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This archived review dates from 2007 or before. Use SEARCH above to find all recent reviews.
A prime location and a striking new glass-and-tile fast-food building generated instant buzz for Baja Fresh, resulting in large crowds lining up from its first day of business in March 16. Count on a crowd if you come around midday, and you might consider prospecting for street parking. Baja Fresh is a corporate offspring of the Wendy's International chain. The Louisville franchisee is BlueBridge LLC, a partnership of Louisville investment firm Cobalt Ventures and Bridgeman Foods International, the company of Wendy's franchisee (and one-time U of L basketball star) Junior Bridgeman. There's plenty to like about the menu: I find it more extensive than national competitors Qdoba and Moe's - you can get Baja-style tacos, for instance, and a fair selection of "lifestyle" choices including "lighter, low-fat" items and several selections billed as "high protein" that appear to be Atkins-type low-carb dishes, although the menu avoids using those specific terms. Inside it's bright and hard-edged, black-and-white tile with a circular central serving area and lots of white tables and black chairs. You place your order at the counter, fast-food-style, and wait for your name to be called, not always an easy thing as happy crowds plus mainstream Latino background music make this place noisy. Don't count on gourmet-style nirvana, either. The dishes we tried were passable but not particularly inspiring. A two-taco combo plate ($5.99) featured a Baja-style fish taco and a shrimp taco, both fashioned on doubled soft corn tortillas. They resemble the local Bazo's Baja-style tacos in general design but seemed stingier - just one small piece of breaded white fish on the fish taco and a few pieces of chopped boiled shrimp on the other. The fish taco was dressed with a mild pinkish sauce and a small amount of shredded raw cabbage. The shrimp model had chopped onion and a good slather of a hot, smoky chipotle sauce that was strong enough to dominate the shrimp flavor. Pinto beans (you may also choose black beans) and mild converted rice with just a faint touch of tomato were OK. A dish from the "Lifestyle Choices/High Protein" menu called "Side-by-side" ($5.25) had no obvious carbs. It was a salad-like dish served on a three-section black plastic plate with separate piles of crisp romaine lettuce, dry and flavorless cubes of grilled chicken, several avocado slices, a surprisingly large mound of very mild shredded white cheese, pico de gallo made with pale out-of-season tomatoes, and a plastic tub of glistening green "salsa verde" evidently intended as a dressing. A single, stingy portion of tortilla chips (maybe eight to 10 of them) came on the same tray with both our meals - it's not clear which meal they were intended to accompany. A salsa bar offers condiments in several colors and degrees of heat, from mild pale green to smoky chipotle to fiery red-orange, plus fresh chopped cilantro and your pick of whole and chopped chile peppers. Baja Fresh, mirroring similar assertions by its national competitors, boasts that everything is made fresh from fresh ingredients, and I saw no reason to doubt this. It's OK. But to be honest, if I want excellent fish tacos, I'll be more likely to go to Bazo's for a better rendition of this San Diego treat. And if I'm nursing a serious fast-food Mexican crave, I'll probably walk two or three doors up Bardstown to La Bamba ("Burritos Bigger than Your Head") for an authentic torta and big glass of horchata. $ (March 2003) ACCESSIBILITY: The facilities are accessible to wheelchair users, but the single handicapped-only parking space in the undersize parking lot has been frequently blocked by violators, and management declines to get involved in enforcement.
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