BarSteak owner to bring new drive-thru salad and liquor concept to downtown Pensacola

Restaurateur Johnny Mascia just debuted his Palafox Street steakhouse, BarSteak, last month and is getting ready to launch his second concept, Salad N’ Dash, in downtown Pensacola this December.

The drive-thru restaurant repurposes a former Wells Fargo Bank to bring a fast-service, healthy option to the downtown Pensacola dining scene at 10 S. Jefferson St.

As you can probably guess, the restaurant will be centered around gourmet salads with lettuce grown from local Palafox Market vendor Lettuce Heads.

“We get fresh lettuce from the ground weekly, handled by two people – the farmer and the chef. It doesn’t travel more than 5 to 10 miles,” Mascia said. “That’s what I think is special.”

The salads will be packed with options, include house dressings and a variety of premiere proteins, including steak, salmon, tuna, chicken and tofu.

They will offer top quality salads that only require about 60 to 90 seconds to prep, according to Mascia.

They are also offering a variety of health food complements, such as kombucha beverages and a bone broth program.

However, they will also offer a variety of canned cocktails, wine and beer.

There will be some familiar dishes from the BarSteak menu, including the Southern Style Caesar, made with chopped romaine and kale, gorgonzola crumbles, roasted corn, praline pecans, cornbread croutons and watermelon radish tossed in Caesar dressing. Another being the Redolent Salad, made with chopped kale, fresh blueberries, dried cranberries, heirloom tomatoes, toasted almonds and heirloom carrots tossed with blood orange vinaigrette.

However, there will be plenty of surprises including the Asian tuna salad, Greek salad, power bowl, chicken Cobb and a Southwest fajita, which are still being developed.

Mascia said he hopes the restaurant will bring something new to the downtown area and that he has more concepts on the way.

“We want to drive traffic down there. We want to make Palafox Street the destination where everybody needs to come, whether you live here or you’re visiting. I think we’re going to bring compelling concepts to downtown to complement the already fantastic concepts that are downtown,” Mascia said.

This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: Salad 'N Dash coming to downtown Pensacola this December