The California chain of restaurants named Souplantation, or Sweet Tomatoes if you’re not in California, has announced they’re going under. They were marginal, apparently, and then this pesky Coronavirus went and iced the very idea of a dine in buffet style salad and soup restaurant.
There is a Sweet Tomatoes around the corner from my home, and it was a fine place for a decadently overloaded salad, some delicious soups, a loaded baked potato, a great pasta bar, some fine baked goods, and a soft serve ice cream machine for afterwards, or just to keep the kids out of your hair.
It was a place I went when I craved an Asian salad with that ginger salad dressing and the crunchy noodles, or a bowl of rather good clam chowder, or a bowl of chili with three different kinds of cornbread, or we were both tired after work and just didn’t want to mess with dinner construction and cleanup.
They shut down two months ago, almost, because of the shelter in place orders. And now, it seems, I have eaten my last Sweet Tomatoes.
I feel bad about that. I started going to Souplantation when I lived in California, and then Sweet Tomatoes when I moved to the south. Never found “old” food on the buffet (unlike places like Golden Corral where ‘old-tasting’ is the rule rather than the exception).
I’m going to feel bad about this every time I remember.
They weren’t cheap, but they WERE all you could eat. And don’t get me started on Golden Corral, a place that, as far as I can tell, could have the slogan, “This food won’t go away until YOU eat it!”
Yeah, it’s nasty. My father loved GC because you could get meat, and it was cheap, but I won’t ever set foot in one (assuming they re-open at some point).
Mrs. L and I loved Sweet Tomatoes. When they closed most of their stores we were totally bummed. Later we took a trip to San Jose and were thrilled to find they were still operational. Hell to the yes! While we were there, we ate at S.T. twice. Those breads and desserts…
Their Chili Soup was a personal favorite. Toss some chopped onions and a couple splashes Tabasco into the bowl, then ladle in the soup. Add cheese on the way down the line.
Did it once upon coming to Texas. It had to be our first week here.
Has put me off buffets ever since. And I used to love ‘smorgasbord.’
Bummer about Sweet Tomatoes. I’ve never been in one, though I do remember one in a strip mall near where I shop. But what they sell—lots of salads and soups, AIUI—are how we eat normally. I just do it better than most restaurants not self-consciously artisan.
It won’t be the last set of businesses that go bankrupt because of these restrictions.
OMG! This is the first I’ve read of this. Me am bummed!
There is (or was) one about a 90 minute drive from where I live. That was my most preferred go-to place whenever I had lunch with a certain friend (who lives in the immediate vicinity of that place), or my brother, or my cousin, or various others.
How many people here remember the Fresh Choice chain, which folded about ten years ago? It was substantially identical to Sweet Tomatoes, but a much larger chain with many many more locations all over the place.
Hometown Buffet was a great place too, once upon a time. They’ve gone waaay downhill over the last several years and many of their locations have closed. This pandemic might well do them in too.
Anybody still remember Smorga Bob’s, buffet chain from way back in the 1970’s?
Awww, darnit. I love Sweet Tomatoes, they were such a welcome break from the usual run of garbagey AYCE buffets. The kind of place you can take your mom for lunch and everybody’s happy about it. Sigh.
Rats. The one near me was always crowded, even when we went at off hours for the discount, and the food was always fresh. Great clam chowder and great breads. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything there that seemed spoiled. People were putting out fresh bins all the time.
But I understand. It is going to be a long time before most people are willing to eat something someone else might have pawed through. It’s not exactly takeout friendly either.
This. Best cream of mushroom soup anywhere. I could never resist having two or three bowls. Plus the chicken noodle with the massive pieces of chicken.
I am really bummed. Now I am worried about the Mongolian barbecues…
The Souplantation I remember fondly from my time in San Diego. We went somewhat often.
I liked it enough that when I found out the were Sweet Tomatoes, we started going to Sweet Tomatoes on most of our trips to Florida. There were two in the Orlando area and 1 near my daughter’s college in Tampa.
I actually wrote to them to try an convince them to open in my area in NJ at some point years ago.
I can’t say I’m sad to see them go. Our local one closed about 3 years ago, but we’d stopped eating there long before that, because EVERY time we ate there, one or both of my wife and I would get the shits.
I really hope that buffets in general survive because we have a locally owned pan-Asian buffet that I love dearly and would miss fiercely if it didn’t come back. Likewise Korean barbecue places.
