New salad bar The Green Fork opens in Long Beach
The Green Fork is a new fast-casual salad bar in Long Beach. Credit: Newsday/Andi Berlin
The Green Fork, which was one of the first make-your-own salad bars to open on Long Island, has kept it small, with just one store for the past four years. But now this pioneer in the fast-casual salad space has expanded to the beachside community of Long Beach.
The store, owned by Kristy Furci, popped up in a small storefront on Park Avenue last month. The airy space offers a similar selection of avocado toasts, salads and grain bowls with quinoa or wild rice as her original shop in Babylon. Furci, who founded the concept with her sister Maxine Sterlacci in 2020, said the new site was a natural next step.
“I think Long Beach is a super health-oriented community. There are so many gyms, there's that health store Bob's [Natural Foods] that everybody raves about. They're active, they're walking,” she said.
The space, which used to be Philly Pretzel Factory, had a constant stream of customers on a recent weekday evening, but got salad orders out in about five minutes. With only a few barstools to sit on, many customers get their food to go.
The store boasts a wide selection of fresh produce from local farms, which you're encouraged to order in one of its signature “green bowl” combinations that range from $13 to $16.50. While the price may be a dollar or two more than some other salad chains, the salads pack so many ingredients into the small bowl that it is actually difficult to mix them.
The Mediterranean bowl ($14) is a highlight, surprisingly fresh and tasty for a fast-food joint, and packed with plump Kalamata olives, feta cheese and freshly fried nuggets of falafel. A simple but tasty olive oil and oregano dressing pulls all the elements together. The ginger miso salad ($15.50) also has a better-than-average Asian dressing that makes the raw spinach sing.
The Green Fork, 134 E. Park Ave., Long Beach, 516-208-5745, thegreenfork.com. Open 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Saturday, closed Sunday. Hours subject to change.
Andi Berlin is from Arizona and does not know where she is going. But when she gets there, she’ll find something beautiful and delicious that the world needs to taste.