Microsoft Cafe 16

Great spot to hit for lunch when I’m in town and on campus. Healthy selections, fast and friendly staff and will definitely be coming back as usual!

Great for a work campus. Fresh, above any corporate cafeteria.

Small Beat salad is delirious it is the seasonal salad. More than i was able to eat. So I saved for the next day.

Around 7 different restaurants inside this café. Prices range from $ 4-​$ 10.
Lines can get very long so go before 12 or after 1245. Food is good. They have Thai food, subs, burgers, pizza, salad etc. a lot of these rotate so be careful about that.

Ok, it’s no Michelin Star eatery, but since I work in the building next door, beggars can’t be choosers.
I usually hit the salad bar, which is fresh and has some nice ingredients.
Their rotation of cultural foods, be it Phở, sushi, BBQ is pretty good, and the prices work.

Café 16 has a decent selection. There’s pizza, subs, and salads. The rotating local restaurants are hit or miss, though. They do offer good options for vegetarians.
Their hours for serving food are also pretty limited.
You’ll need a badge to get in. If you work in building 34, Café 34 will be closer and offers much the same food. There’s not much of a reason to visit here unless you work in 16 or 17.

Love this cafeteria. This was one of the first renovated cafeterias with the new design. The sandwich shop, pizza choices and the daily chef menu are great. There is a rotating local restaurant menu where you can find variety every day.

Microsoft sure does treat its employees well in a whole lotta ways. When I find myself in Redmond visiting the Padre, a Microsoftie, we often come to one of the many Microsoft café locations out of shear convenience. One of the many ways is the variety of on campus lunch options available for the masses of employees– whether it be vegan, vegetarian, gluten free, paleo, classic American diner gut bomb, or epic salad bar, Microsoft will have it. Café 16 in particular has a few cool stations: custom pizzas and pasta, burgers/​sides, a Mexican station where you can build your own burrito/​daily special, one epic salad bar, and a station where you can get a completely paleo plate of food or your choice of stand alone protein (wild caught fish and completely hormone/​grass fed meats were on display when I walked by too– a bonus!). While this is certainly one of the smaller café locations I’ve been to, it packs a lot of variety into a small amount of space. The obligatory cases of free sodas are in key congregating spots near utensil pickups.

Here on business and what a treat to eat a great meal in a corporate cafeteria. Was unexpected but I’m super happy we stayed and ate on campus today!
This is quality of any great restaurant in the area.

This is truly «as good as it gets» in any corporate cafeteria. My office is 3 doors down from here and I am truly grateful for this every day.
Nearly everything is made to order — salads, daily entrées, pizza, meat/​seafood, burgers, and sandwiches are all made from scratch and to-​order. You pay via credit card, putting in exactly what you want, and that order gets filled with a surprisingly high amount of accuracy.
The chef’s table station is probably my favorite. Here you will find everything from fresh pasta (made by hand, no less), to pork tenderloin, to risotto, to specialty tacos, to fresh steelhead and salmon. Elijah, the executive chef, is usually working this station. Our lunch group calls him «Chef Ramsay» due to his heavy English accent and impeccable standards. Seriously this guy is great — he worked as the executive chef of Newcastle Golf Club before this, and his passion and talent for food really do show through. The risotto that they serve is probably my favorite dish in the café.
The pizza is Neapolitan-​style, and delicious. The sandwiches are great, in particular the meatball subs that rotate in every once and awhile. The burgers are fairly average, I don’t care for them. The Flame station is very busy and so I rarely order from there, but where else can you get a NY strip or seared scallops for $ 6.95 with sides that actually tastes good?
Frankly I’d eat at café 16 for dinner if I could. The food is exceptional, and is arguably better than a run-​of-​the-​mill restaurant. If you get a chance to come here, don’t pass on the opportunity.

Microsoft is entering the modern age of feeding the masses more than pizza and cheetoes. It’s a nice pleasure to have a café on campus that is putting out some quality food and service in a building café. I came over and had the steak to check out the café and it was really good for a 6 – 8 oz steak; see my photo. They cooked it to order and I got a couple of side vegetables. This place was packed during the lunch period and definitely getting business.

Microsoft Café 16 is stellar. Arguably, this is the best cafeteria on campus. There was a recent renovation done on this spot that has done wonders. The makeover was so good that the site, Business Insider ran an article of their tour of this facility that spread to other web outlets.
I had not been to this café in a long time. I did work across the street a number of years ago and recall the look of the old café. Seating was not an issue, but the food stations were. It always got to be super crowded during lunch time. The lines that formed made it difficult to maneuver to the station that you wanted to go. The café itself did also feel a bit old and like you were eating in a company cafeteria. I am glad that the renovation took these issues into account when making changes.
The new look of the space makes me feel like I am in a dining hall or food court. There is noticeably better lighting and it feels a lot more open. The food stations now operate like they are its own separate restaurants.
There is an exhibition kitchen in front along with a pizza place that makes authentic Naples-​style pizzas (for under $ 6 BTW!). To the sides are the salad bar, a coffee shop that makes fresh baked goods, a burger place and a local restaurant space. The local restaurant spot is a rotating space in which a popular restaurant brings their food to the Microsoft campus. Notable restaurants that participate in this program include Bitterroot BBQ and Oma Bap.
Being a tech company, there were also technological improvements. Some of the food stations have a self-​service kiosk in which you submit your food order and pay. This system kind of reminds me of eating in Japan in which you buy a ticket from a machine first. This allows staff to focus instead on preparing the food. I am not sure how paying by cash works here though. It seemed like paying by credit cards (recent addition at MS), meal card or by badge were the only options.
After paying, you will get a receipt and your order number will show up on a video screen above in which you can track when your meal is ready. It is like a restaurant version of those gate stand-​by passenger screens at the airport.
The last thing I will mention is that you have the option of eating on a real plate here if dining in. At all of the other cafés that I have been to, this is not an option. This is good because it makes you feel like you are eating in a nice restaurant instead. The plates do not come with any real silverware though. A little weird eating food on a plate with a plastic fork, but it is better than eating on a paper plate like before.
I hope MS will use the template of this café when making upgrades to other campus cafés. If I worked nearby here, I would feel less inclined to eat off campus since this café is so awesome.

Great food and cheap prices! The market special is a good deal if you want healthier, smaller portions. The salad and soup bars are good, pizza and burgers are freshly made to order, and as always the drinks are free! The service is a little slower but who wants to go back to work so soon? The indoor seating gets a bit crowded but they have a decent amount of outdoor seating but I’m sure not many people will use it outside of the summer months. It gets crowded, come early if you are in a rush!