sweetgreen - Healthy Salads, Bowls and Plates — Restaurant in Burbank

WOW. This location was BAD! Very, very, VERY bad!!! Where should I start? I suppose with entering the restaurant, where things only went from bad to worse.

First off, there was only a few people in line, and yet it took so long for them to take ANY of their orders. They would just ignore other people waiting after finally taking care of ONE person. Later, as I was eating, I overheard someone trying to pick up an order tell an employee that she felt bad for the ONE (1!!!) gentleman that had been waiting for several minutes and they still hadn't gone over to take his order.

As for me, I ordered through the app for pick-up, but it (unsurprisingly) wasn't ready at the pick-up time. After asking about my order, they eventually started working on it a few minutes later while I stood there waiting. Then what did they do after they finished it? Not bring it over to me, but rather just set it down behind the counter. I then tried to find anyone that I could get the attention of to simply hand it to me. It's not like there weren't any staff - just that they all seemed to be desperately avoiding any customers that were trying to pick-up orders or place orders. And as I said before, it's not like it was a mad house in there! There were only a few other people inside at any given time, despite it being what should've been a primetime for visitors. Retrospectively, considering the quality of service and food here, that isn't all that surprising.

Anyways, as I waited, I had plenty of time to look around the space, which was extremely messy and unkempt all over. There was literally a massive pile of dirty bowls, napkins, and cups all over the water station/utensil area, as the trash cans were stuffed to the brim. Not a single table was clean, and despite plenty of staff, no one was making any effort to clean anything. I'm usually not one to make a big deal about things such as this in a fast casual spot, but it was literally unacceptable how messy and poorly managed the entire space was.

So, on to the actual food (once I FINALLY received it after trying to find someone that would hand it to me)! First impressions, I could immediately tell that it was ridiculously under portioned and didn't come close to reaching the fill line that the bowl has inside. Secondly, it didn't contain any of the bread that I had requested when I ordered it. Luckily, I had checked before leaving, so I asked for some bread. I wasn't pleased with the rest of the salad either, but decided not to make a fuss about it.

Nevertheless, once eating the actual salad, it was...AWFUL. Nothing had been properly chopped or prepared. AT ALL. Entire chunks of cucumber and other toppings clearly had just been thrown in without any preparation. On top of that, what was supposed to be a "lime squeeze" was literally just a piece of lime thrown into the bowl and buried at the bottom of it, which I almost bit into! A few years ago, I worked at a Sweetgreen, and I KNOW that nothing about this preparation would have been considered acceptable. Whatsoever.

My partner's salad was similarly under portioned and he was displeased with it as well, but I'll leave it to him to share his thoughts in a review.

Now, I haven't been to Sweetgreen in about a year, and I don't know if all the locations are like this now or if this one is just a bad apple, but it has definitely left me with no desire to return to Sweetgreen. At the VERY LEAST, something is very wrong with the management at this location that the company should look into and change up. The way things are being run, in my opinion, is COMPLETELY unacceptable. I don't blame the employees, but the management of this restaurant for a situation that hits the deadly trio of: Terrible Customer Service & Speed. Terrible Food Quality & Preparation. Unsanitary, Messy, & Unkempt Dining Spaces.

I know for a FACT I will never return to this Sweetgreen location, and it has also put me off from returning to Sweetgreen as a WHOLE...

Very disappointed by this SweetGreen location in the valley. It looks new, but the staff and store are in complete disarray. The line to order moves decently quick, but there are times when no employees are at the counter and they are all scrambling in the back to get prep items. This is a complete lack of planning and should be prioritized for a location as busy as this one.

I noticed that every single pickup order was behind (more on this later) and there were many frustrated people/drivers at the front. Also, the pickup shelf was completely empty, which is a shock for a place that definitely gets many of those orders.

With all the workers scattered, none of them could attend to the lobby and there was way too much trashed piled in the waste area and trash all over the floor in the (rather tight) dining area. It was honestly pretty gross and just shows how mismanaged the employees are. I didn't like that at all. Sweetgreen sure charges premium prices, and I would expect better upkeep than this for SURE.

Lastly, my friend wanted to order on the app because he had a credit, and I thought this wouldn't be a problem. He ordered at the same time I was at the counter and his food took over 25 minutes later to be prepared for pickup, and not without him asking for his order a few times. This felt really disorganized and there were plenty of frustrated people from earlier that had to wait a long time for their food. This was all around 5PM, which is well before they close.

I don't go to SweetGreen often because of the increasingly higher prices and increasingly smaller portions, but when I do, I expect to receive better service than what I got. I hope management sees this string of negative reviews and does something to change things up. The locations in the Bay are run incredibly well, and they could learn something from the quality of service they offer.

Pictured: trash and stains all over the floor, empty bowls piled 4 high over the trash,...

No!

Overpriced excuse for a plate of rice they call a "_ Plate."

If you are thinking about coming here, you deserve better! Go somewhere else! Don't fall for their marketing ploys, and they're overpriced food.

$45 for Two Plates of food that didn't have more than 3 oz of meat on them combined. No way in hell am I ever coming back here.

I came in here thinking it was going to be like tender greens, or like a over glorified salad bar would have been acceptable. Instead, what I got was a tiny (and I mean TINY), 2 tablespoons of rice, 2 tablespoons of red pickled onion, plate of rice and cabbage, with two smaller than Pinkie sized pieces of salmon.

It was like being at a community cultural event, and they were running out of food. You know what I mean?

To Management: You call that a "salmon plate?" You should be ashamed of yourself.

There had to be maybe 1 oz of salmon on there if I was lucky. Usually when you think of "salmon plate," a person should get at least 6 to 8 oz of Salmon... and a Heaping Ladle Full of rice... half a cup to 1 cup of rice at the very least.

And the fajita chicken plate was no different. Where's the chicken? I'm sorry, but a plate full of rice is a plateful of rice. It's not fajita chicken. Chicken should be the main ingredient. Hello? Show me an entire cut up chicken breast on the plate. That would have been nice. Rolling my eyes!

I even asked the guy behind the counter if there was more coming, and he said that's all we're allowed to give you. This place's "plates" are more like table scraps you give a dog.

I was thinking, okay, let me just taste it and see if the taste makes up for the lack of quantity. Nope! Both the brown and white rice were bland, had no salt. The sauce that went on the barbecue salmon was too salty. And the fajita chicken had more cumin than a taco stand's entire daily allotment.

NO! Just plain no! Run away from this place.

No way in hell am I ever...