Jack’s Fresh

Pretty good in the DC area. Buffet was fine. It could have been much better if price of buffet is fixed ratuer than some amount per lb.

Easy meal with many options — I was very Impressed. I wanted to eat some veggies, some meat, some carbs, and I am so glad I came here because this place has everything. From french fries to salad, from Korean BBQ Beef to fried dumplings, this place has everything.
I would definitely come back here if I was in the area.

you can eat everything! we met jack and his wife sue, his whole family who are just the most hospitable people ever. clean venue, diverse clientele, very friendly and the food is quick comfort food with a lot of fresh vegetable options, which is a big deal anywhere outside of cali. go here for lunch or breakfast :)

Jack’s is subpar at best. I’ve been here many many times and it’s usually hit or miss as far as the food. For instance, today I went to the hot bar and grabbed rice, veggies and fried wings. The wings were overcooked and almost dry. The rice wasn’t much better. Tastes like days old rice that was anything but «fresh.» I usually like their fruit bar in the mornings and of course they way they weigh things, the prices are atrocious. Jack’s is always a last resort type of place for me and I can’t even say that anymore.

While most places in Dupont Circle are closed for lunch until 11:30am, Jack’s Fresh serves piping hot sandwiches as early as 10:30am. Their buffet style serving of food changes daily which is great because they have a wide variety of choices every week. It’s unique and unorthodox compared to most of the bland & boring choices in DC.
Get here early before 12:00pm, otherwise you’ll miss out on most of the food items available due to the chaotic lunch hour.

Since I have stopped eating here I feel much better and get sick less often. I would catch a cold every time after eating here.

Greasy, insanely overpriced food. The owners (I think they’re the owners) are unfriendly and appear genuinely disdainful of their customers.

Ok place. They say they open at 6am, but slim picking in the buffet line. Have to wait til 7am at least for most of the lineup to be available. Friendly staff.

Used to eat here regularly until I found a GIANT bug in my pad thai… Needless to say I won’t be going back.

Great hot and cold salad bar. Fresh ingredients, tasty food, friendly staff. The cold salad bar ingredients are all fresh and replenished during the lunch service given the heavy volume of customers. Hot food buffet is varied, tasty and relatively healthy. Vegetarian options on hot bar. You control the cost.

I used to eat here regularly. I would get sick every other week or so and couldn’t figure out where it was causing this. Then one morning last summer when it was a holiday and you can park on the street free, I parked behind a delivery truck in front of the store. I noticed that the person was delivering boxes marked «keep refrigerated» to Jacks Fresh but his truck was not refrigerated. I got out a double checked and found no AC unit and the back of the cab where the food was stored was very warm. I stopped eating there and I have not gotten sick in a whole year.

Fries were standard steak fries that yo momma used to make during cheap bbq days. The chicken salad sandwich was SWIMMING in mayo. Almost didn’t have enough hot sauce to compensate. Almost.
The woman next to me said that the burger was something that she had multiple times a week, and a friend is in love with the salad bar. I may try this again. No rush to though.

This is my go-​to lunch place because…
Buffet: There is a pretty extensive salad bar with plenty of healthy toppings. The buffet’s variety shrinks after about 2:00, but there’s still plenty of food. They have plenty of hot (very hot, not lukewarm!) and cold choices, and there is fruit year-​round. I am a somewhat picky eater, and I like most of the food there. There are healthy options besides salad, but I’d say most of the food is on the heavy side.
Price: $ 6.99/lb for lunch, donuts in the morning for less than a dollar, I believe $ 4.50/lb for breakfast.
Service: Very fast and friendly. I am a regular customer, and when I brought an Amex and didn’t have cash or a different credit card, they gave me my receipt and let me come back and pay the next day.
Payment: They don’t take Amex. You have to pay cash if your food costs less than $ 4 in the morning and $ 6.50 at lunchtime.

Got a reuben sandwich and was very happy with it, but the «mechanized» nature of their cooking operations scared me a little.
My lunch special came with fries, and they fried it on the spot, which was nice. but they threw the sizzling fries immediately into the styrofoam lunch box as they came out and i literally saw the tip of the fries burn holes through the box with the hot oil.
the rest of my lunch i was kinda freaked out by the fries because i was always wondering if there’s small traces of melted plastic.
maybe if they slow down a bit or switch to more compostable containers, it would make me more comfortable?

Near where I work so I picked up breakfast one day.
Buffet style — everything looked sort of dry and old.
It was expensive, but I guess this is DC and I am a DC newb, so maybe relatively it is one of the cheaper options…
Food was meh. Cash only ugh.

I appreciate a good salad bar with fresh ingredients and that is what you will get here. I have only tried their salads but the people I work with swear by their breakfast buffet as well. When I am slammed at work I pop over to jacks and I am in and out in under 15 minutes (if I am decisive). I don’t add salad dressing (keep some at work) to my salads and I don’t add meat so a typically salad (in their bowl container– full) runs me anywhere from $ 3.00-$ 5.00. Be mindful of the fact that they make you pay cash for any purchase under $ 6.00.
I hope this review helps!

All things considered i don’t think i can recommend this place. though i think the quality of the food is above average for this food service category (pay by weight deli/​buffet), and compares favorably to similar places i’ve tried in Manhattan in range of selection and food taste/​quality, the prices are just so high here that i could never place it in my regular rotation of office lunch options. I dare you to fill a regular sized container at this place and get out of there for less than $ 10 to $ 15. and at that price point it just doesn’t make economic sense to go here regularly when you can get a decent sandwich at potbelly a block away for under $ 7 and with several other options in the area where you can get a decent meal for much less than you will shell out at Jack’s Fresh.
Summary: above average food for for the deli/​buffet style eating category, but way too expensive to recommend as a regular lunch option.

I’ve been to Jack’s Fresh a couple of times — I’ve tried the chicken avacado wrap and the cajun chicken wrap. Both were really tasty, and it’s one of the only places around that seems to have reasonable prices — the chicken wrap and a soda together are only about $ 5!

Decent food, but I should have gone to McDonald’s. Sorry Jack.
I went in planning to try some of the buffet options, but I got there at 2pm, 2 hours before closing, and the salad bar was picked over with only the dregs were left. The hot bar options were plentiful, but the food looked as if it had been sitting for a while. Nothing really yelled «eat me.» So I played it safe and went over to the grill for a chicken sandwich and fries. I tacked on a bottled drink and landed myself a $ 9 lunch bill.
The sandwich was decent, but I’ve had much better for much less money (i.e. Mickey Ds). The kaiser roll tasted cheap. It was sort of rubbery and just not what you would expect from bread. As for the fries, they were good, but nothing you couldn’t fix up at home with some Ore-​Ida, an oven and a baking sheet.
Based on my experience, I’d say Jack’s isn’t so fresh. With stale bread, buffet food that looks like it was cooled and reheated, and fries that I could have made at home, it’s not the freshest or the greatest there is, but it ain’t so bad either.

Note: this place is not cash only anymore. They take cards.
Decent food, have tried the Asian offerings, the salad bar is good.
Not great not bad. Can get pricey if you keep tossing stuff on your salad.