NYC Salad Chains Spark Outrage With New ‘No Chopping’ Rule

The death of the chopped salad

Bland salad brand Just Salad, which has 20 locations in Manhattan and one in Brooklyn, officially eliminated its chopped option, and salad eaters who prefer their greens minced into mush are not happy about it. It’s not the first salad chain to go no-chop. Fresh & Co. stopped letting customers request chopping two years ago, and Sweetgreen bans chopping-on-command, too. One person told the Post that the new policy at Just Salad is “pathetic.” “That’s not going to be convenient at all. It’s really easy to eat chopped salad — everything gets mixed so well with the dressing,” she said. Another person was appalled that she had to use a knife to cut the sliced beets in her Sweetgreen salad. Meanwhile, most bodegas and smaller delis will still chop salads, so the chopped salad lives on as an NYC tradition.

New York-based bakery sold to the company that makes Oreos

Tate’s Bake Shop, which started as a small bakery in Southampton, became famous for its crispy, thin cookies. Now, the massive snack conglomerate Mondelez International, Inc. wants in on that crispy cookie cash, purchasing the bakery for $500 million. Mondelez is behind Oreo, Chips Ahoy, Nabisco, and other well known, cheap snack brands. According to the company, Tate’s sales have quadrupled in the past five years but Oreo sales have declined recently.

Harlem’s homey Indian restaurant is temporarily closed

Anita Trehan’s Chaiwali, an Indian restaurant in the bottom two floors of a Harlem brownstone, temporarily closed in January for renovations. Construction on a new kitchen has finished, and the restaurant is now awaiting inspection. According to Trehan, it should open in about four to five weeks. Pete Wells gave the restaurant one star in 2016, praising Chaiwali’s vindaloo and inviting atmosphere, which he likened to an at-home dinner party.

Midtown East bar adds to-go coffee and snacks window for summer

Atwood Sports Bar and Lounge in Midtown East will add a summer pop-up window on Friday for grab-and-go snacks and coffee drinks. Breakfast, from 7 a.m. to 9:30 a.m., will include scones with cranberry or jalapeño, hard boiled eggs, fruit, and other assorted pastries. In the afternoon, there’s popcorn made with activated charcoal, a caesar salad, a Greek salad, and a grilled chicken sandwich.

Closings and coming attractions

On April 30th, the DOH shut down Japanese bakery-cafe Cafe Zaiya at 69 Cooper Square for incurring too many violations, and it has remained closed ever since. There are two other locations of the cafe serving matcha soft serve and bubble tea in Midtown, and the official website no longer shows the Cooper Square location, suggesting that it might not reopen. East Village sushi shop The Loop, which named some of its rolls after pop culture figures like the Spice Girls, Ashanti, and Billy Joel, has closed at 173 3rd Ave., and the building is for rent.

Meanwhile, at 136 Second Ave. in East Village, a new restaurant serving American and French bistro food has applied for a liquor license. The restaurant does not have a name yet, but it’ll be an all-day spot open late into the night with sidewalk seating, two levels, three bars, and a rear garden.