Urbane Cafe — Restaurant in Pasadena

Warning: wall of text ahead ;-)

This was my second visit. I continue to be impressed with their salads. Unlike the boring bowls of "Sysco® Standard Sadness™" at so many other restaurants where salads are a neglected afterthought, containing little more than iceberg lettuce, shredded American "cheese", some cold, rubbery overcooked meat, and if you're lucky, a cherry tomato or two, this place's salads have real variety, flavor & quality.

I liked the electro-indie background music, and the atmosphere was bright & clean, with a hip, sort of industrial feel. Can you tell I'm a millennial? (Okay, technically I'm GenX, but that's neither here nor there).

The staff that night was friendly & courteous, if not energetic, but having worked in foodservice myself, I know what it's like late on a Friday evening closing shift after the dinner rush, so I can't really fault the employees for that.

Perhaps the manager might consider a scheduling change to give each of the closers a meal break after the evening rush. I know the cost wouldn't be inconsequential, but the positive impact on customer relations, employee morale, and the efficiency & quality of all the labor you're paying for later in the evening when everything's being cleaned up are factors worth considering. I speak from experience, since years ago I used to be a barista.

One area for improvement that led me to rate my experience four stars instead of five, was that the restroom needed some attention. It was far from gas-station-level gross (just missing paper towels and there was some paper trash on the floor) but perhaps more frequent restroom checks, and the use of a timer with snooze feature to ensure that they actually happen on time would be useful in keeping the restroom stocked and tidy.

Overall pretty good, but some specific room for...

I love restaurants when you walk in you automatically feel welcomed! Urbane Cafe is absolutely one of this places. I got invited by Yelp to check this place out. Right when I walked in I immediately was drawn into the open oven and fresh bread being made. Then I walked to the back where two lovely ladies from the marketing team greeted me and right away did a drawing with straws. I picked the red one and won a Tshirts (which I switched out for a water bottle because I knew I’d use it more :] ). Then they kindly gave me a tour of the restaurant and a brief history about how their first location was in Ventura and then moved up to San Diego and now to LA. They filled me on the menu and how they have a sandwich and salad special of the month. The one they had was a Golden Salad, kind of like a Mexican salad with chipotle ranch dressing. After going over the menu I decided to give the Cilantro Chicken a try along with their Watermelon Lemonade. I got my buzzer and waited. Moments later the buzzer went off and my salad arrived. It smelled heavenly! That chipotle ranch dressing had a kick to it, a bit spicy yet mild and creamy. It was delicious. The chicken was cooked perfectly, the cheese on top was very tasty. The Watermelon Lemonade was a tad bit too sweet for me but still delicious. At the end they said I can have a fresh baked cookie as well, so I chose the Oatmeal Raisin Cookie. It was warm, moist and delicious! Thank you again for having me. Another successful...

Urbane Cafe was one of the pioneers in the farm to table restaurant concept. Not to be confused with Urth Cafe, this healthy eat sandwich and salad restaurant has a unique menus catering to farm to table freshness. It doesn’t serve coffee but fountain drinks.

In 2003, Tim Holt opened its first sandwich shop in Ventura and then expanded to multi-locations. It’s menu is very similar to Mendocino Farm that’s few steps away on Lake. It makes its bread on site fresh. So all the sandwiches are made using the freshly out of oven bread.

Cranberry Brie turkey sandwich seemed to the winner here. My wife and a couple of friends ordered that today when we had lunch there after church. The combination of cranberry and Brie seemed to please many People’s eating palates. It’s the most popular items on the menu.

I wanted to compared their Banh Mi to Mendocino Farm’s. So I got a chicken Banh Mi. I felt that the Banh Mi at Mendocino was tastier with more depth in flavor.

My other friend got the Mediterranean salad bowl with chicken. It looked healthy and yummy. Maybe I will try that next time.

For fast and casual dinning, this is a popular...