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Any big city center I've worked in previously has an abundance of quick takeout "street food" type joints where you can get shawarma right off a spit or a falafel wrap, big made-to-order salads topped with grilled meats or tofu and organic ingredients, artisan sandwiches/paninis, wok asian dishes using fresh, local ingredients, etc. The cost of operating a restaurant relative to rent and income in this town is a lot more favorable than other places, so you'd think there's a lot of unmet demand for this type of healthy, tasty grab-and-go food that has culinary merit. Yet, Uptown Charlotte is just full of bars and chains and cholesterol-laden takeout joints like Moe's or Salsaritas or Showmar's, or expense account dining that is too expensive, tired and outdated from a culinary standpoint, and takes too long. How can the 60,000 or whatever number it is of people working downtown stand to eat this stuff every day - and I know they do, because these places are packed. How are their bodies dealing with it? If in California I can get a lentil soup, lamb shawarma plate and hummus that is off the spit and grilled to order for $9 in a high-rent district, surely that stuff can be offered for $7 here and blow everything out of the water.
*shrugs* No clue, but constantly eating out for lunch everyday is a major money drain. i bring my lunch typically every day, maybe eat out somewhere once every other week.
Hey, we have 2.5 million people now, a large component of which came from NYC or other cities where they'd be used to good, fast, healthy and tasty takeout joints. Unless all these folks somehow lost their palates and preferences on the way down here, the free market suggests that supply should meet demand. It certainly has in places a lot smaller than Charlotte in the South (Charleston, Raleigh/Durham). It's not an un-Southern thing either. The idea of whipping up a quick farm-to-table lunch of homemade ingredients is part of the historically and classically South.
I hear you Heron. I worked uptown on Tuesday. I didn't bring my lunch with me because I had plans for lunch with some friends. We wound up at Newk's. A chain. I had the black and blue salad. It was alright. Last week I ate at Basil. Delicious but hardly healthy and definitely not cheap. There just aren't good lunch options uptown. Have you Taste, upstairs in Founders Hall? It's run by (mostly) Johnson and Wales students. I had some hits and some misses.
blynk organic
Dean & Deluca
Something Classic
7th Street Public Market - not sure if food vendors have moved in yet. they offer local meats and veggies.
I hear you Heron. I worked uptown on Tuesday. I didn't bring my lunch with me because I had plans for lunch with some friends. We wound up at Newk's. A chain. I had the black and blue salad. It was alright. Last week I ate at Basil. Delicious but hardly healthy and definitely not cheap. There just aren't good lunch options uptown. Have you Taste, upstairs in Founders Hall? It's run by (mostly) Johnson and Wales students. I had some hits and some misses.
I've basically limited myself to Taste anytime I don't bring my lunch, to be honest. At least they have pretty good made-to-order salads there and sometimes the daily specials are worthwhile. It definitely is hit-or-miss though but at least the quality of ingredients is generally high and I won't become a blimp eating there regularly. It really hit home for me when I took a two-week vacation with the wife and kids and lost 10 pounds just by eating like a normal human (and when do you ever LOSE weight on a vacation?).
Basil is better than a lot of Thai restaurants in the city (which isn't saying much), but the price point is too high for lunch. Yesterday I did beef basil and a spring roll appetizer takeout from there and it ran $18. More than twice the amount that quality and quantity of food should cost at lunchtime.
I almost forgot about Tic-Toc Diner up on 9th Street. I have one friend who always wants to eat there whenever we get together. There or Phil's on 5th. Just 'aight.
It's all about portion control. You can eat anywhere and still not gain weight.
Ahh, food snobs.
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