I've been to the Noodle Company in Market Square a couple times for lunch this month, including last Monday. It's one of those places where you order at the register, get your own table, they give you a number and bring you the food. My experiences here have overall been fairly good though the restaurant does get packed around lunch time. But, it's downtown. What do you expect? Luckily, there was an open table for me and my companions both times I came this past month, but I recently learned that they've stopped in before and there were no open tables. On to what I like about it: The selection and combinations. And did I mention carbs,carbs, carbs. You basically pick the way you want your pasta prepared and can choose a meat, shrimp or tofu to add. The first time I had Japanese Pan Noodles with parmesan chicken- not the best flavor combination but I should have known better. Last Monday, I decided to play it a little safer and go with the Bangkok Curry with plain Chicken. This was a much better choice. My co-workers feel that the mac and cheese dishes are much better than teh asian dishes. In addition, the service has been fast, the dishes I ordered came out within 5-10 minutes.
They also have one of the new fountain drink machines where you can pretty much get any soft drink you can think of, including some flavors I haven't heard of before. Last time, I tried Diet Vanilla Coke just to try it. It frankly wasn't very good but hey, next time I can try one of the other 200 flavor combinations. So, if you are headed to Noodles & Company for lunch I would suggest that if it's busy when you come in and there's an open table, send someone in the group to take the table and order for them.