Souplantation, Sweet Tomatoes will likely close, CEO says, citing coronavirus

Brian in Mesa

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Buffet-style in trouble: Souplantation, Sweet Tomatoes will likely close, CEO says, citing coronavirus

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/05/08/buffet-style-souplantation-sweet-tomatoes-restaurants-will-likely-close-ceo-says-citing-coronavirus/

The bottomless soup and salad appears to have finally run out at the 42-year-old buffet-style restaurant chain Souplantation, known outside Southern California as Sweet Tomatoes. Its chief executive revealed Thursday that he and the chain’s owner are planning to permanently shut down all 97 locations across the country.

The toll of covid-19 is the “sole reason” for the chain’s downfall, John Haywood, CEO of the restaurants’ parent company, Garden Fresh Restaurants, told The Washington Post Thursday. After federal health authorities recommended halting buffet-style service, Haywood said he and the owner, Perpetual Capital Partners, simply did not see a viable path forward for a restaurant built entirely around that concept.

“We’ve exhausted everything,” he said. The only option left is to file for bankruptcy, he said — the “obvious outcome” of which will be that “the restaurants will not reopen."


“We spent eight weeks modeling different options, and it just doesn’t work,” Haywood said. “Part of the magic is enjoying the ability to build your own experience there. So you can think about different ways to do it, but it takes away the essence of the concept. Financially it’s just not feasible.”

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Ugh.


We frequent their restaurants in California (Souplantation) just about as often as we do here in Arizona (Sweet Tomatoes).

Great healthy options. Serve yourself.

I wonder if this is just the first domino to fall among buffet-style eateries as a result of Covid-19?

Also hearing that the FDA wants to do away with any self-serve drinking stations in restaurants and other businesses.
 

Raindog

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I am (was) a frequent patron, too. This would be a real shame. But I don't understand why they couldn't go to just having line servers like all old cafeterias used to... at least for a period of time?

Also, I hope we don't lose self serve beverages. One of the best things to come along in restaurants in recent decades.
 

puckhead

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We really liked ST's as well. Before quarantine, we would go a few times a month. Simple, fresh food. Sad news for all the employees.
 

Dback Jon

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Buffets are the last place anyone should want to eat right now.

Sad - I liked Sweet Tomatoes
 

BigRedRage

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"solely because of covid" or, razor thin margins that barely sustained.
 

BigRedRage

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Just seems like if this shuts down a major organization like that, you had much bigger problems. That place is really good but I only went when I had coupons. Pretty expensive.
 

puckhead

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Just seems like if this shuts down a major organization like that, you had much bigger problems. That place is really good but I only went when I had coupons. Pretty expensive.

Anything is possible, but I truly think the buffet style restaurant model is destroyed when dealing with a virus like this. Everyone touches the same utensils, lines up shoulder to shoulder, sit together closely, goes back for refills in the same areas and on and on. Hard to see how to adapt if that's your whole identity.
 

Dback Jon

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Anything is possible, but I truly think the buffet style restaurant model is destroyed when dealing with a virus like this. Everyone touches the same utensils, lines up shoulder to shoulder, sit together closely, goes back for refills in the same areas and on and on. Hard to see how to adapt if that's your whole identity.


Yup. Golden Trough is trying to adapt by becoming more cafeteria style - you have to be served, still all-you-can eat.


I wonder how Brazilian Steakhouses will adapt?
 

BigRedRage

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Anything is possible, but I truly think the buffet style restaurant model is destroyed when dealing with a virus like this. Everyone touches the same utensils, lines up shoulder to shoulder, sit together closely, goes back for refills in the same areas and on and on. Hard to see how to adapt if that's your whole identity.

Not ideal, that is for sure.
 

BigRedRage

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Yup. Golden Trough is trying to adapt by becoming more cafeteria style - you have to be served, still all-you-can eat.


I wonder how Brazilian Steakhouses will adapt?


Because they have servers, I would imagine not much changes. The only walk up I have seen at those places is a salad bar and they could bring it to you too.
 

AZCrazy

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Do you think that the near term effects of this tightening will become fully permanent then? If, a year from now the virus is a memory, would restaurants venture back into these waters?
Hopefully if nothing else the businesses that have been most drastically effected by this start doing a lot better job of contingency planning. Gotta have a real plan in place in case something like this happens. It will happen again. It just hasn't happened here in a hundred years but will probably happen more frequently in future due to urbanization and drug resistance.
 

puckhead

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Because they have servers, I would imagine not much changes. The only walk up I have seen at those places is a salad bar and they could bring it to you too.

Even that changes the experience for me. For example, at Sweet Tomatoes, I love building my own salad because I determine the ratio of ever little thing down to the croutons. Even when I dish up my chicken noodle soup, I go heavy on the chicken and light on the noodles. My sundae doesn't look like anyone else's either. (I put the little cones on top :) ) By the time it gets down to it, those places have lost the appeal and I'll either make something at home or go where the sit-down experience is going to be higher quality for the money instead of a cobbled-together adaptation.
 

puckhead

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Do you think that the near term effects of this tightening will become fully permanent then? If, a year from now the virus is a memory, would restaurants venture back into these waters?
Hopefully if nothing else the businesses that have been most drastically effected by this start doing a lot better job of contingency planning. Gotta have a real plan in place in case something like this happens. It will happen again. It just hasn't happened here in a hundred years but will probably happen more frequently in future due to urbanization and drug resistance.

I think those are both realistic possibilities. HIV changed our culture forever in some respects. This certainly has the potential to do so as well.

I think I heard that Wimbledon had insurance for pandemic (could be mistaken). Everyone is thinking that's genius right now, but how many just assumed that could never happen or it would never get that far?
 

BigRedRage

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I dont know of any viruses that changed how the world operates as a whole so I would expect "normal" to come back with slight variants at some point but how the rest of 2020 goes will show us where we are headed.
 
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Brian in Mesa

Brian in Mesa

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One location?
Makes sense to have a pilot store of sorts. They bought the intellectual property rights but have never had an existing restaurant of their own. Proof of concept basically. Start with one where the previous format was most popular in Arizona and go from there.
 

puckhead

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Makes sense to have a pilot store of sorts. They bought the intellectual property rights but have never had an existing restaurant of their own. Proof of concept basically. Start with one where the previous format was most popular in Arizona and go from there.

I see. I don't have an AZ Cental sub. Did they say where the location would be?
 

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