I love a good salad and at times choose to go to a particular restaurant just because of their salad or salad bar. That said some of the best salads that the wife and I have discovered are as follows:
Best Salad: #1 (uncontested in our minds)The Chop House (Pigeon Forge, Knoxville, & Chattanooga). As for around these parts there are also many good places to find salads among which are Olive Garden and Longhorn Steakhouse.
Best Salad Bars: Here it gets tough as the answer, as far as I'm concerned, can vary on whether or not you are talking value or overall taste regardless of value. I have to say that the new Dales has an awesome bar but at $8-$9 for the bar with no return trip/refills it's by far and away the most costly and thus not a very good value. Not a large variety of toppings mind you but all are fresh and the dressings are unique and exceptional but lack of allowing you to return to the bar along with the overall price takes it off my list. Overall when we go making our decision based upon their bar we usually end up at Ruby Tuesdays for they have a great bar. Not as much of a variety of selections of various toppings but great quality and taste and fresh croutons make it a favorite. Another great bar is that at Legends, downtown. Additionally, not to be neglected, I also enjoy the bar at Oh Bryans's in Tuscumbia but you can't really tell much difference from theirs and Stanfields so Stanfields surely gets honorable mention here. Before Big Mikes went out I would have put them right at the top but they've been gone for a while now. I'm looking forward to hearing where others feel is the best bars (or salads) and why.
