that it was pretty obvious the food hadn’t been touched in hours (there was no one even in there cooking) the manager spoke a few words in Spanish to me, glared, rolled her eyes at her coworker… and walked away.
Nice.

Please consider something different! This used to be Fresh Choice. I guess that the new company is cutting corners everywhere possible. First the mixed salad that said it had chicken– well there wasn’t any. The mixed salad that was supposed to have Craisins and honey roasted pecans– well there weren’t any. It had sweet potatoes though! Weird.
The seats we tried to sit in were so torn up, I sank into a giant hole. So much so that I couldn’t stay and eat. We had to move.
There was one employee in the dining room but he disappeared as soon as we arrived. The dishes just piled up for the 4 of us.
When I went to the ladies room, that was worse! The door was broken. It looks horrible! The soap dispenser is falling off the wall. The outlet has no cover.
When I went for dessert… well, let’s just say disappointment! No chocolate ice cream. Seriously, no chocolate? Then the tapioca pudding I love and actually make a trip out here for is NOT freshly made anymore!!! Ewe! It’s from a container. It’s also very disgusting! Wow, what a shocker. Then, I went for some chocolate syrup for my VANILLA ice cream. Guess what? Yep, you guessed it! No chocolate syrup either. The container was clean so they had been out for a while.
The brownie bites used for the ice cream bar are as hard as concrete! Basically all they do is take old brownies and break them up for desserts. How old are these brownies really? Only God knows!
While getting ice cream, I saw the filth on top of the ice cream machine. I swear it looks like it hasn’t been cleaned for 5 years or more! So GROSS!!!
As we sat, waiting to leave, all the tables were piling up with dishes. There weren’t any clean tables!
There is no excuse for such lack of control of a restaurant such as this.
I do not recommend this restaurant at all!

The icecream machine was broken. They have sectioned off parts of the eating area for a bar and pastery area which are not in use and instead store cleaning equipment in plain view of customers. Seats were torn and taped over. The phở soup had a strong over powering ginger taste. Beware, it is so hot that the stream will burn your hand when you open it. The sliced lemons were brown and starting to rot. Other fruit like the pineapple had dark parts in them. The sweet potato also dark black areas all over it.
The Chinese chicken salad which one was my favorite salad anywhere has changed recipes to be like any other plain salad. The only reasons left to come here are the pizza and clam chowder.
The staff is friendly despite management’s every attempt to destroy this place.

All the bad reviews from a year or so were correct – when they reopened as California Fresh, the price was a tad bit too much for what you got, the food options were limited and the service and operations were a little rough around the edges. Now that they have rebranded back to Fresh Choice, it is pretty much as good as it was before.
They still have a mailing list with decent coupons – you should check it out.
Dining in is fine, but I tend to do the take-​out salad box. After tax, it is only $ 6.50. Consider it an option to Whole Foods pay by the pound bar, and it is a significant savings. No way am I getting heavier items like beets at WF, but when I leave FC the box easily weighs over a pound.

You get a good, reasonably-​priced meal with fresh produce and plenty more salad options than you get at most places. Quit your uppity, pretentious kvetching, you whiny brats. It’s right about on par with Sweet Tomatoes in Pleasant Hill. This is the first salad I’ve seen my boyfriend of hree and a half years make and then eat, so something must be right here. As a matter of fact, he likes this place more than me and frequents it occasionally.
Non-​salad options: Clam chowder is just okay, not as rich as others, other soups are just okay too, but the parmesan herb bread is delicious!
Employees were friendly and helpful. It’s a decent place, not quite as good as Tender Greens a few blocks away, but is cheaper and is a solid three and a half stars. I bumped it up to four because they have their own parking lot: an especially nice commodity in downtown WC.

Wow. What’s with all the negative reviews?
Honestly, the interior is not perfect yet. There’s some work to be done. Even so, the food was fresh and tasty, and I’m admittedly a bit of a salad snob. I love putting together my perfect plate like a mad scientist toiling away in his workshop.
If you’ve been to the Fresh Choice that used to inhabit this space, you’ll notice that their offerings are very similar.
I crafted together a pretty delectable salad of kale, red cabbage, broccoli, jicama, garbanzo beans, edamame, bell peppers, beets, quinoa, dried cranberries, sunflower seeds…
The vegetarian and vegan options are clearly marked on the labels, as are other helpful hints: «organic», «low sodium», etc.
I would be really happy with a few vegan bread and dessert options, but if you’re looking for a quick, tasty DIY salad, this is a pretty decent spot.