The Kitchen Table

This store has so much potential.
The good:
Convenient location at Bay and Dundas.
Great hours.
The bad:
Horrible cash-​out placement.
Unnecessarily high prices.
Tiny aisles.
No staff on the floor to help.

I came here yesterday morning looking for some ryvita crackers. I don’t often come here as there are other grocery stores closer to where I live. I found this store to be rather crowded and poorly organized. Items were not stocked on the shelves in a logical manner. Furthermore, the prices here are considerably higher than bigger grocery stores. For example, the crackers I wanted to buy we’re selling for $ 4.19 vs $ 3.49 at the nearby sobeys, metro, and loblaws.
One redeeming quality of the store was the take-​away salad bar they had on offer. While I did not purchase anything, I noticed that there was a yummy looking seafood salad in the bar as well as some other interesting mixed salads that you would not typically find in your standard salad bar.
I would return here to try out that salad bar and maybe buy groceries — if the prices were more competitive!

The Cashiers vary wildly in social niceties. Sometimes they are friendly, other times just downright mean. The food, on the other hand is usually dependable. You can find cheap Van Houtens coffee with lots of creamers, discounted pastries if you don’t mind a bit of stale for dunking and decent ready made stuff and good salad bar. Prices are high, but still does not feel like as much of a rip off as metro.

After being in school four days a week and 2.5 hours away, when I work on Fridays in Toronto I like to be a little paresseuse. In this case it means buying my lunch near work. My options are far and few if I’m to get something healthy and inexpensive. I visited the salad bar at Longo, and frankly not very impressed. They don’t have many options for food that isn’t sopping in salt and vinegar.
The Kitchen Table’s salad bar is cheaper and contains things that I prefer in my salad: lentils, couscous and fresh greens.
Everything is fresh, and the line-​up isn’t all that bad during lunch.
I also like picking up a container of yogurt every now and then. Although it might be hard to execute, I’d love to see them have yogurt by the weight to save on a little extra packaging.

I have been going to The Kitchen Table for years off and on, mostly for the cold buffet. I ventured there yesterday after 1:00 pm with an appetite for soup but that disappeared.
I walked into the area and looked over the hot and cold buffets. There was a young woman standing at one side of the soup counter and she appeared to be in front of one soup cauldron for a while. I walked up beside her to discover she had the ladle to her mouth to give it a test — although she could have had her serving for all I know. I quickly said, «don’t do that». I really startled her.
Food out in the open — I happened to see this sampling. We know it goes on.

Just tried their salad bar for the first time today and not bad…
I’m always coming in for grocery items I’ve forgotten during my big weekend shopping and would always eye the food bars but never got anything. Today I had to pick up some taco seasoning and ended up meandering over to the food bar to check out the goods. Everything looked surprisingly good over at the salad bar (and fresh — which is a lot coming from the girl who worked @ Whole Foods in the prepared foods department) but the hot bar was kinda sad looking. They had a stew, some salmon, shepherds pie, rice, etc. Looked kinda dry. I passed on the hot stuff today but may try something if it strikes my fancy in the future.
I got a mix of romaine/​spring mix lettuce, shredded red cabbage, chickpeas, an entire avacado half, some bocconcini cheese and a quarter of a scoop of pasta salad (that was pretty awful-won’t be getting that again.) With a dixie cup full of balsamic vinegarette on the side, total was $ 5.27. Not bad, but I did put a lot of lettuce and not a whole lot of other stuff. It’s good for getting a little bit of everything though, when you don’t feel like having any one thing in particular.
*Extra star for the awesome deals they always have like 99 cent bricks of cheese and $ 2.99 terra chips :)

Picked up some cupcakes for a mini celebration. They were not good. tasted like they were made to last for months and they were probably there almost that timeframe. Shame since they have a large amount of fruits and vegis, I would think they would try to keep everything fresh. I guess not.

I gave in and tried the hot/​cold salad bar the other day. There’s three different kinds of lettuce, at least 12 dressings, fruit, vegetables, various predone salads (like potato and pasta), cheese, bacon bits, the list goes on. The hot buffet had some interesting stuff but the only thing I took from this was the mini falafel to go on top of my salad instead of chicken. I filled my container up with mostly healthy veggies and a few other little things and headed to the counter. With a small bun, my small-​mediumish salad and SMALL (note very small) bun came to $ 9.60 or something close to that. Luckily I wasn’t starving, but at 1.99/100g, this bar can get very pricey if you don’t pay attention to how much your container weighs.
I’d stay away from the hot/​cold buffet and stick with their fresh made sandwiches.

Most terrible service I’ve ever had in a grocery store, metro and corner stores included. The cashiers were very blatant in their efforts and tone to get the line going. My cashier in particular resorted to loudly and impatiently repeating the amount I was to pay while I was sorting out cash. She even did the same to the old lady behind me, who was notably spooked. I think I’ll go to Longo’s instead from now on and pay the few cents more.
The selection of produce is decent, though missing price tags are a norm and there’s no apparent isle labeling whatsoever. The produce seems to be fresh, but I can’t really vouch for that since I’ve only bought so much from this store. I don’t intend to buy much more.
The majority of the customers here seem to be office workers from the same building that come here for the hot lunch.

This is a really handy place to grab groceries when you’re downtown and work in the area. It’s right near my gym and right on the subway line, so it’s often more convenient for me to drop in here to grab something rather than near where I live. It’s also right near the Atrium LCBO if you need to pick up something to go with your food/​groceries.
Quality of the fruit & veg is reasonable, and they often have deals; you can grab some stuff that’s on its way out for very cheap as well, similar to many Loblaws.
Grocery section has a good range & variety of products for a store this size. Prices are sometimes a little more than you would normally pay, but for the convenience it’s worth it.
There are large refridgerated sections with dairy/​meat etc — good range of bottled juices and smoothies, and even some Yves veggie products.
At the back of the store is a salad and hot food buffet, so if you want something ready to go for lunch or dinner, it’s all there. Quality seems okay, but this sort of thing can be pricey.
Service here is usually pretty prompt, but nobody is actually overly friendly. If you don’t mind that, and a little steeper prices for necesseties, then you need to know about the hidden gem of Kitchen Table in the Atrium!

Wow! So I started work in the Atrium on Bay in May and quickly discovered this place. It seems that they have a buffet hidden in there behind the boring looking grocery shelves.
I originally went in there in search of something off the shelves that I could heat up in my office cafeteria but quickly changed my mind when I smelled the delicious food on the buffet.
Not until today did I want to write a review about this place. I had their sweet and sour pork for the first time (I had never seen it on the buffet before today) and I am tempted to go back downstairs to get some more. This was literally sweet and sour both at the same time. It was the first time I had the pleasure of enjoying this taste.
The other item I always grab every time I’m in there is the meatballs. They are phenomenal.
They charge you based on how much food you take (by weight) so your never left over eating or getting too little for what your appetite desires.
This is by far my favorite place in AOB to get my lunch when I don’t bring my own.