CLOSED JULY 2010

This week’s restaurant: So Fresh Salads and More, 1 N. Indian Hill Blvd., Suite 103 (at 1st), Claremont.

So Fresh looks like a franchise, as does the Pita Pit next door, but both are homegrown Claremont operations. (Update: I’m told Pita Pit really is a franchise. So Fresh is local, though.)

Pita Pit seems like a popular lunch spot, especially with the college crowd. I had a gyro there a while back and have to say it didn’t meet my expectations of a gyro. The sandwich maker — it’s like Subway or Quizno’s, where someone asks if you want each individual condiment — was ready to put all sorts of questionable items on my gyro. But that’s not really their fault. It’s not a Greek restaurant, it’s a place that sells wraps, albeit ones in pita bread rather than tortillas.

So Fresh, to pardon my own interruption, has salads, wraps and panini sandwiches. It was moderately busy at lunchtime Monday. You order at the counter and in a bit they call your name to pick up your food. I got the Garden Salad (spring mix, tomatoes, mushrooms, cucumbers, carrots, green peppers and goat cheese) with balsamic dressing, plus an iced tea, for $7.77.

There were some problems. A customer who came in after me got his salad before I did. And when my salad came, it was in a to-go container, not the for-here bowl.

The bigger problem was the amount of dressing. My salad was coated. There was probably twice as much dressing as I would have liked. I ate most of the salad but the dressing was so overpowering that I couldn’t finish. By mid-afternoon, I was not only $7.77 poorer, I was hungry again.

Maybe this experience was an anomaly, but if I go back, it will be for a panini, or I’ll ask for dressing on the side. Anyone else try this place, or the Pita Pit? I’m happy to see locally owned businesses in the Expansion and certainly wish both restaurants the best. They weren’t to my taste, though.