Sweet Tomatoes, the all-you-can-eat salad bar restaurant, says it is closing for good
By Ashley Gurbal Kritzer
Tampa Bay Business Journal
Published: May 8, 2020

Sweet Tomatoes, known for its buffet of soups, salad fixings and dessert, says its self-serve business model has no place in a post Covid-19 world and that it is closing for good.

Sweet Tomatoes is owned by San Diego-based Garden Fresh Restaurants, which also operates the same concept under the Souplantation name in California. Garden Fresh plans to file for bankruptcy, reports Restaurant Business Online.

Most federal regulations regarding reopening recommend against self-serve items for the foreseeable future.

Garden Fresh had 97 locations and 4,400 employees across the country. Forty four of those locations were in California.

The company had emerged from another round of bankruptcy filings in 2017 and — before the novel coronavirus pandemic hit — was planning to pursue new locations for the first time in seven years.

Sweet Tomatoes had more than a dozen Florida locations, between Tampa, Orlando, South Florida and Sarasota. There were three locations in Tampa, including one near Midtown Tampa, as well as stores in Palm Harbor and Largo. Locations were also clustered in Atlanta and Houston.

Garden Fresh CEO John Haywood told Restaurant Business Online that the company was burning $1 million in cash each week, and that the pickup and delivery business models many restaurants have pursued since the pandemic took hold doesn't work for the company's business model.

“The magic of our concept is people being able to customize and control their own experience,” Haywood told Restaurant Business Online. “To convert it into basically a table-service restaurant doesn’t work. Even if we serve people behind the buffet, it doesn’t work. People congregate. You’re serving them.

“We didn’t see a viable way with the regulations to reopen."