hello again
Posted: March 26, 2013 Filed under: Food and Drink, Local matters | Tags: Café 152 Burger Company, California Fresh, Fresh Choice 2 CommentsI’ve written about the loss of both our Fresh Choice salad bar and Juicy Burger. As of last week both are back, sort of.
Juicy Burger is back as Café 152 Burger Company. I suspect this must be owned by the fellow who owned the short-lived but very enjoyable Café 152. He’s an experienced businessman and also owns a fast-food franchise in town. Given that, I think he has a good chance of making it work. I certainly enjoyed my hamburger and garlic fries on my initial visit.
Fresh Choice is another matter. The chain pretty much shut down last year. Since then some locations have re-opened as California Fresh. My initial understanding was that the all-you-can-eat model was gone and salads would be sold by weight with à la carte items available for sale as well. Based on the reviews I’ve read, that’s not the case. It appears that the business model is unchanged, but that the selections are fewer, slightly different, and not as good. Check out Yelp and this Sacramento Blogger. I think we’ll stay away for a while.
On another restaurant front, our local Chinese fast food place has restored its made-to-order specials. Happy to see that.
my point being 
A Fresh Choice in Temecula reopened at Soup Plantation. We ate there last week and it all seemed about the same to me – in other words, good. And, I don’t think there is another one. Just one opened in one place for now.
[…] It’s been a long time since Terry and I had lunch at our local salad bar restaurant. They’re the ones that were long known and highly regarded as Fresh Choice, went through some financial difficulties, closed most of their locations and reopened some of them as California Fresh. The initial reviews were not encouraging. […]