Salad and Go — Restaurant in Phoenix

Update - I felt the need to come back and update my review. While I have not been back to this specific location since this even occurred. I do want to say that Salad and Go's Director of Operations in the Phoenix Metro are went above and beyond to correct the situation after the fact. The day after he was in the stores location for additional training, refunded our order and he set our Teachers up with a lunch redo from the Union Hills and 59th Ave location. The staff that waited till after 3 to get their lunches also got virtual vouchers to come again. I appreciate the extra efforts that they took to correct the situation.

To start we loved salad and go and can prove we eat here on average 3-5 times a week as a family however after today, I will no longer return. For teacher appreciation week we called ahead and confirmed that this location could handle a order of 70ppl we were assured that they could and to place an order at least 3 days ahead of time, which we did a full week ahead. Their ordering system while lengthy online was simple enough and allowed for customization and individual names to be listed per order. Pick up at 12 was fine, but upon delivery to the school we very quickly realized that ALL 70 orders were mislabeled. Staff stepped in to help me go through them and it took us 1.5hrs to match as many wrongly labeled orders as possible. A teacher called the store to let them know of the issue and that I would be returning to correct the orders we couldn't match. There were 11 wraps and 9 salads that needed to be remade. When I arrived back at the store 4 different people would start to help me and then would just walk away, then I was told they would not comp or correct the 20 wrong items and I would have to pay for them. I am a very patient person but had to threat to reverse my entire transaction. I waited almost 40 min for them to just start to retake the orders for the wrong items after being on the phone with their district manager. The final person to deal with me was rude and had horrible attitude about the entire situation. I waited another 30 min for those 20 items. So to recap I picked up food at 12pm for a teacher appreciation lunch set for 12:30, and was pushed till 1:30 because of the confusion, and 20 people didn't get their lunch until just after 3:15pm. The lack or care or assistance at this location is concerning. Trust me I did not plan on wasting almost 4 hrs of my day on THIS.

If your system can't handle large group orders, you shouldn't tell people when they call and ask about customized orders that you take up to 90 orders and can handle it. And when you make a mistake your staff should NOT handle it they way you did. I...

I LOVE salad and go. BUT THIS location is officially on my horrible experience list. Initially when getting my food the girl in the window had so much force with handing the bags over they went twirling around for me to catch. I can get over that. That’s okay. Everyone has a bad day. But then I go to put the dressing on my salad and it is the WRONG dressing. I dunno about anyone else but blue cheese dressing compared to ranch is VERY different. And again, I don’t know about anyone else but...the first time I ever had blue cheese dressing in my life was at salad and go and that’s where I fell in love with THEIR blue cheese dressing. I tried to get and replicate the salad and had no success so ONLY do I get blue cheese from them. There is no phone number for me to call...only the option of an email or driving back....so... I drove back to explain my concerns with salad, dressing, and receipt in hand. The person who greeted me seemed nice followed by a gruff sounding woman who stated they’d remake one for me. I went to the window where this girl had the salad in hand. I asked, seeing the dressing packet, if she was certain it was blue cheese not ranch as it looked the same as the previous. She responded “Yes” with an eye roll. I said okay pulled off into the parking lot and decided to taste and double check. Again. Ranch. Not. Blue. Cheese. Disappointment. Pulled back through drive through and explained that unless my taste buds are off this is indeed ranch not blue cheese. The woman then came on instead of the nice gentleman who greeted me. She insisted it was blue cheese. I insisted it was not. She suggested I try a different dressing. I don’t want a different dressing...blue cheese is the whole reason I go here. She insisted it was not ranch and I should try another dressing. I asked if she’d try is since she was so insistent it was not ranch. She said yes. In less than 30 seconds from the order area to window...I hold out the salad and dressing for them to take back she said she had already tried it. That’s blue cheese. I told her no way. I literally have to argue about a dressing. Ranch is not blue cheese. Ended up just asking for a refund because no matter how much I love salad and go and no matter how much I love THEIR BLUE CHEESE, there is no excuse for horrible customer service. Thanks Shelby...or however your name...

Edit 1/7/2024 So inconsistent!!!!! They stopped putting tomatoes in all the wraps at some point. We ordered two wraps today, they were completely different sizes. The buffalo wrap was massive and had tomatoes, but all the ingredients were slapped in there. It was falling apart, very messy. The first 3 bites were nothing but carrots, the chicken was shoved at the bottom. Made so poorly. My Caesar was so much smaller, but nicely made. Yet no tomatoes! I was here two weeks ago and my caesar was slopping wet mess with almost no chicken and way to many croutons. We love this place but please make the wraps to a more consistent standardized. Bring back tomatoes as a standard in wraps!!

Edit: 7/16/23 The food is still good. The portions are so small these days. The wraps are 1/2 the size they used to be. They used to be bigger than the water bottle. Depending on which day you go, the wrap is really well made while others you go to unwrap it and it’s falling apart before you take the first bite.

Original: The food is always pretty good. Even when the line is very long, it moves quickly. Prices are perfect. This location does mix up modifications to your order more often than not, but the food is quality and makes up for that. I go to this location at least three times a week. The mobile order line actually take longer than the drive through sometimes.

The biggest downside to all their locations is they only accept drive thru or mobile order pickups. I’ve watched so many people get turned away because of this. It’s a major bummer for tons of people and a chunk of business is lost. Usually though, they are always busy and window orders would slow down employees even more.

These locations could seriously benefit from an outdoor ordering station. Slap a tablet on the side of the building or at the window (as it is phx and people like to smash things). Orders could be placed from walk up customers and employees wouldn’t be hindered to stop what they are doing to take...