Getting Out of Breadline for Something Just Fresh
If DCist hears one more person talk about how great Breadline is, we'll scream. We'll scream a "here's where Cameron goes berserk" scream. Sure, the lunch spot on the 1700 block of Pennsylvania Avenue NW turns out what it should turn out: decent and sometimes exceptional bread. But the quality of what's inside those breads and what's served alongside them (and, some say, the bread itself) has diminished significantly -- especially since the French chain La Brioche Dorée bought out founder and James Beard Award nominee Mark Furstenburg.
And even in Furstenburgian times, getting out of Breadline without spending at least $10 on lunch -- which could have been a charred piadine with rubber-tough prosciutto and an iced tea just as easily as it could have been a wondrous sausage sandwich with a cup of killer gazpacho -- was damn near impossible. As DCist's former cooking instructor Chef Stephane might say, the place has always had a poor cost-to-quality ratio. That is, Breadline never had much bang for your buck.
And wandering the urban jungle for alternatives is how DCist came to find the Just Fresh Bakery Café and Market. Just around the corner from Breadline and up 18th Street, the South Carolina-based chain is a relatively recent entrant into the downtown lunch sweepstakes. Like places such as Chipotle, Panera, and Cosi, Just Fresh bills itself as "fast-casual" -- which basically means, as Forbes magazine put it, high-end fast food. Its D.C. restaurant is the mini-chain's very first foray out of the Carolinas, where it sports 10 establishments. And with tasty, creative sandwiches, salads, pizzas, and sides at prices way below Breadline's, Chef Stephane would agree that Just Fresh simply has an excellent cost-to-quality ratio.
A mere $5.29 will score you one of seven of Just Fresh's signature sandwiches -- including the bland-sounding, but quite nice Oven Roasted Turkey. Just Fresh swaps out your standard mayo or honey mustard for its own dill spread and tosses sliced cucumbers into the mix. The result is a turkey sandwich that has a Greek edge, sharp with fresh herbs. And indeed, at $5.99, the California Dreamer hot wrap would just be a decent roast beef sandwich but for the house's artichoke spread slathered all over the inside of the thing. It's like re-using the rich, hand-made artichoke dip -- slightly nutty and perhaps with a bit of rosemary -- from last night's dinner party as a next-day condiment. And it would certainly make Castroville, California proud.
At $4.99, the Spicy Pimento Cheese sandwich -- made with Just Fresh's very own cheese -- sounds odd, but it coats your teeth in gooey, slightly tangy goodness. For 30 cents more, you can get it grilled up in their special Grilled Cheese Sandwich. Not as good as my grandfather's expertly made grilled cheese, but a fine and interesting substitute. And the bread ain't bad, either.
All sandwiches comes with your choice of side dish. Yes, Breadline veterans accustomed to paying extra for the little accompaniments, you heard right: complementary side dish. DCist's hands-down favorite is Papa Reid's Vinegar Slaw -- a classic Carolina dish that replaces mayonnaise with vinegar and is generously dappled with caraway seeds. (And you can get the slaw stuffed in the hot Turkey in the Straw sandwich.) The Green Pea Salad was creamier than we would have liked, but the peas are fat little bulbs whose walls don't get breached with the slightest contact. And the Cucumber Dill Pasta is exactly what it sounds like -- a slightly creamy cold penne mixture with dill and diced cucumbers.
Breadline salad refugees will find many welcome options here, including the Ginger Vin ($5.99) -- a fantastic salad with feta, roasted pecans that evoke the South, roasted red peppers and a pleasantly biting ginger vinaigrette. Pay a buck more for an old-school Cobb Salad that'll make you think that Just Fresh, and not the Brown Derby, invented it. Or pick some toppings and make your own salad. What's more, the salads here are actually mixed -- not just, and this is directed squarely at you Breadline, a greens base with a scoop of something crowning it.
Although DCist admires home-grown restaurants that produce quality food in the midst of an onslaught of Quizno's and Potbelly restaurants, we won't turn away from chains that are doing it right -- and for a fair price. And Just Fresh is doing just that.
Just Fresh
919 18th Street NW
(202) 822-4960