Souper Salad

I believe this is the one that just opened on SanMateo, use to be down by firehouse subs. The first thing you notice is the chipped plates. From there you have to pick through the lettuce and spinach, there were alot of brown pieces in there. From their you go to the tomatoes which were not pleasant at all. The spoon to scoop them out had some king of slime on it, the tomatoes themselves were not appealing, half were wrinkled up as in old and a couple of pieces looked to have mold on them. After that it seemed to get better until we sat down. I watched the young gentlemen that works with the food at the bar come out, with gloves on, and rearrange the food, then he walked to the back. He came back out with gloves already on so I am not sure if they were a clean pair or not, he then takes his cell phone out of his back pocket texts puts the phone back in his pocket and goes back over to the food. I was with three other people who watched this and then decided between the food and health concerns this would be our last visit.

Souper Salad is a nostalgic place for me.
Growing up, my mom was a single mom with two young kids and a teenage boy. My mom took in kids the way hoarders take in stuff. It didn’t matter how big our house was or how much food was in the cabinets my mom found a way to feed and home any hungry young mouth that came through our door.
We always knew it was payday or my mom was able to make the bills because she would take everyone out to Souper Salad. It’s cheap enough to feed ten hungry mouths on a budget, especially teenage boys, because they can stuff themselves with food until it’s coming out their eyes.
We would frequent the Souper Salad on central, often filling up two to four booths. It was a happy place for everyone. Food was involved and our large extended family was involved.
Souper Salad has an excellent selection of salads, toppings, dessert, and a hot bar. Their food may not be «all organic» and all that jazz, but man it’s good. Every time I’ve been back as an adult the food has always been consistent. The vegetable beef soup is just as good as it was when I was a kid, the gingerbread muffins are the same delicious little goodies they’ve always been, and I can eat my fill of salad with toppings galore.
Souper Salad may not be as upscale as Whole Foods, it’s not in with the new health crazes, it’s just Souper Salad… and I’m okay with that. It’s relatively healthy, it’s relatively cheap, and it’s a great atmosphere for a family. It’s a fun place to be as a kid or an adult, getting to fill your plate up with things you like, and ignoring the things you hate.
Souper Salad will always hold a very special plate in my heart, in my childhood memories, and in my tummy. I love this place, and I don’t think I could ever say anything bad about it.

Disgusting! That about sums it up. We came here because we had a coupon and always wondered how it compared to Sweet Tomatoes. We came at dinner time on a Sunday evening. They have a very basic salad bar, 4 soups that taste like they came out of a can, an empty taco bar, and the macaroni and cheese looked like it had been sitting under the heating lamp for hours! Trust me, spend the extra $ 2.50 and go down the street to Sweet Tomatoes.

Got a little face lift. They have really good soups and love their breadsticks. It’s nice being able to create your own concoction of a salad. They recently put a divider in the dining room which makes it feel more cozy. They hired a new crew of people who are attentive and very nice.

This Souper Salad just came under new management and the place looks great! It is actually clean and the staff is helpful and friendly. The salad is fresh and tasty! Make sure and try the pasta salad, especially the one with linguine and corn. Adding the ham cubes to it makes it even better!

What’s to say, right? It’s a Souper Salad like the others. I can only say that it was very clean and the staff were very helpful, very attentive and super nice. The cashier, cooks and waitress were friendly and kept checking on us. They really earned the tip! Everyone seemed to care about our meal and our experience. That really stuck with me and I promised myself I’d write this review. Done!
Thanks again to the staff there. The food was what is always is, but the service was over the top! Well done!

I admit, we were feeling cheap so we decided to use our coupon for Souper Salad rather than going to Sweet Tomatoes, our usual salad place. I guess you get what you pay for. The lettuce was not crispy, the romaine had a lot of brown patches. The Asian Salad was tasteless. I didn’t try the hot foods because I just went for salad. My husband said the vegetable soup wasn’t bad. The frozen whatever-​it-​is ice cream stuff was strange. It had an odd flavor I couldn’t quite place. I think next time we’ll pay the extra and head back to Sweet Tomatoes.

Souper Salad, why are all your patrons fat?
I’ll tell you why.
A person on a calorie-​restricted diet can easily convince themselves they’re going to SS for some healthy salad and maybe a light soup.
What happens when you get there? All you can eat bread, potatoes, creamy dressing, ice cream, croutons, salted nuts, pasta salads, pizza, fat-​laden soups, soda, pudding, tacos, sour cream, processed cheeses, whipped cream, cookies.
It’s eating light, the American way.
I give it three stars anyway, for being a cheap pig-​out spot.

Souper Salad is one of the least consistent chains out there. Some of them offer the relative rarity of healthy, abundant, customized food for a low price. Others, like this one, seem to think that the low price of their buffet somehow makes up for the fact that they use old produce and their hot food is generally gross. This isn’t entirely their fault. They seem to have a slow turn-​over, which means that the food sits out longer than it should. Still, the fact remains: eating here is generally a disappointment.
Imagine wilted lettuce, dried out veggies, mushy tomatoes, pre-​made salads that have partially disintegrated, favorite toppings that are out, hot food that has remained hot far too long, stale breads, messy banks of food, and inattentive service. Now, in an average dining experience at this location, you’ll suffer through a random three or four of those list items. You could line them up on a card and make a Bingo game out of eating there. It’s never the same which ones they are, but most of the time the hot food is best avoided unless it’s fresh. The soup tends to get plundered of its goodies and then allowed to grow a skin, the hot pastas crust over and dry out, the pizza seems to be a practical joke of some kind, and the taco bar begs the question «if you were willing to eat this, why didn’t you just stay home?» Sure, it’s all you care to eat, but most of this stuff you probably won’t care to eat.
It wasn’t always this way. I ate at this location somewhat frequently for a while. But over the last few years, it’s just gotten worse and worse. New management? Change in corporate policy? New vendors? I don’t know. Something has changed, and now it sucks. Too bad.

friendly service, but the place looks kind of dim + dismal. food is somewhat fresh-​tasting– not so much on the caesar salad, but yes on the taco meat. typical salad bar selection, incl. spinach leaves + several kinds of pasta salads. pizza + orange mac/​cheese. 4 soups; the two i tried (chicken stars + creamy chicken harvest) were kind of watery, so i added veggies from salad bar to chunk it up a bit. corn bread + gingerbread bread + another fruity bread. small baked potato (yellow sweet potato + russet) + nachos bar. sweets incl. puddings, jello, vanilla soft serve ice cream. see their website for current menu selections.

A Soup’R Salad. One of the more consistent in town. They don’t keep enough baked potatoes up though. Haven’t tried the baked sweet potatoes, that just sounds nasty. Their new pastas and pizzas leave much to be desired. They used to have a really good Red beans, rice and sausage every Thursday, not sure if that’s still true.