Three in a Row

If there were an index tracking the volume of chicken salad being made from scratch in Bellevue's cul-de-sac kitchens, it should be plummeting faster than shares of a sub-prime lender. The launch of City Limits Bakery & Cafe, Eats à la Carte and One Hundred West in The Shops on the Harpeth strip mall brings an infusion of full-service, casual and take-out dining options—including plenty of ready-made chicken salad—to the burgeoning neighborhood on the road to The Loveless.

After starting out small in 2002 with a single City Limits nestled off Highway 70 in Bellevue, Terri and John Woods have made simultaneous leaps up and down the food chain. In May, they opened a second City Limits and debuted Eats à la Carte take-out market. In June they launched the full-service One Hundred West. Known collectively as Harpeth Food Co., the Woods' Highway 100 compound offers something for every meal of the day.

A single kitchen runs behind all three stores, where three separate shifts produce distinct menus and a single bakery serves them all. Early in the morning, Eats chef Traci Veno takes the kitchen, prepping the take-out food and grab-and-go meals. Later, the City Limits crew comes in to slice and prepare the deli meats and salads. Around 3 p.m., executive chef Justin Byler and chef de cuisine Jason Will—both alumni of Latitude restaurant—start churning out One Hundred West's repertoire of sturdy (if pricey) contemporary American cuisine.

If traffic at the 6-year-old City Limits on Clofton Drive is any predictor, City Limits 2.0 could become the newest magnet for moms with hungry kids and infant-carriers in tow. The soups, sandwiches and salads, including the mayonnaise-free grilled chicken salad, will be familiar to fans of the Clofton location, though the cavernous room, with gray-blue and mustard-yellow walls and a marked lack of art, is more sterile than the original spot.

In short order, we picked up our tray and tucked into comforting bowls of soup and a fluffy, lightly dressed Greek salad. Corn chowder studded with celery, potatoes and carrots had a simple flavor profile of sweet cream, which was predictable but satisfying. (In these days of soaring ethanol prices, we didn't dare to hope for fresh-off-the-cob corn, but for the record, we would have preferred it to the ubiquitous leathery niblets that lined the bowl.) The gumbo lacked spiciness, but it brimmed with okra and generous piles of shredded chicken and had a flavor that could work for a child's palate.

Looking at the turkey cheddar melt, we assumed the slices of bread were too thick to bite through. To our surprise, the fresh-baked sourdough had the soft, fluffy texture of angel food cake and gave way easily to the moist turkey. Unfortunately, the pale, flaccid strips of bacon did not match the quality of the bread.

Located just down the sidewalk from Monkey's Treehouse indoor playground, the bakery-cafe makes a convenient lunchtime default for tired toddlers and a wholesome respite from the nearby golden arches. But in our experience, there is little about the atmosphere or food that would merit a special trip to Bellevue.

While Eats, City Limits and 100 West share a common kitchen, their menus seldom overlap. Eats offers several cases with prepared foods available by the pound, including seared scallops, Parmesan-encrusted cauliflower, tomatoes stuffed with horseradish tuna salad, spaghetti with meat sauce, citrus-glazed pan-seared tilapia, barbecue chicken salad, portabella pizzas, orzo salad, twice-baked potatoes, egg salad, soy-glazed grilled pork tenderloin, macadamia-encrusted chicken breast, hamburger sliders, eggplant Parmesan and Cajun turkey with red beans and rice. Terri's sister Robin Figlio mans the counter, where she enthusiastically helps pair items for a complete meal.

One refrigerator holds a selection of brown paper bags packed with grab-and-go meals, catering to that coveted segment of customers with more money than time on their hands. On the day we visited, the $24 dinner-for-two offerings included enchiladas blanco with rice, salsa, salad and sour cream. The enchiladas layered flour tortillas with shredded chicken, green chiles, white sauce and Monterrey Jack cheese for a Tex-Mex spin on lasagna. The layers of flour tortilla were moist, akin to sheets of pasta, and the meal reheated well in the oven without drying out.

Following Figlio's suggestion, we reheated the mac-and-cheese with a drizzle of milk, which restored the tangy light-yellow cream sauce to a velvety texture.

The chicken salad blended generous chunks of white meat with mayonnaise and Dijon mustard, just enough that the sliced almonds did not get rubbery and the green apples retained a hint of crispness. With an evergreen hint of tarragon, the chicken salad will be drier and more herb-flavored than some people like. Not us. We applauded the conservative use of mayo and enjoyed the rustic texture and medley of herbs and fruits, including grape halves.

We splurged on a handful of chicken fingers ($2.40 each) in order to compare Eats' version of the kid-friendly staple to the big-brand nuggets across the parking lot. To be sure, Eats' chicken—with a light golden panko crust, textured with sweet coconut shreds—is chicken of a different feather. About the size of half a small breast, the chicken tenders rose above the deep-fried clutter of so many kids' meals and were arguably worth the hefty price tag.