Souplantation, Sweet Tomatoes permanently
closing all restaurants amid pandemic
KRON-TV [San Francisco, CA],
by
Alexa Mae Asperin
Original Article
Posted By: NorthernDog,
5/8/2020 3:33:03 PM
SAN FRANCISCO – San Diego-based buffet chain Souplantation has announced it will permanently close all of its restaurants amid the coronavirus pandemic, the San Diego Union-Tribune reports. Garden Fresh Restaurants, the parent company of Souplantation and sister chain Sweet Tomatoes as it is known in the Bay Area reportedly told the Union-Tribune it will shutter all 97 restaurants across the US. There are 44 locations in California, with several Sweet Tomatoes restaurants across the Bay Area. CEO John Haywood told the publication that the restaurants’ buffet-style model wouldn’t be able to survive amid the FDA’s regulations. According to the outlet
Reply 1 - Posted by:
Hank Reardon 5/8/2020 3:40:05 PM (No. 405284)
The first sentence is a lie. It is not a pandemic. It is a scamdemic.
38 people like this.
Reply 2 - Posted by:
smak90 5/8/2020 3:41:13 PM (No. 405286)
So is the end of buffets all together.
14 people like this.
Reply 3 - Posted by:
PlayItAgain 5/8/2020 3:41:28 PM (No. 405287)
to publicly announced permanent closures due to the coronavirus pandemic.
It's the panic, not the virus.
11 people like this.
Reply 4 - Posted by:
earlybird 5/8/2020 3:44:07 PM (No. 405288)
Years ago we liked Soup Plantation very much. Left them long ago. Just too risky.
5 people like this.
Reply 5 - Posted by:
jimincalif 5/8/2020 3:50:06 PM (No. 405291)
Just the beginning, business closures are going to snowball.
12 people like this.
Reply 6 - Posted by:
TJ54 5/8/2020 3:53:26 PM (No. 405292)
Hog troughs have been off my menu for decades. Not a sustainable model, especially when the food is mediocre
14 people like this.
Reply 7 - Posted by:
DVC 5/8/2020 4:18:30 PM (No. 405309)
I ate at Sweet Tomatoes here in the SE suburbs of KC area. OK cafeteria food, went there twice 10 years ago, never thought to go back.
Financially weak restaurants can't handle this stress. A friends BIL and wife run two restaurants here, we have been buying their new take out dishes, and will probably start eating there when things open up here in a few days to help them over he hump. Two locations, they shut one, pulled back staff to the other to do take out...been surviving, don't exactly know how well, but not zero income at least.
Hard times.
12 people like this.
Reply 8 - Posted by:
LC Chihuahua 5/8/2020 4:19:46 PM (No. 405311)
There is a Sweet Tomatoes where I live. Gonna miss it. I liked the place. The pandemic didn't do them in. The panic did it.
#2 raised a valid point. Is this the future of all buffets? Our incompetent corrupt tyrannical government and their lackeys caused this. All to get rid of a President they don't like. Anyone else that got hurt were just 'sacrifices'. They can all GTH.
24 people like this.
Reply 9 - Posted by:
bad-hair 5/8/2020 4:49:31 PM (No. 405329)
Chinese buffets are big in Texas. Say no more, lol.
I was always fond of the General Tso's Pangolin.
7 people like this.
Reply 10 - Posted by:
LadyHen 5/8/2020 5:00:00 PM (No. 405339)
Why not just have servers dish out the grub at serving stations? Add a few more jobs in there and maybe have to make some adjustments to how the buffet is set up but for many places it is doable.
I have no issue with buffets though we rarely go to them as I just never get my money's worth. Indian lunch buffets around here are really great and affordable though. It's amazing humans have been through countless millennia of plague, pestilence, and disease and survived and even thrived... and this glorified flu is going to do the West in. There won't be much left for Islam to conquer once the Kungflu gets done, huh?
14 people like this.
Reply 11 - Posted by:
GoodDeal 5/8/2020 5:36:15 PM (No. 405378)
The Democrats are so happy right now. Putting the smackdown on big greedy corporations and saving people from overeating and obesity.
5 people like this.
Reply 12 - Posted by:
Krause 5/8/2020 5:48:07 PM (No. 405382)
And the left claps with glee.
5 people like this.
#10 - Sounds simple enough but the added costs would be prohibitive. And patrons would no longer have the ability to dish out the exact portions they want, which I'm sure is a subtle marketing strategy.
3 people like this.
Reply 14 - Posted by:
joew9 5/8/2020 7:39:38 PM (No. 405448)
In 1984 the Rajneeshee religious cult poisoned a small town's buffet in order to sicken the towns people on election day so the Rajneeshee could sweep the local elections. They sprayed ecoli onto the food as they walked through the line. Documented in Netflix movie Wild Wild Country. Lot's of people got sick. There are some truly evil people in the world.
3 people like this.
Reply 15 - Posted by:
Moritz55 5/8/2020 7:47:00 PM (No. 405451)
My German cousin faced a similar problem several years ago when the city dug up the street in front of his restaurant to put in new streetcar tracks, then dug it up again because they did it wrong the first time. With patronage plummeting, he turned to catering — specifically with an emphasis on grilling. The new business was so successful that his brother, also a restaurant owner, closed his business and joined in. They still own the one restaurant for preparation and big events. They’ve discovered that the catering business allows them to plan exactly on how much food and how many staff they’ll need. They also can operate in a much broader area than just their downtown locations. Best of all, this allows them to schedule more family time.
4 people like this.
Reply 16 - Posted by:
jj1319 5/8/2020 8:06:21 PM (No. 405458)
If a market exists or this type of restaurant it will be filled soon enough. Regulations/shmegulations. In Ohio, the shutdown deprived a lot of people of their highly regulated booze. The laws were temporarily modified to allow 2 cocktails per order (I believe). No crime wave has sprung up that I am aware of. The issue may end up on the ballot. We'll see.
2 people like this.
Reply 17 - Posted by:
DVC 5/8/2020 8:55:44 PM (No. 405476)
Well, my wife informed me that the Sweet Tomatoes here went out of busines several years ago.
2 people like this.
Reply 18 - Posted by:
Trigger2 5/9/2020 2:54:39 AM (No. 405587)
If these restaurants are swanky, limit themselves to the elite crowd by overcharging for tiny meals, then demonrats don't care. They only care about the more businesses that close, the better. Hello Venezuela, here comes the demonrat commies to mirror your corrupt economy.
0 people like this.
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4,400 jobs permanently gone. Nearly 100 locations nationwide.