Noodles & Company

Noodles is one of those chains where I’m convinced you can aim at anything on the menu and be happy with what you get. It’s nothing glamorous or spectacular, nothing that’ll blow the top of your head off; but it’s pretty soul satisfying food and body satisfying too.
I got a sneak preview invite to the grand opening of this location off Noodles’ wall on Facebook, and easily convinced a friend who believes pasta is the debbil — but like me, doesn’t resist 100% of the calls to the Dark Side (of Carbs) — to go with me. This location is accessible via either Leetsdale or Cherry St; although getting there from Leetsdale you have to drive an extended amount through a RiteAid parking lot, looked like.
Upon entering, the menu is clearly mounted on a stand and right up in your face; you would have to be blind or not looking forward to miss it. All the entrée options are clearly visible. Noodles has a standard dozen-​ish noodle dishes, 4 each from Asian, European and American backgrounds; they also have the newer sandwiches as mentioned, and dabble in new signature dishes as well, like the Thai Hot Pot. I *almost* tried this because it was new — but got swayed into something more carby. [I did take ¹⁄₃ of it home, so I wasn’t entirely corrupt…] For those who are concerned about such things, they have selections that focus on:
*) gluten-​free, *) meatless, *) 500 calories or less, *) watching sugar, *) sodium conscious and other options — you can even order some bowls as salads: their «BUFF» bowls.
This sneak preview, and the one on Th 1÷14÷16, are «training runs» for the staff to get up to speed on what it’s like during standard business hours. We were invited to have an entrée of our choosing, a side dish of our choosing — and *bafflingly*, NO DESSERTS — even though the stands were up and fully displaying the wares. For a chain, I love Noodles’ «snickerdoodle» cookies (soft, big, cinnamon sugar temptations) more than any other cookie I can think of – again, from a chain. The cashiers were not allowed to make sales/​take money for any items; which is fine, but if you’re going to put the wares out — either set out a donation jar or give them away for free, 1 cookie per customer. Slightly frustrating.
I settled on the Steak Stroganoff bowl and my companion had the Alfredo Montamore bowls. Hers had creamy alfredo sauce as the thing that brought the dish together, and mine definitely had a strong but not overpowering sour cream component in the mushroom sherry cream sauce. The bowls arrive looking about half-​full (we both had regulars); but there is PLENTY of food in those containers. Maybe the smaller bowls look more filled if you order those? We also received free drinks — this location has one of those «1 machine fits many drinks» multi-​drink dispensers, which saves on space.
The booths were comfy and my companion remarked on how comfortable and cushiony the seats were. For an «ironing out the kinks» day and considering the lunch rush they were experiencing, our food was served relatively quickly — our server, Justin, was definitely bustling with serving folks as well as bussing tables of empty dishes — but was as engaging and polite as could be. Server attitude and treating your customer well is a full star for me on my ratings; and for me, that was the only variable in going to a Noodles — as I’m already biased favorably towards their dishes.
The 1 minor thing I would have changed about our experience is that both of our bowls, the food seemed to cool off fairly quickly. I’m not sure what they can do to change that — our server told me they didn’t have microwaves in back so they couldn’t reheat things up for a quick 30 seconds or so. I’m puzzled why — perhaps they’re arriving later.
The décor is corporate but arranged fairly attractively, and there is a nice patio area (on the south side of the building, so yay sun exposure) for when the weather gets warmer.
I was going to give 4 stars here… but the attitude and efforts of our server swayed me over to 5 stars. Another server helped me bag my take-​home food and smiled warmly at me – I notice little things like that… so…*for MY experience here*, it was 5 stars. I hope they’re successful at this location — I imagine they will be for a «quick» lunch location, and it’s a much more pleasant thing to look at than the wreck of a decaying bar the previous business owners had located here.