Zoës Kitchen , a 22-store fast casual chain out of Birmingham opens today in Oberlin Court. The restaurant’s menu (.pdf) features “Mediterranean – Southern Style”, with a mix of dinner entrees, sandwiches, wraps, salads, and more.

The restaurant’s space is open, with two sides wrapped by large, south and west-facing windows. So, the restaurant will get a generous dose of sunlight every day. The interior features a hard gray floor with red and yellow coloring on the walls and ceiling. One might expect noise to be an issue, however in a mostly full room, it didn’t seem any noisier than Moe’s at North Hills. The funkiest aspect of the decor is the artwork by local children. The restaurant is supplying local elementary school students with art supplies, and posting their work around the restaurant. Each piece can be purchased for $20, with the proceeds going to the artist’s school. They plan to cycle the collection every quarter, freshening the decor.

I settled on the chicken kabobs for lunch, and they did not disappoint. The pair of kabobs included onions, green peppers, and tomatoes, which is especially rare in a casual restaurant. The chicken was good quality, and the marinade, while a bit heavy on the oregano, was nevertheless excellent. The platter was generously heaped with rice, grilled pita, and a side Greek salad. The rice and pita were fine, but the salad really was the star here. The vinaigrette salad dressing was delicious, especially with bites containing feta cheese.

While a better kabob dinner does exist in Raleigh, Zoës offers an extremely good, large plate of food at the $9 price point. As with the addition of Noodles & Co. to the area, it is refreshing to find good food requiring a fork that doesn’t cost $15. It is entirely reasonable to imagine a family of 4 sitting down and having a good, non-greasy meal here below the ever-vanishing $30 price point.

An interesting offering from Zoës is the menu’s Dinners For Four section. Aimed at the To-Go crowd, the four hot dinners offered can be ordered ahead and picked up at around the $25 price point. They also offer some of their salads and hummus in pound and half-pound tubs, as well as a full catering menu.

The restaurant’s hours, if I recall correctly, are 10am-9pm, 7 days a week. They are located in Oberlin Court, the mixed-use development on Oberlin Road near Wade Avenue.

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