Hale and Hearty
“I'm usually not about writing reviews for chains, but Hale and Hearty has quickly become my goto lunch spot in SoHo.”
“Come around 3pm when the madness dies down.”
“I'm a big fan of sandwiches in general, and Hale and Hearty's are, let's say, decent – again, especially for a chain.”
Hale and Hearty
Take-out: Yes
Accepts Credit Cards: Yes
Bike Parking: Yes
Good for Kids: Yes
Good for Groups: Yes
Caters: Yes
Price range.
$ Price range Under $10
7 reviews
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Yay! So happy when my favorite place for salads near Bryant Park opened an eatery in SoHo on Hudson…. Just a jump across the street now! I love their sandwiches and soup selection…so fresh and tasty. However, the real reason I lunch here is for their chopped salad. You build your own and they chop and toss… So quick and so many choices… Service seems good as well… Always a crowd around the lunch hour and prepare to wait in line for a bit…
Full disclosure: I have been on the H&H favorite soup email alert list for like three years now. It's an addiction. Also, they gave me free soup TWICE this week, so I'm feeling particularly magnanimous.
After like a year and a half of anticipation, H&H finally opened across the street from my office building. Although I'm all about not supporting chains above local business, this area needed soup. I needed soup. This location is bigger than some of the midtown ones I've been to, although there aren't very many places to sit still. Get a customer loyalty card, check the menu online to see if your favorites are there (I love this feature), and get slurping. Worth noting: their crackers are absurdly high in calories.
Seeing as I grab lunch here at least once a week (emphasis on the "at least" part), I probably owe the Hudson Street Hale and Hearty props. For all these semi-cafeteria style chains in the city, H&H is definitely upper-echelon. They serve the three holy S's of NYC lunch breaks – soups, salads, and sandwiches. And if I had to choose their forte, it'd be hands down S #1 – the soups.
I mean, I get soup alerts, for cryin' out loud. Who gets soup alerts?! That's right, I loved a soup so much (the Tortellini Florentine) that I went on the H&H website, found out you can choose your location and choose your favorite soup(s)*, and you will get an e-mail notification, the day of, when it is on the menu. In summation, I subscribe to soups, and now everyone outside of my inbox knows it.
Anyway. Lately, I've also been a fan of their salads, but it took a while to find my combo (Large Mixed Greens, Smoked Turkey, Red Onions, Avocado, Corn, Quinoa, and Shaved Parmesan, with Herb Italian Vinaigrette Dressing, if you must know). The employees here are aggressive (but friendly!) choppers, so just keep an eye on them so they don't hack your greens into lawnmower dust. And even with them goin' at a grueling pace, the salad line can be intimidating sometimes, I'll admit it.
Last are their sandwiches. I'm a big fan of sandwiches in general, and Hale and Hearty's are, let's say, decent – again, especially for a chain. I typically pick a soup and half-sammy combo, in which my go-to is the Mozzarella, Avocado & Tomato. I've got no complaints, but also no pending sandwich alerts on the horizon – I'll save my e-mail notifications exclusively for the soups, thankyouverymuch.
*Yeah, now that we mention it, I might need to add some of their seafood-based selections, because those are usually pretty legit…
I used to like Hale and Hearty till today. The day I realized that their service is probably the worst on Hudson. Honestly the almost $10 for a small soup, half of a sandwich, and a heaping serving of rolling-your-eyes, disrespectfully slow and just-plain-disrespectful, unhappy-with-your-jobs, think-that-they're-doing-you-a-favor attitude isn't worth it.
Perhaps if the soups were better–always too sweet IMHO–I wouldn't mind the terrible service. The sandwiches are pretty good, especially the smoked turkey and parmesan sandwich, but not good enough to endure the crowds or the serpentine confusion, brought on by the three or four sections, one of which changes function arbitrarily, during the day.
Or perhaps if there were no other good options in the immediate area, like next door.
Ok, so the mean sandwich lady is gone! Yay! Hale and Hearty has won me back for lunch!
I know it's kind of "boring" to get salad for lunch, but I do so on a very frequent basis and when I do it's almost always at Hale & Hearty. Of all the salad joints in the area, H&H might not have the largest selection of toppings, but they do have the freshest, best quality ingredients for the price. Plus I probably get at least 1 free salad a month thanks to the loyalty card, so if you're a regular the net pricing is even better!
Sometimes the soups can be hit or miss, but I am LOVING the new pumpkin bisque they started serving for the season. It's like slurping creamy pumpkin pie filling. The tomato & basil, cream of tomato, and anything curried are also all consistently good choices.
Another thing that I count in their favor is that they really do focus on efficient service. There have been a few times when my soup order's been mixed up, which is irksome, but otherwise I feel like I've noticed that they will rotate employees based on strengths. Service is a tough job, especially during a lunch rush, so while it may seem a relatively simple task there are definitely people who manage their stations better and it really makes a difference to the overall flow. Even when the salad line is way backed up, I can generally get in and out within 10 minutes.
I was so excited for this place to open near my office. #1 – because I love soup, so much so that I ate it in 90 degree weather on my honeymoon in the Caribbean and #2 – we desperately need more lunch joints like H&H. Sadly, I'm less than thrilled.
I don't even care about the lines or hecticness of the place; it's simply that the food isn't so good. They have these interesting soups like Chicken Marsala or Chicken Pot Pie, but they don't taste that great. For something as complex and interesting as a soup like this, I expect it to be good. The food doesn't have much flavor, even their salads (overpriced!) lack pizazz.
The service is OK, albeit slow and lazy. For soups and salads, I'd rather hit a deli nearby for better food, service and price.