Noodles & Company

This is your standard Noodle and Company, but there are three things they do really well:
1) Pesto cavatappi– It’s perfectly cooked and perfectly seasoned and if you add a breaded chicken breast to it, it hits the spot every time.
2) Rice krispie treats– Random, I know, but they are HUGE and perfectly soft every time.
3) Honest Tea– they sell real brewed organic tea that’s just a tad sweet to make you feel a little better eating at a fast casual restaurant.
If you’re shopping in the Ballston Common Mall, this is not a bad option for lunch or dinner.

*** 3 ½ stars ***
My weakness is the Japanese pan noodles. The udon noodles are deliciously caramelized and come in a sweet soy sauce with shiitake mushrooms, veggies and sprouts.
On my last visit, though, the service painfully slow. It was a Sunday night, and a bunch of us waited 45+ minutes for our noodles. NOT ok for a fast casual place.

Customer service is just awful. Carrying on a conversation with your colleagues after calling me to the cash register for service is rude.

OK giving it a third chance. NO SRIRACHA. What Noodles and Company doesn’t carry sriracha? You know that’s why people eat your bland ass food.

«You’ve checked in here 2 times! What keeps you coming back?» Unilocal asks me suspiciously. Majority of my check-​in history is divey mom-​and-​pop eateries or Tom Sietsema recommendations, and zero percent Olive Garden. (Okay, maybe a handful of Popeye’s check-​ins, too…)
So, Noodles and Company twice in a month? What’s up with that?
What’s up with that is that some of their dishes are yummy (particularly the stroganoff and the penne rosa), authenticity be damned, but more importantly: they have these boulder-​sized rice krispie treats available at the counter, freshly made.
I have no idea what ingredients they use to make their rice krispie treats so delicious (my friend, helpfully: «Crack?»), but they are some of the best rice krispie treats I’ve ever had. They taste like they use a fancier brand of cereal than just Kellogg’s, as the rice is bigger and has more of a grainy texture (a good thing!). Starbucks can go eff itself, Noodles and Company has the best counter goodies OF ALL TIME.

The food is always been good here and the service has been good as well. The location is a bit small but I have never had any problems. I love the Thai peanut sauté with tofu.

They try to use better ingredients and have a lot of variety — nice pluses. But taste of entrees is just ok, we had mac n cheese and pulled pork sandwich.

As comforting, fresh, and welcoming as the bakery/​noodle house I remember. Simple in design but innovative in concept. Perfect on this cold, cold day. Outlets and chopsticks included.

Just don’t go here… Cleanliness of utensils is a joke — took the cashier 3 tries to pull a clean spoon out before handing me a dirty spoon. The pot stickers were so thin and burnt that I was going to return it, but it’s noodles and co, why bother. PLACE SUCKS!

This location is a hit or miss. The service has improved, but sometimes they skip ingredients in the food they serve. This has happened to me on three occasions.
Today, I ordered a Med salad. It was unusually flat — and I open it to find it half full of brown lettuce and missing olives. I suspect they had this one sitting in the fridge from an order that was never picked up.
Consistency in quality is key. Your regulars will notice when you skip out on ingredients, or when it’s not fresh. I’ll be bypassing this location in the future.
(Former N&C employee)

Noodles & Company is a good place to try for lunch if you’re looking for something a bit different from the numerous sandwich shops all around Ballston. The shop is clean, quick, and there is ample seating inside if you choose to stay for lunch.
On my second visit here, I ordered the Penne Rosa with feta cheese and grilled chicken. The pasta was al dente and the meal overall was pretty tasty. They have additional sriracha bottles and salt/​pepper grinders if you need to bump up the seasoning on your dish, which you probably will need given my experience. I tend to be biased on the pepper, but when I ordered the Pesto last time, it definitely lacked seasoning and was a bit dry (note: the parmesan crusted chicken is underwhelming and dry and loses any crunch after being dunked in the sauce). This inconsistency in seasoning made me dock them a star because they can also be a bit heavy-​handed with the salt, as with the braised pork option that my brother ordered.
In all, decent food if you can afford to spend $ 10 on pasta/​noodles.

I love this place! I love the food, i’ve had great experiences here except 1 time, where the shift manager put bacon bits in our salad even after verified with him twice that we are vegetarian. He gave us a refund in form of a free salad the next time we come in, not good enough. But i won’t say this is a bad place due to 1 bad experience.
The food is absolutely amazing, they have several different dishes and they can all be modified to be vegetarian. When i say it’s delicious, i mean mouth watering delicious! It’s located on the 2^nd level of the ballston mall, my best friend and i have been here on several occasions. We are both picky eaters, so the fact that they can modify any dish to vegetarian is great.
She usually gets the salad here and i get the pad thai though we have tried all the different dishes here. The place is clean and looks nice, they have a nice seating arrangement as well, comfortable large booths. I will be back for more.

This may sound odd for a place that serves Asian food, but my current yen is for their mega-​sized rice krispy treats, which are cut in random geometric shapes, like giant boulders. They are super fresh, and deliciously ooey-​gooey, not dry and hard, which I find a lot of commercially made rice krispy treats tend to be. I always order one and eat it while I’m waiting for them to prepare my meal. I’m a dessert first kinda gal. I have my priorities straight.
In truth, I eat here more than I eat in my own kitchen at home. Everything I’ve tried is delicious. I usually get hooked on one meal and keep ordering it for a few months until I move on to something new on the the menu. Right now my go-​to is their Pad Thai with chicken. They definitely go light on the meat, and I prefer that, because I only eat a very small amount of meat, on occasion. There are plenty of gluten-​free options here too, which is a requirement for me.
I’ve always had good service, meals are made after you order, so they are always hot and yummy, and if you don’t finish everything there, they’ve got to-​go boxes out for you right by the drinks. It’s quick, easy, relatively healthy and affordable — I couldn’t ask for anything more.

Love at first bite!
Okay guys please don’t judge me on this. I’ve passed by Noodles several times, and never ventured in. This was my loss. I believe I was intimidated by the term «noodles». Carbohydrates love my butt and thighs.
Late night I found myself at Ballston Mall. My BFF and I were super hungry. Panera was closed due to it being a weekday… how dare them. I was bummed. We were about to walk outside and saw Noodles & Company was open. My BFF suggested we go. Afraid I would need a shot of insulin afterwards I prepared my glucose meter.
My BFF and I have both have severe dietetic restrictions to the point of needing an EpiPen. The two of us combined are a waiters worst nightmare! After asking way too many questions we figured out what we wanted and what we could both eat. The cashier was happy to make simple modifications to our meals. He never got annoyed. He explained to us that everything was prepared fresh. He was very helpful.
He was not lying! I forgot the name of my salad but it had fruit, greens, nuts The balsamic dressing was so savory. The croutons were even quality. This was one of the best salads I’ve had in a long time. My tomato bisque was delicious. Even though I got two sides the portions were large.
My BFF’s food was equally as good. It was some sort of spicy noodle dish with lots of ginger… Similar to Pad Thai. It was just as yummy as the best Pad Thai i’ve ever had… no lie. The soup was warming and flavorful. The BFF had no complaints.
Thank you staff a Noodles & Company for being so nice and patient with us. You were very friendly and informative for a newbie like me. :)
Noodles and Company I’m coming back for your Pad Thai Jae!

I had a terrible experience at the Ballston, Virginia location. I ordered online and picked it up in store. They forgot the chicken in my pasta which forced me to return. When I got there I didn’t even get a simple apology. As a result, I feel like I wasted my money. I understand mistakes happen; forgetting an item happens. How your staff then rectifies that mistake is what makes the difference and keeps customers coming back. For example: a similar situation happened to me at another restaurant in the area. Not only did they remake my order they also gave me a refund. I walked away from that experience as a loyal customer who appreciated their sense of accountability. I will not be returning to Noodles and Company.

Holy wowzer who is minding the store. Noodles and company is generally a great spot to go to and grab a quick bite to eat.
I wish I had something good to say about this place but I am searching.
1. The place was probably the filthiest I have ever seen a restaurant before. There was a total of three tables in the establishment that didn’t have hours old dirty dishes on it. The stench upon entering was unbearable.
2. I chose not to eat there. If management/​employees can not keep the dining area tidy. Who knows the filth that lurks in the kitchen. New management is in order to pull this location out of the hole.

I usually love Noodles & Co., a nice break from the usual fast food or lunch places… but this location was very underwhelming and frankly frustrating.
I ordered the penne rosa with grilled chicken. I have food allergies, so I asked for it with regular marinara sauce instead of the cream based sauce and no cheese (every other N&CO does it for me just fine). It was brought to me with both cream sauce and cheese, I sent it back. It then comes back AGAIN with no cream sauce but still cheese… what the heck! After the first send back I told my husband to just go ahead and eat, we had a movie time to make. He took a couple bites and said the whole thing was ice cold. Yes, he waited like 3 minutes to eat it but it wouldn’t get that cold that fast. He wouldn’t finish it. That was sent back too. WE FINALLY get our food correct… and it’s all freezing… so over it. We just ate it because we were starving.
Needs better communication between the front and back of the house for sure… I love the falls church and merrifield locations, I’ll stick to them.

Pretty decent noodle place, but they sometimes skimp on the noodle portions. We have eaten here several times and typically order the same things — I’ll generally get the Japanese pan fried noodles. I do love the taste to the noodles and I really like that the food is quite healthy, but for the price, sometimes they aren’t quite generous with the portion. I will likely continue to come here anyway, as it’s convenient and satisfies my noodle cravings. I also like that they have a ton of options to choose from, both in the Asian noodle realm and the Italian noodle realm. I’ve heard great things about their mac n cheese as well.

It’s lunch hour again, and we’ve found ourselves in the Ballston mall. The first place we see is Noodles & Company, and I think hey, you can’t go wrong with noodles!
I check the menu and see my all time favorites noodles – cavattapi – those twisted noodles that you find in Disneyland’s Pizza Port! So, I go and order the Pesto Cavattapi with parmasean crusted chicken. The final price was a bit shocking; I didn’t think adding meat would be that much of a difference. It was $ 8.93 in the end. I also didn’t get a receipt with my order, so I had no clue whether they got my name correctly/​when the food would be ready.
For some reason, my order took longer than my friend’s order, and she as well as the family behind us all got their orders before mine. For someone in a rush, this was not boding well. Hopefully, the taste would make up for the wait & these nearly $ 9 noodles…
The paremesean crusted chicken was not so «crusted». The crust was a super thin layer on only ONE side of the chicken. Taste wise, it was okay. Nothing really jumped out at me, but nonetheless, the food is fresh.
It’s a decent noodle place for your noodle fix, but don’t expect some WOW factor here.

Noodles and Co. is a good lunch place but it is one of those places that is deceivingly cheap. The pasta dishes are fairly cheap but in the end after you add chicken, a drink, etc, you’ll be looking at a $ 12 meal.
The food is decent and fresh. If you order a large bowl you will certainly have leftovers.
I really like the Asian dishes they serve and haven’t really ventured out from there.
I do like that they bring your food to you and clear the table for you if you eat in. They appeal to my lazy side.
However, I only bestow 3 stars to Noodles because nothing really stands out to me and it is usually one of the last places that is brought up when going out to lunch with co-​workers. It is a safe bet for a decent lunch but don’t expect anything more.