The Duane Reade drugstore on lower Broadway is a busy place. The weekday crush, with the stock exchange just around the corner, guarantees a steady stream of customers pushing through the doors of the two-level store, which opened last year in the landmark American Surety Building.
Some are looking for Altoids or Advil, others for triple-A batteries. And still others head to the store’s Up Market food court for a chopped salad — say, romaine topped with grilled lemon-herb chicken breast, tricolor tortilla strips, cauliflower florets, blue cheese and kalamata olives.
It has come to this: chopped salad in a drugstore. It’s the final frontier for a lunchtime fad that started in the city’s fine-dining restaurants, spread to delis and cafes, and took a downward dip to fast casual restaurants like T.G.I. Friday’s, Quiznos and Arby’s. Subway recently announced that it would serve any of its six-inch subs as a chopped salad, minus the bread. In other words, New Yorkers can now get a chopped salad just about any place except a gasoline station.
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