Chopt Creative Salad Co. has expanded their Birmingham presence! The creative salad company aims to make healthy eating fun, and available–and do so through a variety of great-tasting salads, warm bowls, and wraps. They rocked the Magic City with their first Bham-area location at The Summit, and are happy to now be part of the Vestavia Hills community. The latest location opened at the end of January to much fanfare, and plans on expanding their involvement in the city in the months and years to come.
Chopt is obviously known for their salads, with a delicious menu containing favorites and the ability to “Customer Craft” your salad (aka create your own). They are also famous for their dressings, which are made in-house from scratch every single day. “It brings a different element to the salad,” shares Chopt’s Regional VP Southeast, Tina Young, who kindly spoke with me about the restaurant’s excitement to be expanding and everything they are bringing to the city. The favorite salad in the South has been the Mexican Caesar Salad, which contains cotija cheese, jalapenos, tortilla chips, romaine, Mexican Caesar dressing, and the option to add protein. All salads can be made into wraps as well, which is doubly exciting.
Their warm bowls, which can be served with cauliflower rice or warm greens, are just as flavorful–and bring their own heavy-hitters to the menu. One favorite is the Chicken Tinga Bowl, which contains Mexican Goddess dressing, braised chicken tinga, black beans, avocado, tortilla chips, scallions, cotija cheese, and marinated kale. The Mexican Goddess and Mexican Caesar dressings are Chopt’s top sellers, but their restaurant’s inspired team is ready to help guide customers to their favorite dressing–and you’re able to try different options before committing a flavor to your entire salad.
Another unique aspect of Chopt is their rotating destination menu, which changes every 90 days and normally features two salads and one warm bowl that highlight another part of the world. “Destination Mexico” ends on February 22, with the next tastebud journey taking place in Southeast Asia beginning the very next day.
While Chopt has a fairly-large amount of locations across the Eastern part of the United States, they truly take the time to invest in each community they open in. This spirit begins from the earliest stages, and can first be seen the day before each location’s official Grand Opening. Chopt invites people in to try out the food, then gives all of the proceeds from that day to a local nonprofit. For Vestavia, they chose the important cause at Jones Valley Teaching Farm.
The Jones Valley partnership makes sense, as Chopt often partners with schools, local farms, and other relevant programs to teach youth how to garden–and how to make a delicious meal with the things they grow once they are ready for harvest. “How can you make that into a craveable meal for yourself,” Tina shares of the company’s teaching ambitions.
“We like to be a part of the community. We don’t like to be ‘just a business’ there,” Tina states, as I asked her about these various neighborhood-uplifting initiatives. The restaurant chain also actively raises support for frontline healthcare workers. “Especially during the pandemic, it was a way for us to help give back to the people that were on the front lines taking care of everybody that was fighting a battle,” Tina shares. This is Chopt’s way–and really Chopt’s customer's way, says Tina–of saying thank you to these powerful and courageous women and men.
It’s safe to say Magic City residents are thankful for a kind-hearted and great-tasting business coming to town, and the Chopt team has felt the love. “The people in Birmingham are so welcoming and just so nice,” Young shares, “They truly welcomed us with open arms, and we are grateful for that.”
Welcome to Vestavia, Chopt! We’re certainly glad to have you join the community.
