CoreLife Eatery — Restaurant in Town of Vestal

I really like the food here, for the most part, and all the staff are friendly and efficient. This location is always clean as well. However, as a Weight Watchers user, I need to be careful about portion sizes and track my ingredients. Yesterday, I ordered the new "box" for the first time with purple rice, Buffalo chicken, sweet potatoes, and maple Brussel sprouts. To my surprise, the staff who assembled my box started the box with 5 scoops of purple rice. According to the CoreLife website's nutritional value, that's 5 servings at 50 calories each, so 250 calories with the very first ingredient! Maybe that's the standard amount of rice for the new box, but if so, that should be posted somewhere so customers can make an intelligent choice or ask the staff to go easy on the rice. I felt like it would be rude to ask them to start again or remove some of the rice, so I didn't say anything and resolved to just not eat it all.

My usual go-to order is the build your own bowl. The CoreLife nutritional chart shows that a serving of any of their dressings is 2 oz., but on one visit the staff told me the to-go condiment cups/lids they use are actually 4 oz., and I had been ordering 2 of them with my bowls. 2 oz. of dressing = 4 tablespoons, so double that of a typical bottled dressing serving size, and if the cups really are 4 oz., that's 8 tablespoons of dressing and a LOT of added calories! Maybe this doesn't make much difference to those who don't need to monitor their food intake, but it certainly does matter to folks trying to log somewhat accurate portion sizes, carbs, protein, and fiber.

On more than one occasion, the original chicken has been overcooked and like shoe leather, and several times there have been uncooked or undercooked grains in the purple rice which are akin to unexpectedly biting down on plastic pellets or bone fragments from carelessly ground meat. Edamame is no longer available, and the cucumbers are always the type with seeds and thick skin which to me are very unappealing when English (seedless) cucumbers with far more edible skins are readily available at local grocery stores. The Brussel sprouts, while definitely delicious, are loaded with carbs and oil, so you may want to skip the drizzle if you can. CoreLife has a good thing going, but be aware that depending on the staff making your order, you might be getting far more calories than you thought because of random portion sizes, especially when they are busy and just tossing in whatever seems right at the time. Keep that in mind if you are watching your...

The food at Corelife is always stellar, however, this rating is for the service I received. Don't be alarmed, everyone was very nice and well mannered. The issue I had was the coupon I had received from my local Clipper Magazine for a "Buy any one bowl, get a second bowl of equal size or smaller for free. Dine in or Take Out only". I present my coupon to the cashier and they went through a bunch of rigamarole (I couldn't see because they were on the opposite side) on their screen and proceed to tell me my total. I noticed I had paid quite a bit for the order which is no big deal. Premium ingredients have a price. The issue was when I went back inside to discuss my order total as it was higher than what I would have though it would have been and I was absolutely right. What happened was the employee gave me one of my bowls at 50% off instead of the free price. They also went ahead and said they did "the next best thing for me." The next best thing would honestly have been if they didn't even scan one of the bowls and let me go with my "free" bowl. But they did not. Now I am stuck with an overcharge for the order due to the "computer being weird and not allowing the free item." The bowls are not cheap either which is why I used a coupon in the first place. I always pay full price but was hoping for a little break. I did get a small break but it was bittersweet and disappointing. Not to mention, I was not given my receipt at first so I had to show the cashier my bank statement...

I used to be a HUGE fan of Core Life when they first opened. My co-workers and I would go weekly. It was a great healthy choice for us and for the amount of food and quality it was worth the cost. A small build your own bowl would be so stuffed that it was difficult to close the top and it would fill you up. However we noticed that when they started their app to order online and pick up in the store, (which we thought would be the best thing ever!) the quality and quantity of the product decreased significantly. Orders were wrong, ingredients would be missing or had items added in that were not supposed to be. They were extremely skimpy on the ingredients. We called a few times and informed the manager of this; one time the manager told us that she was the one that made the order and didn't understand the issue. Needless to say a lot of us now will not drive that far or pay that much for a product that still leaves us hungry, it is disappointing. Today I came (only myself as no one else wants to order now ) thinking that I haven't had it in awhile and maybe things have gone back to the way it was. To my unfortunate belief I was wrong, prices I think went up from before and I was STARVING after I had what normally was a better quality and more quantity. In return I would have to say its a great healthy option, but...