I Heart Mac & Cheese

This was our first experience at an I HEART MAC & CHEESE location. Staff were very friendly and patient as they managed through some communication and workflow challenges this opening week. We ordered a couple Buffalo Mac bowls this evening, and they were quite delicious. We ordered one gluten-free and the pasta was cooked perfectly! I did however need to scrape the top 1/3 of my pasta away though as it appeared to have bread crumbs on it. Otherwise a pleasant experience!

When my mom and I went for the grand opening day we were warmly welcomed by the owners as we came in. There were a LOT of customers! The atmosphere was bright, cheerful, and casual. The concept for the restaurant is to serve up quickly prepared custom comfort dishes. It's much like Subway with a glass window counter of ingredients except that they offer custom made mac & cheese bowls and grilled cheese sandwiches. You place the order at the start of the line and then go down the bar to tell them what you'd like included. Instead of just basic wheat pasta noodles for the base, the customer has the choice of options including several grains, gluten free noodles, and even broccoli or cauliflower for those who'd have special dietary needs. At the end of the bar, they put your dish into a quick broiler oven to heat it up and melt any topping cheese. It then gets put into a perfectly on theme plastic heart shaped takeout container. The whole process was super well-organized; you can tell that they've practiced. It might have been just for the grand opening day but there were a LOT of people working behind the counter; I counted a dozen. Dining in was nice but they are well set up to offer fresh and custom prepared meals to go at close to take out speed.