Hello Bistro

Do not be fooled by the fast casual layout of this place. There is nothing fast about it. Though the salads are good, it took 45 minutes from the moment I walked in the door to the moment I walked out with ONE salad ordered from their suggested menu. Meanwhile, build your own salads are being made and take out orders are being picked up. A full 25 minutes of idle wait time.
If you’re under any kind of time constraint skip this place. Not coming back anytime soon.

The first time I walked in Hello Bistro I was so overwhelmed by the salad options that I ordered a turkey burger (Which was great by the way). Ever since that first visit, they’ve been consistent with the quality and customer service. The ingredients are great and every time is just as great as the first time. My only complaint is that the salad portion size is ridiculous. I don’t go unless I feel I can consume such a huge amount of salad.

Used their online ordering to order a salad to pick up– then waited in line 40 minutes to get the salad! Unacceptable. Don’t offer a service if you can’t meet the required expectations. Ridiculous.

I finally had the chance to visit Hello Bistro today! I love the concept of it, but ehhhhh idk how quick I want to return. HB is clearly very popular, as it was packed when I walked in at about 12:10pm. My friend ordered a tandoor salad and was told it would be a half an hour to make. Whoa! I ordered the strawberry chicken salad and an iced tea, for a little over $ 11. The wait wasn’t too bad considering how busy the place was. My salad was pretty good (I do wish it had more veggies in it) but I can’t get on board with that price! The line for the online orders was insanity. I see someone else reviewed today and said it was 40 min long, I might believe that. I will consider returning in the future but will make sure to go early or in between lunch hours!

Hello Bistro has the best fast-​food salads downtown. There are tons of toppings and no limit to what you can add to your salad. Choose from fresh and roasted veggies, at least six different kinds of cheeses, a variety of proteins, and lots of yummy, crunchy add-​ins.
It does get very busy at the lunch rush, and the counter can get unpleasantly messy during peak times. That’s why I always go around 11am. Lately I’ve been ordering online as well.
I see a lot of reviews that say the salads are packed with lettuce rather than toppings. Well, if you get the kale mix, all those extra greens are a good thing! And just ask if you want another scoop of a certain topping. Staff have always been willing to do so in my experience.

We’ve been to this place twice in the last month and it was bad both times. The first time we called ahead with our order and went in to pick it up. It took us about 20 minutes to get there so we figured the order would be almost ready. We waited another hour. We were on our lunch break from work so we rushed back to the office with our order to discover that they made a mistake with almost everyone’s lunch. Out of 5 meals they only got my order correct. Unfortunately, they undercooked mine.
The second time was just the other day (4÷27÷2016). Rather than call ahead we just went in and placed our orders in person. There were three of us this time. One person’s order came out almost immediately, but he was missing half of what he had asked for. Our other two orders took over an hour to come out (just a salad and a hamburger — nothing crazy). We only got them because my coworker basically stormed their kitchen to get our food. The manager apologized and gave us two gift cards. We checked them today. The balance on both cards is ZERO.
The food isn’t terrible, but it’s definitely not worth the consistently bad service.

We were out walking this morning and stumbled onto hello bistro and the delicious raw juice bar. I wish we would have found this place the night before. If you love making «big» salads but hate buying all of the stuff to make them this is the place for you. $ 7.95 base with no meat and $ 2 – 3 for chciken or shrimp! We went to meat and potatoes the night before and paid $ 56 for two tiny salads and a piece of chicken… some complaints have been made about the ratio of lettuce to toppings. If you make your own salad there is no problem with toppings. They don’t weigh any of the ingredients so pile it on! Supposedly the burgers are really good to but we didn’t try them yet. We did go around 9:45 and we had the place to ourselves. I would imagine around lunch it is very busy. It’s worth a try once if you like salads!

Wow, SO MUCH LETTUCE in their salads! I went here for the first time and picked up a fiesta salad. It was enormous, buuuut was about 95% romaine lettuce. It wasn’t a salad with super extravagant/​expensive ingredients, but I felt like I encountered about 10 black beans in the whole salad. Surprisingly, I did get a few good bites of avocado– so why skimp on cheaper ingredients like beans and corn? I would gladly take a smaller salad if it had a better ratio of lettuce to the good stuff.
This place also gets crazy crowded at lunchtime, but I will say they seemed pretty efficient for the volume of customers they had.

I have hit this place up a few times for lunch and have always been pleased. Now it’s worth noting, this is primarily a soup, sala, and sandwich joint so don’t come looking for a great sit down experience or dinner. I will say the sandwiches are reasonably priced, and okay, nothing amazing, but for the cost and convenience is okay. Fries are definately worth splurging on, though one order could be shared by two people getting lunch. The soda fountain has Boylan’s soda, stepping up over the traditional Pepsi/​Coke options.

When I found out this place was a child of Eat n’ Park I knew I had to check it out.
The format is a little different than I thought it would be, you place your order, walk through the line of toppings and dressings then the employee chops and mixes it all together and you are done!
I decided on the Fiesta Chicken salad over making my own and paired it with a cup of the Potato Soup. After sitting down with my drink, about 5 minutes later my order arrived. The Portion of the salad is HUGE! I am a bigger guy and could only eat half saving the other half for later.
The soup was a perfect temp and helped with the cold snowy weather outside. The staff were all courteous and helpful and the atmosphere had a cafeteria vibe.
My friend had a Superburger with Fries and he also said it was good and reasonably priced.
If you are in the mood for a large salad with a wide selection of toppings, or a burger or grilled cheese, definitely worth the stop!

The salads here are wonderful so long as you customize your own. Don’t EVER order a pre-​made salad from here. You have no option as to if you’d like the dressing on the side or how you would like it chopped.
Also, SOME not ALL of the workers here are not on point. They’re starting to get slow. From the time you place your order to the time you’re handed your salad takes about 10 – 15 minutes for just a salad! God forbid you come here during the lunch rush… I hope you plan to make up the extra lunch time you wasted in line here.

The concept of the salads is pretty cool. Any of the other food items are pretty much straight from the Eat’n Park menu. The food is pretty consistent with any other Eat’n Park so it’s hit or miss. One thing about this location though — it stinks, literally. They open their garage door/​windows in the summer time and it just smells like a really dirty wet rag when you walk past. It’s as if they used one dirty rag to clean the entire place over and over again. If you can get past the smell, the food is ok. Otherwise, just make the extra effort and go to an Eat’n Park diner outside of downtown.

Excellent service and a menu with lots of healthy and delicious choices. The salads looks great, but I opted for the veggie burger, which was pretty good. The store is connected to the juice bar next door, so it’s convenient to slide over there for a juice.

Hello Bistro is a great idea. The quality is slightly better than your standard fast food fare, the prices aren’t too bad for a regular lunch spot (although $ 10 – 12 for a salad that won’t fill you up can really add up if you go on a regular basis), and the staff is usually nice.
Where this location falters compared to other locations is in consistency and order accuracy. Perhaps it’s the INSANE lunch rush, but ordering ahead will result in an inaccurate order 90% of the time. Literally. My wife has almost never received an accurate order when ordering ahead. Breakfast, lunch? It doesn’t seem to matter. They can’t get it right. Unfortunately, unless you’re looking to spend half of your lunch break in the crazy line, ordering ahead (and the possibility of doing so) is the way to go. Or, like we end up doing most of the time… we simply avoid this Hello Bistro altogether.
I would love to see this location work out the kinks, as being a locally-​owned and operated chain is always great to support, but for the price and quality, the inability to get orders correct will likely drive some people away. Fortunately for Hello Bistro, the lines hint that they won’t struggle, regardless of service quality… which means they won’t need a reason to improve.

I’ve been to this location twice, about an hour before closing time. The service has been very good, but each time the tables were already being set up for close with chairs being put on tables. I feel lik that’s a bit early and it discourages one from eating there. This is my lunch time at work and it would be nice if I could get out of work and eat there without feeling like a nuisance.
The food is great. I’ve never had a bad salad and i will always love Eat’n Park’s chicken noodle soup. My favorite salad is the apple, almond, chicken salad. It’s a little pricey but it’s nice to have a healthy and quick option while working the 3−11pm shift so I justify it. I’ll definitely be back and I would say this location compares to the Oakland location without all the students.

Okay, okay, it’s past time for a review for Hello Bistro. I love this place. It’s a great spot for some serious salad goodness. I love that you can order on line and your order is ready when you arrive. I love that they throw me an occasional coupon that makes me feel good about myself. I love the tiny little Smiley cookies. And I love that they also have meaty sandwiches and delicious burgers for my bf. I only wish there were more soup choices. Such a good place to eat!

I like Hello Bistro, don’t get me wrong. That said, it’s just this location that I’ve come to despise. Working nearby, I was so excited for this place to open awhile back. After months of disappointment, I will no longer be coming here.
I cannot say that I haven’t given this place more than enough chances… I definitely have. My experiences in Southside and Oakland have been better, but this location, well, my experiences have sucked. Whether I place the order online with ample notice of pickup, or order when I’m the sole customer there in the morning, my order has been wrong (more than a handful of times to say the least). I was naïve to think eventually things would improve and I kept giving them chance after chance.
The worst part of it is the unapologetic attitude that I received from a manager this morning upon returning to my desk with what was not my order. I ordered a skinny scrambler without cheese and was given what I’m calling a filthy scrambler with cheese (and bacon). If that’s what I wanted, I would have ordered it. When I called, she said «we knew that but you already left»… And then just robotically took my info and said they may send me a gift card. I even said there was no way I was coming back there, and she didn’t even try to sound empathetic to my frustration. I know that I may sound like I’m going a bit overboard, but this was like the 9^th time that this has happened and I was very hangry…
If I get my gift card that «may» be sent, it will get used in Southside or Oakland where the Hello Bistro staff gets orders right and provides good customer service. If you can choose which one to go to, pick one of these as downtown is just lacking in terms of service and accuracy of order.

Went with the make your own salad for lunch and think I’ll be coming here at least 1x week! The portion was huge and I wasn’t hungry for the rest of afternoon… no 3:00 PM pick me up after eating this delicious salad.
I went with the mixed greens with an avacodo and various toppings. They have so many topping options and they are unlimited people… UNLIMITED! And they’re not stingy with the scoops!
I got the citrus lime vinaigrette which was refreshing and went perfectly on top of a salad on a hot day. You can choose how small you want your salad chopped which was a great option that I didn’t know existed and then you can get your level of dressing. I chose heavy but maybe next time I’ll go with medium. This was all for $ 9!

Lots of seating, fresh food (can speak to Quinoavacado salad), healthy options, friendly and well staffed employees, under $ 10 lunch, cool music, modern/​simple ambiance. All my check boxes for a good lunch experience.
A great, welcomed restaurant addition to the cool, healthy eating options many of us in downtown Pittsburgh are happy to see. I’m glad you are here!

I feel like I should write a review since I’ve been here 4 – 5 times since it opened a month ago hehe.
I’ve always been a fan of Hello Bistro since first going to the Oakland location when I lived there. Bobby fell in love with their salads and i dig the super burger and fries (& salads, but i’m more of a french fry person lol) I actually remember writing in my review for the Oakland location «it’d be awesome if they put a HB downtown». It’s like I have a magic genie or something: O
The reason I waited a little for the review is because the first 2 weeks the wait time was a little long due to just opening and everyone checking it out. I didnt want to put in review that I waited forever for my food because I knew eventually it would be fine. But now even when it’s busy, the wait time to get your food is not long at all. so that’s a plus.
They have specials here that I dont remember seeing at the other locations (forgive me if i’m wrong on that fact) You can get a grilled cheese, soup & drink for $ 6.99 or a super burger, fries & drink for $ 7.99. The grilled cheese was tasty and i’ve had it both with their tomato and chicken noodle soup. I felt the chicken noodle soup was really lacking chicken but eh what can ya do. The grilled cheese was fine and it helped my tummy a week after being sick and my appetite not getting back to normal asap.
I havent had a salad from this location, but every other location I experienced a great salad.
I’m so thankful and excited this is downtown since I spend 40+ hours a week here. I love the build your own salad idea and they have a lengthy list of choices to put on your salad. Check it out if you’ve never experienced Hello Bistro!