My wife and I went to Cafe Zupas this evening for dinner. There was a promotion for 50% off, so this is the second time we have been to one of these restaurants from this chain.
The first time we went, my wife, daughter and I were unimpressed with how slow it took to check out of the line. Granted it was a promotion going on and so there were a lot of people in line, but once you place your order, the waitstaff behind the counter immediately starts working to assemble your food. That's great. The bad part is, that there's only one cash register, so everyone bottlenecks there.
So while you wait to pay (and it's a long wait), your food which is already put together, sits on the counter for a long time. All of the food from your order and everyone else's order in front of you are all lined up on the counter. If you have a sandwich that is heated up in one of the many panini presses, that sandwich sits and cools down before you get your food. It's not a good system.
When you get to the cash register, the cashiers have to ask what you ordered and then figure out which of the many bowls and plates of food that are lined up belong to you. That's just confusion for them and for the customer.
Overall, at the first experience, we thought the food wasn't bad, but the portions were very small for the price. So now that there was a promotion going at the other location, we thought we'd give it a try again.
Same thing.
Overall, this is a nice looking "high-tech" restaurant, but two things causes me to not want to return... small portions and slow checkout causing your hot food to get cold and your cold salad to heat up on the counter.
If Cafe Zupas could fix these two things, I'd consider going back. The taste of the food is fine, but it's overpriced for the regular price. If the portions they give are sold at 50% all the time, it's worth it. But for regular full price? Forget it. My salad was $8.99 at regular price. I think it's probably only worth $4.50 at most based on the portion.
As for my entree, the Salinas Valley Chicken was fine but they missed giving me eggs. Tasted good because of the goat cheese (if you like goat cheese) but the rest was just typical of the ingredients. Nothing really that special.
The menu description was: Chicken Breast, Quinoa, Baby Spinach, Cage Free Eggs (did not get this... they must have forgot), Sweet Chili Brocolini, Roasted Red Pepper Hummus, Baby Cucumbers, Grape Tomatoes, Sugar Snap Peas, Goat Cheese and House-Made Fresh Herb Vinaigrette. 810 calories.
They also included a very small chocolate-dipped strawberry and a cold bread roll. My wife ate these with her meal. She ordered a "Try 2 Combo" - a whole sandwich and half salad. While my salad bowl was larger than hers, I really don't think I got that much more than her half salad. The bowl may be larger, but based on the shallowness of the bowl, it did not look like twice the salad in there. So as for value, you might be better doing one of these Try 2 Combos compared to just a full sized salad. The Try 2 Combo is $9.39. Oh, also, they count the amount of cucumber slices that went into my wife's salad. Really? How much could it cost them if they added a few more cucumber slices by accident?!
While neither of us ordered a soup, the last time we did. The soup tasted good, but the portions again was lacking. The paper cup they use is small and they don't fill it either! I'd say it is filled more than half way, but it's less than 3/4 way. For a small cup... come on! Fill it up! But that's not going to be happening at this restaurant chain! We noticed the same technique of filling on other people's order today. Not worth the money.
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