Food

Chop’t Opens in Penn Quarter and Dishes Out Free Salads

This Wednesday, lunch is on Chop't. Photograph by Whitney Spivey.

Let’s hope Wednesday's weather is better than Tuesday's , because there’s sure to be a line outside the new Chop’t in DC’s Penn Quarter as the salad shop dishes out free lunch—anything on the menu!—for opening day. Chop’t will open its doors at 11 AM and promises to whip up free salads until the lettuce runs out.

The designer-salad company is already a popular work-lunch standby in New York City, where it has three locations. The Penn Quarter store is the first non-Manhattan venture for founders Tony Shure and Colin McCabe, who will be meeting and greeting the DC crowd at tomorrow’s opening.

At Chop’t, customers either craft their own salads—choosing from six greens, dozens of gourmet toppings, and 28 house-made dressings—or pick one of the “chef-designed” options. The Beverly Hills Chef tops a bed of iceberg with grilled chicken, salami, mozzarella, tomato, chickpeas, and either red wine or Dijon vinaigrette. Once you’ve selected ingredients—say, spinach with hearts of palm, grilled shrimp, edamame, slivered almonds, and five-flavor Asian dressing—they’re thrown into a bowl and hand-chopped with a double-bladed mezzaluna. Any salad can also be ordered as a wrap sandwich, and a handful of soups round out the menu.

Like its popular lunch-rush competitor Cosi, Chop’t will offer flatbread with every salad. So if you’re a little tired of that daily Cosi Signature Salad, this could be a worthy change of pace.

Chop’t, 730 Seventh St., NW; 202-347-3445; choptsalad.com.