Salad bar

A salad bar is a buffet-style table or counter at a restaurant or food market on which salad components are provided for customers to assemble their own salad plates. Most salad bars provide lettuce, chopped tomatoes, assorted raw, sliced vegetables (such as cucumbers, carrots, celery, olives and green or red bell peppers), dried bread croutons, bacon bits, shredded cheese, and various types of salad dressing. Some salad bars also have additional food items such as cooked cold meats (such as turkey, chicken, ham, or tuna), cooked beans (e.g., chick peas, garbanzo beans or kidney beans), boiled eggs, cottage cheese, cold pasta salads, tortilla chips, bread rolls, soup, and fresh cut fruit slices.

A salad bar in a hotel

History

Many restaurants have claimed to have originated the salad bar concept.

The Freund's Sky Club Supper Club in Plover, Wisconsin, is believed to be the first salad bar. The Sky Club is still managed by Eric and Patrick Freund. Russell Swanson of Swanson Equipment in Stevens Point, Wisconsi, who had specialized in the manufacturing of bars for taverns, in 1950 in the small town of Stevens Point, Wisconsin, has stated that he is "most proud of designing and building that first salad bar."

A 1951 Yellow Pages listing refers to the "salad bar buffet" at Springfield, Illinois restaurant The Cliffs.

Hawaiian restaurant Chuck's Steak House claims to have had the first salad bar in the 1960s, but the owner had worked for Buzz's Steak house on Oahu prior to starting his own restaurant and took the idea for the salad bar from there.[1]

Rax Restaurants – a Midwestern fast food chain similar to Arby's – claims to have pioneered the salad bar in the mid-1960s.

The New York Times claims that salad bars first began appearing in the late 1960s "in midprice restaurants like Steak and Ale, featuring bona fide salad fixings to keep customers busy and happy until the real food came. "[2] Restaurant entrepreneur Norman Brinker has mistakenly been credited with inventing and popularizing the salad bar. Other accounts, however, have the Salad Bar making its debut in 1964 at Andy's Mini-Diner, a South Florida Seafood restaurant. Its owner, Angelo "Andy" Gangi claimed to have come up with the idea for the salad bar while observing military men in the chow lines at the officer's club of the Homestead Air Force Base, an eatery Gangi managed during the late 1950s.[3][4][5]

In 1971, Rich Melman's Chicago restaurant and singles bar R. J. Grunts opened, featuring an all-you-can-eat salad bar with over 40 items.[2] R.J. Grunts is still open in its original location in Lincoln Park and was the first of many restaurants opened by Melman and his Lettuce Entertain You Enterprises.

The Merriam Webster Collegiate Dictionary, 10th edition, claims that the term originated circa 1973.[6]

Types

Salad bars may be "all-you-can-eat", where the customer may make unlimited plates or bowls of salad during the meal, or be limited to a single serving. Paying by weight of the materials in the salad is also possible; this option is particularly common for carry-out sales. Many supermarkets also include a salad bar (for which customers pay by weight) in the produce or delicatessen section.

See also

References
  1. "Raymond Schneider, steakhouse founder | The Honolulu Advertiser | Hawaii's Newspaper". the.honoluluadvertiser.com. Retrieved 2019-01-02.
  2. Fabricant, Florence (21 September 1994). "Spiced-Up Salad Bars, at $5.95 a Pound". The New York Times. p. C1. Retrieved 23 May 2011.
  3. Holley, Joe (2009-06-09). "Entrepreneur Norman Brinker, 78, Pioneered Casual Dining, Invented Salad Bar". The Washington Post. Retrieved 23 May 2011.
  4. Noland, Claire (10 June 2009). "Norman Brinker dies at 78; restaurateur helped create a new way to dine". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 23 May 2011.
  5. The New Zealand Herald http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10577586. Retrieved 23 May 2011. Missing or empty |title= (help)
  6. "Birth of the salad bar; Local restaurant owners may have invented the common buffet," The State Journal-Register (Springfield, IL), December 28, 2001, Magazine section (p. 10A)
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