Review of Souper Salad Buffet in Santa Fe, New Mexico

What a deal! All the salad, baked potatoes, soup, pizza, and dessert you can eat for $5.99. Ten percent off for seniors and children heavily discounted, depending on age and day of the week. On Sunday, 3- to 5-year-olds eat for 99 cents. You'll see lots of single fathers and kids on custody weekends.

After paying up front - soft drinks cost extra but are unlimited - go to the salad bar and start shuffling past lettuces, baby spinach leaves, olives, bean salads, salami, cauliflower, chopped eggs, tomatoes, mixed salads, pasta salads, and more. Much more. The basic ingredients - like spinach, carrots, and tomatoes - are uniformly fresh, cuts above the already-made salads such as Asian chicken. Marinated mushrooms were particularly good.

And I'd have finished off the entire bin of pickled okra if they'd let me. Probably, they wouldn't have noticed; customers go back for more again and again and again. Pasta salads change daily, as does a choice of four soups. The red-bean and sausage soup was thin but tasty. Red chili with ground meat and beans was spicy. Warm cornbread and gingerbread were good. Foil-wrapped baked potatoes come with a choice of every conceivable topping.

Desserts include piles of fresh fruit. Stewed strawberries with cake squares and some kind of white whip provide do-it-yourself shortcake. Unlimited soft-serve ice cream with sprinkles and toppings is a dream for kids, a nightmare for their parents. Pasta salads can be soggy, and pizza slices, lying near-glued together in a warming oven, are what you'd expect - but with more than 40 items to choose from, it's still a deal. Bussers bring beverages and efficiently clean tables; others quickly refill bins at the salad bar and clean up the inevitable spills. The restaurant is sunny and clean. It would be hard to beat such a winning strategy.

Souper Salad is very moderately priced. Here is the summary of the cost of a Lunch or dinner for one at Souper Salad in Santa Fe. The Buffet is an incredible deal here. For only $ 5.99 you could potentially eat till you explode with salads, soups, desserts and even pizza all available. For an additional buck and a half you can add a bottomless beverage to that buffet. But a word of advice, stick to water, as juices and sodas will fill you up much faster and you will not be able to eat as much from the buffet. The total cost for lunch or dinner for one before tip and tax was $7.48. There are discounts for seniors and children, and it would probably be nice to give your busser a dollar or two! Souper Salad is located at2428 Cerrillos Road in Santa Fe, 473-1211