Tootsie’s Salad Express Hot & Cold Buffet

Great little salad bar in the Reading Terminal Market. Fresh ingredients, both hot and cold selections. I really like their cole slaw. Make you own salad. What could be better or simpler. Delicious food, lots of choices. Highly recommend.

This hot and cold salad bar has a lot of variety and would probably be a haven for someone who is extremely indecisive. The hot bar rotates daily with different items, which is generally nice in terms of variety. The cold bar appears to have the same daily choices. I’ve tried some of their chicken dishes such as the chicken marsala and their chicken wings. I enjoyed them, but didn’t care for the chicken fingers as I found them to be overly fried and looked a bit dry. The mac and cheese was just «ok». I really did enjoy their fried whiting fish. By far, my favorite thing I’ve tried there is the sweet potatoes. SO good! The actual salad bar has a ton of different vegetable varieties, which makes the idea of having a healthy meal super easy.
I haven’t tried their breakfast offerings, but I’ve peeked at the hot bar during breakfast time and it looks tasty.
A downside is the price, which is currently weighed at $ 6.99 per pound. It’s very easy to go overboard and next thing you know, you’re paying $ 13 for lunch. Yikes! I’ve also noticed that this place seems to be a favorite amongst the 60 and over crowd. The cashiers are also friendly as well.

Wow, the food here was really good. Surprisingly really good! It’s an excellent lesson to never judge a book by it’s cover. Sure, it’s in no way fancy but the price is cheap and the quality is excellent! I had coleslaw and fruit and salad from the cold bar and then fried chicken, greens and mac and cheese from the hot bar and oh my god, it was some of the best I’ve ever had in my life. From what I hear, the quality of food is also consistent which is a plus. Consistency is detrimental to any place whether they make it or not and quality wise, Tootsies will be here to stay! Very friendly employees as well.
PS, I came here with two VERY finicky and VERY picky old ladies. And they had no complaints.

This is a decent place to hit if you are going to play it safe at the Reading Termial Market. But with all the choices, I’m not sure why anyone would! Or why I did, for that matter.
The produce is local which is pretty cool. People helping people, I like it. They have an above average salad bar… I made a rockin little creation with seafood salad. They have a decent selection if hoot food too served buffet style, but I cannot attest to this as I stuck to the lettuce. My main gripe is the price though. I think I spent $ 14 on a salad and bottle of water? That’s too damn high!

I’m not a foodie or food snob by any stretch of the imagination, but this place is purgatory of food. Got the buffet so I can’t speak for the salad bar. The fried white fish was decent, and that’s about where the positives end. Chicken tenders are moist on the outside by dry inside. The most bland Mac n cheese I’ve ever eaten, and the baked ziti is just not good in any way. Stewed beef might be dog food. On top of that there are flies.

It’s the cheapest place to eat in the Reading Terminal. I usually get the Kale. The meatballs are nice. A bit salty though.
The Employees are nice. It’s clean.
Only thing is sometimes the flies come out and circle the food… but this can be said for any of the stores in the Terminal.

If you work in the area, like I do, it’s a great spot for a quick lunch. They have a kale citrus salad that is always on point. The hot food items are hit or miss. I raved about the fried chicken tenders to a friend, and then on my next visit they were stringy, dry and old tasting. I vacillated between 3 and 4 stars quite a bit but had to settle at 3. I’ve been here several times and the quality, variety and friendliness of cashier has been inconsistent.

I’m a regular at this place, and what brings me back is the kale, quinoa, and black bean salads. I wish they had even more vegetarian salads, but have several that would be excellent, but they mix in chicken or seafood. I have never tried the cooked, hot food items, so I can’t speak to that. They also dropped their LevelUp, which was a disappointment, but they do take credit cards, including Amex. But who needs it when you can get lunch for $ 4.50?

I love the Reading Terminal! With a number of great food options, the toughest thing to do is saving room for all the good food!
Tootsie’s is one of those places I absolutely have to take my family or friends visiting from out of town. They have a rotating hot foods menu which is always good for trying different foods, whatever I’m in the mood for that day. I typically share some ribs, mac n cheese, roasted potatoes and pork sausage with whoever is lucky enough to be visiting me :)
Service is always very quick and friendly, and it’s a good place to go during the lunch rush (when all of the other lines are backed up a mile long!)

Tootsies is tucked into a huge food market in downtown Philly, way in the back, and is definitely a great addition to the culinary collection that makes up its surroundings.
Price-​wise, a little steep, but understandable given the urban locale and that there’s not a lot of competition for salad bars in the market. Fresh ingredients, decent amount of options (could use more SALAD options, seems like they spread themselves a bit too thin trying to do a dinner buffet AND a salad bar), a little seating area… this place has everything you need for a quick, healthy lunch!

I come here twice a week. I love the salads! I wish they would get ranch dressing (only have peppercorn ranch.) I’m a fan of the tuna, quinoa & crab salad
The hot buffet is yummy. Mac & cheese, fried chicken, beans & rice!

If there’s anything that RTM is lacking, in my opinion, is good, fresh to-​go salad options (I do realize there are some pre-​made options out there). Tootsie’s is just what it states — hot & cold buffet, quickly.
I stopped by a little after 3pm on a weekday and got myself a nice container full of salad. There was nothing fancy, no crazy cheese options, just enough to make a solid garden salad. The place was clean, the food was plentiful and the line was short. Signage states the produce is from Iovine Brothers, which is a plus.
I did scope out the hot food options (I guess you can mix and match) but nothing that looked too appealing to me — lots of starch and fried foods.
One thing to note is that the picture for this place is out of date, I believe they are up to $ 6.69/lb.

$ 1.50 for an extra large soda. Fatties for the win!

It’s hard to rate salad, but this salad, lettuce, tomatoes, olives and all was very fresh and tasty. That being said, I especially like the Quinoa Salad that I added to my plate. It was very tasty. I would definitely go back there if I am ever back in Philly.

Not sure why the reviews are not more generous for this place. This place was a lifesaver for me when I was in Philly for an already expensive weekend. I love a fresh salad! for me that is greens and lot’s of them. They also had a variety of protein sources so you could make it a complete meal (hardcooked eggs, tuna salad, chicken, etc). A good variety of dressing but you don’t even need that with all the variety of other goodies. If you stay away from the heavy stuff you can get away cheap!!!
No seating that I am aware of but I was not really looking, maybe there is somewhere in the market you can sit after you pay, I don’t know.

This place has great food with awesome prices! Best food in the market!

Apparently finding a salad bar in center city is rather difficult — i’ve tried to find one that has a good variety that isn’t $ 7.99/lb (I’m looking at you Whole Foods!)
Good variety, fresh ingredients (minus a few canned goods… but what do you expect when you get Chick Peas?) and reasonably priced! Also– i have a slight addiction ot their croutons… Their Chicken is fresh — not the typical chewy/​sometimes slimy salad bar chicken you can get.
In addition to the salads, they have a good selection of hot foods as well as a few desserts, tuna salad and chicken salad.
Friendly cashiers and workers are constantly refilling the produce! Definitely a nice change to visit when in Reading Terminal Market if you don’t want to be in a food coma past lunch time

A good standby place, a lot of fresh vegetables, but also a lot of canned stuff. But, a great selection and variety.

A great find when I visited Reading Market and had a flight later that afternoon. Made myself a nice salad for the flight, and it was like $ 5. Much bigger and better than airport food. Chicken on the salad was really, really good. Wasn’t expecting that.

I can’t even believe that I’m coming clean with this. I’ve been shamefully sneaking off to this place in the middle of the Reading Terminal Market the same way your man creeps out of my place at 6 AM. Head down, shades, throwing some side eye… but secretly feeling pretty damn good.
What’s making me feel so good, you ask? Well, it’s not the creepy ass lima beans, or old man ham and cabbage. The salad bar? Eh, I could take or leave. No, there’s only one thing for me here. One nasty, nasty thing. Fried whiting. Ohmygod. Such fried deliciousness. I never ever liked fried seafood, so I have no idea what possessed me to swing that way one day. Just to make it extra gross, I like to add a nice mixture of «tartar» and cocktail sauce. Oh, it makes me feel like so dirty inside… but at the same time… so satisfied. And cheap. I mean, the food, not me. Ok, maybe me. But I can regularly get a full fix of the good stuff here for under $ 3.50.
I know Reading Terminal has a plethora of yummy. wholesome, good for the world vendors. I’m not saying you shouldn’t go to them most of the time. But every once in a while, don’t be scared to unleash your inner freak and make some sinful mouth love here.
***Disclaimer: Your man is not actually creeping out of my house at any hour. If he were, I probably wouldn’t have to drown my sorrows in fried fish.***