Despite a salad-heavy menu that incorporates lots of frilly fresh lettuces and other seasonal organics, don’t assume Tender Greens is for rabbits. The new eco-friendly eatery in Point Loma’s Liberty Station applies a homey spin to food that will leave both carnivores and vegetarians planning their return.

From grilled, humanely raised meats and line-caught fish to mashed potatoes, sandwiches and salads, customers tote their plated meals on metal cookie trays from a fast-moving assembly counter to wooden tables made from a broken-down barn in Colorado. While moseying towards the cash register, you’ll gaze upon an aromatic mesquite grill flanked by roasted and raw veggies as well as nuts, breads and squeeze bottles filled with homemade salad dressings – at which point your appetite becomes snagged.

To call the operation “green” is an understatement. The eatery is powered by solar energy. Napkins are recycled. Takeout containers are biodegradable. Staff uniforms are spun from organic cotton. And the kitchen uses environmentally friendly detergents and cleaners. Planet Earth never looked so happy.

Tender Greens is co-owned by grade school buddies Pete Balistreri and Ryan Brandenburg, both of Point Loma. The men were brought on board as investors by one of the restaurant’s founders who operates the original (and only other) Tender Greens in Culver City. Here, the guys plunked down nearly $1 million to create a clean, airy and modern interior design complimented by shockingly high ceilings. Each location shares a set-in-stone menu, although creative latitude is given for adding seasonal specials.

The menu is less imaginative than it is tastefully wholesome, with perhaps the exception of desserts, which are made by Brandenburg’s mom. I’ll restrain from carrying on at length about her ultra-buttery, biscuit-crowned peach cobbler that we practically fainted over – only because it’s coming off the menu this week to make way for other possible cobblers using autumn pears and apples. However, things like lemon cupcakes, “carrot top” frosted cake and Aztec brownies hiding whispers of cayenne pepper are among the mainstays, and they too, are quite exceptional.

“Simple salads” and “big salads” take you for a romp through the lettuce patch, the greens hailing from the highly touted Scarborough Farms in Oxnard. Yes, they must travel a little ways to San Diego, but whether you’re biting into leafy red lettuce, butter lettuce, arugula, romaine, etc., you’ll swear they were plucked from the soil just minutes ago.

The big salads pull in everything from flank steak, chicken, roasted nuts, pea sprouts, capers, olives, shaved Parmesan, you name it. For $10 a pop, the possibilities are vast and the servings are substantial. And you’ll encounter bright flavors in the dressings, our favorites being creamy tarragon and a pleasingly tame balsamic vinaigrette.

Especially unique is the “Happy Vegan” salad featuring a scoop each of basil-green hummus, minty tabbouleh, a wildcard “market salad” (small pasta beads with bits of zucchini the day of our visit) and nutty-tasting farro wheat mixed with dried cranberries. My vegetarian companion declared the salad highly appeasing, and so did I, although he wished the eatery would better accommodate his kind by including a few ounces of cheese as added protein into some of the other non-meat salads and sandwiches, since there really aren’t many curds to be found here, except for shaved Parm in the grilled veggie salad.

From the “hot stuff” category, grilled meats, fish or veggies are offered in plate form with a choice of mashed potatoes or small salad, or on a sandwich using excellent ciabatta bread from Point Loma’s Con Pane Rustic Breads.

On that, I opted for Angus flank steak cut into even strips. The meat was a tad chewy, but it boasted the hearty flavor of good roast beef. As a plate meal, I also ordered “rocky junior” chicken. These free-range birds are raised in Northern California on soft beds of rice hulls, meaning that their polite upbringing becomes evident in the form of old-fashion flavor and clearer juices. The dish included julienne cuts of breast and thigh meat, along with back-to-basics Yukon Gold mashed potatoes folding in cream and butter.

The grill also takes on herb-brushed albacore from local waters and in-season vegetables from Temecula. While in line, we saw beautifully charred fennel and corn stacked up behind the glass, although for some reason they never made it into any of the dishes we tried – not even the veggie sandwich my companion ordered. Sigh.

Two different “comfort soups” are also available. We skipped the rustic chicken soup with lemon thyme, saving it for cooler weather, in lieu of roasted Roma tomato bread soup with basil oil. My companion loved it, while I felt it tasted too similar to spaghetti sauce.

The drink list includes crafted ales and a small but decent selection of wines, where you’ll find labels from Spain, Paso Robles, Sonoma and Temecula.

Tender Greens is affordable in today’s economy. Nothing is priced over $10. And what you put into your stomach is pure and organic, yet lively enough to rise above the stereotype of “boring health food.”