COLLEGEVILLE, Pa. - Supermarket salad bars are so ??90s. In this most recent decade, grocers are offering restaurant-quality ready-to-eat foods?"and even restaurants?"inside their stores, the Associated Press reports. For instance, Wegmans has added "The Pub at Wegmans," which serves "pub" lunches and dinners to hungry shoppers.

"We don't want you coming to the store once a month, or once a week," said Jim Berndt, Wegmans Food Markets senior vice president for prepared foods, deli and specialty cheese. "We want you coming three or four times a week."

Supermarkets have reinvented their prepared food offerings to include more upscale items, such as sushi, grilled chorizo and crusted salmon. Grocery stores have even carved out inviting dine-in spaces and have hired chefs to jazz up ready-to-eat foods.

Kroger has been remodeling salad bars to make room for prepackaged foods, such as carnitas and sushi. The Bistro at Krogers has tilapia and pork loin on the menu. Whole Foods Market stocks a wide variety of prepared foods, including chicken-fried tofu, press-to-order paninis and wheatberry quinoa Waldorf salad.

Industry analysts view ready-to-eat foods as an area of growth for many supermarket chains. Grocery stores had a 1 percent jump in sales of takeout food consumed at home for the year ending in March, according to The NPD Group.

"This is something that had been happening prior to the recession, and it has only gotten exacerbated by the recession," said Bonnie Riggs, a NPD Group restaurant industry analyst.