Start Your New Year’s Resolutions Right with Leafy Greens of Manhattan Beach!

By Bryan Tsunoda on January 18th, 2013

Recently, I discovered Leafy Greens, a salad bar restaurant nestled in the downtown area of Manhattan Beach. For those of you looking to start the New Year on a healthy note, Leafy Greens seems like an excellent choice.

I often eat salads for lunch but let’s face it, salads probably aren’t the first things that come to mind when you are hungry during the lunch hour. For me, eating a heavy lunch is akin to committing career suicide because of the danger of nodding off during an afternoon meeting.

I’m averse to many salad bars because they usually don’t offer anything interesting for the non-vegetarian. Iceberg or romaine lettuce, spinach, carrots, beets, cucumbers, bacon bits, chopped hard-boiled eggs, sprouts…that’s usually the extent of the salad bar. You can top your salad with croutons and perhaps fresh ground pepper, but that’s about it.

Enter Leafy Greens in Manhattan Beach. I was extremely surprised and delighted at their offerings. Not only did Leafy Greens provide the standard salad bar options, they also featured 4 different soups. Picking up my “to go” container, I was delighted at the plethora of choices. I picked up everything that looked interesting to me; it didn’t matter whether there was a theme or consistency.

Co-owners Rich and Laura Weber, photo supplied by Rich Weber

I recently met with co-owner Rich Weber. He and his wife, Laura, were accountants in a Santa Monica business and one day, Laura, woke up in the middle of the night stating that they need to start up a salad bar. Both Rich and Laura frequented salad bars in Santa Monica and observed that none existed in the South Bay.

Wile baby arugula among several greens on the salad bar

Wild baby arugula among several greens on the salad bar

I was extremely impressed by Rich and Laura’s attention to detail. Their establishment is extremely clean; the salad bar is immaculate; everything is effectively arranged. I particularly liked the fact that each item was labeled so that there was no confusion about what you were placing on your salad. In these days of food allergies, this is critical. Their pricing is very simple and reasonable, especially for downtown Manhattan Beach: $7.95/lb for the salad bar, $2.95 for the small soup and $4.95 for the large soup.

Plenty of fresh items available; pre made salads too!

Miso herb tofu

In addition to normal salad offerings, Leafy Greens features diced Boars Head meats, pasta salads and Middle Eastern offerings like falafel, and tabouli. A strong Asian theme resonated with me as I observed organic udon noodles, tofu with bbq sauce, and miso herb tofu. Fixing up my salad, I noticed that there were plenty of salad dressings to choose from and Leafy Greens allows you to taste them prior to purchase. You would expect croutons as an offering, but what surprised me was julienned tri-color tortilla chips, fried won ton skins (sliced) and dried cranberries. Rich told me that they have on the average approximately 72 different items in the salad bar!

Hass avocado Roma tomato salad

A plethora of dressings and salad toppings

I packed my salad “to go” and enjoyed it in the office. I enjoyed how fresh everything was. I particularly enjoyed both the tofu and miso as well as the BBQ tofu. Kudos to Laura for the recipe on both! Of the Middle Eastern offerings, I really liked the stuffed grape leaves and wished that I had picked up more. Finally, the dried cranberries really worked well with the fat free Italian dressing.

My salad – a sampling of a lot of items on the salad bar

Leafy Greens provides you with control over how much you want to purchase and consume which is great if you are watching your waistline or budget. Inside seating is also available.