By Gus Saltonstall
Both of the West Side Market locations on the Upper West Side have removed their longtime salad bars.
“I’m writing as a mildly concerned citizen of the Upper West Side and a longtime patron of the 98th and 110th St. West Side locations,” Michelle Waters wrote to West Side Rag in an email. “I’d love to know what’s going on with the West Side salad bar.”
“I realize businesses make decisions like this all the time, and the change might not be considered newsworthy, but I have many friends who are passionately loyal to these salad bars,” she added.
West Side Market at 2840 Broadway, between West 110th and 111th streets, removed its salad bar earlier in 2025, while the location at 2589 Broadway, between West 97th and 98th streets, phased it out in more recent months.
The Rag reached out to West Side Market to find out the reasoning for the decision.
A West Side Market representative, who did not identify themselves, responded from the official email address for the 2589 Broadway store by writing, “Both locations removed their salad bars due to the small amount of sales in salads itself.”
“However, 98th Street is testing a smaller version of displaying mixed salads and depending on how it works, we may return to the salad bar case, since we have not finished the renovation yet, and want to satisfy the neighborhood,” the store added.
If the return to the salad bar does not happen, the space will be used to as a grab-and-go area for salads, pre-packaged meals, and more. The West 110th Street West Side Market has also used the former salad bar space to sell pre-made salads.
We will update this story if there are any major developments to the salad bar situation at either Upper West Side store.
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As a general matter, salad bars are a “risky business.” Keeping food out in the open like that, even with a “sneeze guard,” is an invitation for bacteria and germs. Many, many salad bars closed in the Midtown District when the risk became too great – and some delis that relied heavily on their salad bars for lunchtime business actually closed as a result.
This increased – for obvious reasons – during the pandemic, when people began to realize that “open food” was probably not such a good idea.
Personally, while I know people love them, open salad bars should probably be banned outright for health reasons. I myself was a huge salad bar fan for many years, but stopped using them the first time I saw someone take something with their hand (to say nothing of the times people coughed or sneezed just a little too closely).
All I can say is, it is not an overstatement to say that salad bars are highly risky from a health perspective, particularly if they have little or no “safety” features that protect the food from sneezes, coughs or even people just breathing on them. And even with such measures, it is impossible to protect the food completely from bacteria and germs if it is out in the open.
Ian’s comment is a misrepresentation of what the Westside Market salad bars are (or were). They were not self-serve — only the staff could make you the salad, and from what I saw they were scrupulous about using tongs (and not reusing cross-contaminated tongs or bowls). It was a good option for a customizable, low-carb, high-protein meal, and I hope management reconsiders the decision.
So in other words, salad bars are hard to keep clean?
What he wanted to say, put succinctly, is that it is highly implausible that the establishment in question is sufficiently qualified and appropriately equipped to enable the containment of bacterial and viral loads within generally accepted and regulatorily permissible limits without incurring a prohibitive expense load which would render the offering financially unsupportable in the fullness of time.
LOL, so, in other words, salad bars are hard to keep clean.
Public salad bars are gross honestly…
I’ll take a wild guess here and say they weren’t making enough money from it.
Well, since that’s exactly what the employee said, it’s not really a wild guess!
It’s this. I’m quite friendly with Nico, one of the managers at the 110th Street location and he told me they were going to shift the salad bar to baked goods months before they actually pulled it. He said they weren’t selling enough salads to make the large space needed for it (and dedicated salad makers) cost efficient. He was puzzled, because having a salad made at Westside was generally cheaper than getting a salad across Broadway at Just Salad, or up Broadway, at Sweetgreen, but somehow those stores were thriving (probably because they were dedicated salad places, and one would only go into Westside for a salad if you *knew* they made them). I was a one-woman band trying to convince him to keep the salad bar, but sadly I wasn’t loud enough. 🙁
Any news if/when they are going to open a store in the building they purchased at 2248 Bdwy (between 80th & 81st), where Staples remains, but Starbucks closed.
I LOVED the salad bars at both locations and sometimes went in there for just that. The one up on 110th street got rid of it a good 6 months ago. I just realized last week that the 97th street location did the same. I asked why but the person I asked did not know the answer. They said there was a smaller selection for them to do it which I did, but a lot of their toppings for it were no longer there, just the basics. It’s a shame because they made for Great salads and I always had to wait for others to have theirs made, so not sure why they felt it didn’t do enough business to keep it.
It probably just wasn’t very efficient for the amount of space it took up in the store and the labor to staff it. Easier to just pre-make some salads and put them out on a small shelf.
Exactly. There was ALWAYS a line.stbe more competition opened up and it didn’t make sense to keep it going?
Obnoxious reason? Not enough lettuce in their salads.
They are hardly sanitary, and it is difficult to keep the food cold enough for safety. Better to have salads assembled for you. But no salad is safe unless the sanitation is spotless.
They did assemble the salads for the customers.
Read the article!
Now i wont be able to taste the offerings with my fingers anymore.
well, you couldn’t before either, as they assembled the salads for the customers
In 1989 I had just moved to NYC from Chicago and was delighted to see a well-stocked salad bar in a deli. I innocently loaded up my plastic container and set it on the scale. Sixteen Dollars! And having taken it I couldn’t put it back. That day I learned that salad bars are for the rich.
The salad bar at 96th Street was never as good or as popular as the one at 110th, so their point has some merit. That said, the grab-and-go meals are terrible. They are overpriced and routinely sit unsold for weeks on end. The four-week expiry dates speak for themselves.
I can’t echo this comment enough. If you look at the expiration dates on the prepared food, they are quite literally weeks away, it simply cannot be that a chicken breast stuffed with ham and cheese is good for 3 – 4 weeks. Stay away, far away, from their prepared food.
Thanks for doing this story! I live on 96th Street and I would go to the market specifically for their salads..I liked having my Kale salad custom made there.. I was surprised and shocked and disappointed to see that they had removed the salad bar.. I really hope they bring it back.. Trying to eat healthier and having my Kale salad custom made there was a motivator..
Try buying a bunch of kale, a few carrots, and a box of croutons.
I think there’s other things going on with WSM. They no longer carry Lay’s products or Arnold bread products. When I asked about this, they say the companies don’t want to deal with independent stores. This makes no sense.
Reading between the lines, I wonder if the meaning is something like, “the companies don’t want to give small stores a discount for being small.” Or maybe there’s no discount for bulk because they’re not buying enough bulk. And so they decided to stop carrying those brands.
Are WSMs franchises, that the employee referred to them as “independent stores?”
I don’t know. I wasn’t buying this excuse for why they stopped carrying major brands.
The haven’t carried Applegate in the deli section for months now either. Something is afoot at that store, just raising prices isn’t cutting it apparently
There was a “salad bar” at 98th? News to me. I understand that to be a build your own situation (see, Whole Foods at 97th). 98th had a salad bar behind glass with an employee doing the builds—is that what’s now gone?
You should ask WSM why their prices are so high.
Whole Foods has a great salad bar- but admittedly, not many locations to make it convenient.
plus supporting Jeff Bezos…
Salad bar on 98 th St WSM? No. Never.
Concerned over a salad bar????? You must have an incredibly easy and worry free life if the removing of a salad bar from a supermarket “concerns you”…. Let’s talk about a privilege life!
Honestly, I think it is because other salad restaurants opened close by, and WSM has lost market share. For instance, near W110th street, there is Just Salad (across the street from WSM) and a Sweetgreen at W115. Similarly, there is a Sweetgreen at W92, a few blocks from the W97 Street store.
It’s a great disappointment that the 110th st location no longer has its salad bar. What has replaced it is mediocre – unappetizing, run of the mill, ready made salads. Please bring the salad bar back!
I will miss those salad bars. They offered a great opportunity to sample foods. If I didn’t like something I just put it back into the container for someone else to enjoy.
Unrelated but amusing. I was checking out the other day and the price came to 12.99. I gave them $20 cash and told them to keep the penny. The cashier explained they no longer have pennies. I asked how they round. Apparently .04 and more they round up. .03 and down they round down, I wonder how much they earn on that.