A Dressing Down for Saladworks

Don’t get me wrong. Their selection of dressings is bountiful. They have everything from French to Russian to Thousand Island to some pile of emerald slop that I think they refer to as Green Goddess. Luckily, I am strictly a Balsamic Vinagrette man, and their varietal has just the right amount of substance and tang. But the problem is I like a lot of it and that is where my trip to Saladworks becomes a daily clusterfuck.

Honestly, what is wrong with liking a lot of dressing? Every day, I ask for it “mixed in and on the side as well.” There is a reason for this: If I only get the amount that they mix in, the salad is dry as a septuagenarian’s honeypot by the time I get to the end. If I ask for extra dressing on the salad, the final bits of lettuce are as wet and soggy as a New Orleans Ninth Ward citizen circa August 2005. So I like to get the dressing mixed in, and then I can apply the extra bit to the salad as I see fit.

But this just doesn’t sit well with the Saladworks dressing-applier crowd. I usually get one of three reactions: Either the person listens to my plaintive plea for more dressing then ignores it, going on with their life totally oblivious to the fact that I have arrived at my office, discovered the lack of auxiliary dressing, and let out a blood-curdling scream of intended murder; or the person asks me five times if I want it on the side OR mixed in, as if the mere idea of doing both might make their dome piece explode; or the person reluctantly gives me the extra dressing, but only after looking at me like I had just ripped a humongous fart and reminding me that it will be a bank-breaking 69 cents extra. “Yes, I know that I am already paying 8 dollars for something like a $1.50 worth of ingredients, but I just want to keep tacking it on. Depression be damned!”

Here’s another thing that the extra dressing is good for: Dipping that wonderful Saladworks roll in it. Ooowee! I tell you, there is nothing more gratifyingly healthy than dipping a carbohydrate-filled roll into a cup of fatty, straight-to-your-mid-section dressing. But here is the problem: Even if you make it through getting judged for wanting the dressing, you rarely ever get the fucking roll! Come on, Chick at the Counter, you have two main functions: You take my money and you give me the roll. This shouldn’t be too hard. I know there are the perfunctory questions to be asked. You need to know whether I need a drink, or if I would like a delicious cup of soup to go with my salad. It’s cold outside. I get it. Soup would warm me up. But no, I just want the roll. I could see if you gave me the wrong roll. Maybe you ask if I want “wheat” or “white,” and I say “white,” but you give me “wheat,” because “white” sounds a lot like “wheat.” OK, that’s cool. But “white” doesn’t sound anything like “Nah, fuck it. I don’t need the roll. Just ask me a lot of questions about drinks and soup and I'll be on my way.”

Look, Saladworks, I am prepared to bury the hatchet here for a number of reasons. First, I need to lose weight; second, I have this unspoken, unrequited, one-sided, homoerotic love affair going with the Salad Virtuoso; and third, the Corner Bakery at 17th and JFK is even more of a ridiculous quagmire. Seriously, imagine the people who ran John McCain’s Presidential campaign opening up a salad-and-sandwich joint, and you have a rough approximation of the rudderless hellhole that is the Corner Bakery. But I am putting you on notice, Saladworks: Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, and I’ll be back tomorrow. Fool me three times…oh my God, did the Salad Virtuoso just wink at me? "Uh, can I get a frequent visitor’s card?"

Image courtesy of flickr user ryan.dowd.