Noodles and Company — Restaurant in Lakeside

I apologize for bad camera quality my phone is meant for work and music, the camera is just a bare-basic function on it.

2/5 stars, so I am a big-big lover of Noodles & Company and if this review was about their "main dishes" then it would absolutely be at 4 or 5 stars. But I decided to be adventurous because I'm trying to change my eating habits and be a bit healthier so I got their "big Salad". It was a mistake in every way possible. My first red flag should've been the fact they don't have ranch dressing but I let it go cause I can just use or make my own ranch, sure, whatever.

But I paid nearly $8 for what is the equivalent of a side or a $4 at any of my near-by fast food places or Chick-Fil-A, and this was WITHOUT any protein, with protein it would've been over $12. This bowl, isn't even HALF way full, it's literally LESS than half of the bowl, there's more empty space and air in my salad than anything else. I was even able to stick a normal sized adult dining fork into the dead center of this salad (without moving or tossing it) and it didn't even go half-way up the ends of the fork itself. And this was $8? Really?

Your pasta meals are delicious and great portions, I even ordered one to go along with the salad, thank goodness because that's likely the only reason this wasn't a 1star simply out of anger and betrayal. Y'all need to either fix your portion sizes or at least have the courtesy to lie to us politely by using smaller bowls for your salads so we don't 'see' how much we're getting...

After explaining how my meal always gets messed up, and to make sure everything is right as i went out of my way to come to this location (my usual location was closed temporarily), my meal was still messed up, including my children's meal as well. I called to address this issue as I didn't check until i got home, and the manager on duty seemed to want to explain more about how the penne rosa sauce naturally had chunks of tomato and people always mistaken that for having tomatoes in the dish, rather than hearing everything I had to say before trying to educate me (no way there would be 8 1/2 chunks of tomatoes if just in the sauce). On top that, asked for extra mushrooms (and paid for it) and counted only 4 in the whole bowl, and no zucchini either (paid for also). I also had items in my kid's meals that should have been omitted that were clearly there. He took my address as he said they close in 11 minutes and I lived to far to make it back up there, and would send me coupons to make up for it. I got a card in the mail to say sorry, but only 1 coupon inside for a free bowl (what about the kids meals lol). Only thing that saved face in this situation was my usual location still comping my whole meal replacement after showing the card and telling them my experience (thank you mechanicsville store). I won't be coming back to this location if i can help it based on...

When I asked why I got charged extra per item PLUS a delivery fee (when the pick up fee has much lower prices)....if I'm paying a delivery fee, why am I paying an $1-$2 per item to get it delivered?

When I called to ask about this, the "manager" answered and claimed I needed to make a complaint with corporate. When I explained that she, as a manager, should be the one to bring this to corporate, she continued to say she had no ability to.

I've worked for several corporate restaurants and retail locations. If she was actually a manager, she would have a direct line to corporate.

This started as a simple explaining the pricing was way off, and led to a "manager" showing a direct lack of care for what their customers think.

When my order goes from $39.80(pick up) to $49.75 (delivery) and the delivery fee says $1.99, where is this extra money coming from? Yeah taxes, maybe add another $1......so where is the rest going?

This "manager" (honestly she was probably just a shift lead left to the wolves 🤷🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️) got snarky, interrupted me when I tried to speak, and dismissed every concern I had.

The customer is not always right, I strongly believe that, but when the customer has a genuine concern and it's dismissed like nothing??

That's just...