Sweet Tomatoes Gone For Good

MIChessGuy

(Almost) Too Old for Roller Coasters
Joined
Dec 16, 2008
News reports out today state that the company that operates Souplantation/Sweet Tomatoes is closing all locations permanently. They were not really able to shift to the take-out/curbside model that the public health situation now requires.

Several times I went to the LBV location for dinner on arrival day. Feel bad for the dedicated staff there and at the newer west side location on 192, as well as all their 1000s of workers nationwide. :sad1:
 
They were not really able to shift to the take-out/curbside model that the public health situation now requires.
It wasn't that primarily. It was that they could see no way to continue to operate once restaurants reopen because their business model - self-serve buffet style - simply isn't viable anymore given the health concerns and guidance from the FDA and state health departments I suspect that we will see many buffets and salad bars go away.

We will deeply miss Sweet Tomatoes. We went there once or twice every trip. It was definitely our favorite place to eat in the Disney area.
 
As a local, this was always a place that we could tell people coming to visit to check out, that was really affordable....for a basic meal.. nothing fancy.. We had stopped suggesting this to people due to the quality of the food, and attitude of employee's and cleanliness of the restaurant was left something to be desired...


Really you could still keep buffets up and running, if they went to old school Morrison or Piccadilly ways of serving down the line... have people serving as you follow the bars.... this will add to more employees... but with less waste of food, it might or should balance out... Like carving stations or omelet stations that most buffets offer before all this started...
 


Really you could still keep buffets up and running, if they went to old school Morrison or Piccadilly ways of serving down the line... have people serving as you follow the bars.... this will add to more employees... but with less waste of food, it might or should balance out... Like carving stations or omelet stations that most buffets offer before all this started...
I'd be fine with them moving to more of a cafeteria style with someone putting together my plate for me, even if that means I'd pay $15 instead of $10 for the meal. I hope that's the way things go.

This may also affect things like the drink stations, refillable mugs, etc. I know the first thing to close around here (NJ) was the self-serve coffee, Coke Freestyle machines, and Icee machines at Wawa.
 
We loved this chain and will miss them dearly.

The buffets in Vegas are also trying to figure out the future. An option that may work is filling small plates with food items so people just grab a prepared small dish. Wicked Spoon has used this concept with great success. Sadly, salad bars may be gone forever.
 
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The buffets in Vegas are also trying to figure out the future. An option that may work is filling small plates with food items so people just grab a prepared small dish. Wicked Spoon has used this concept with great success. Sadly, salad bars may be gone foreve.
We love the buffet at Golden Nugget in Atlantic City. Great food, great selection, great price. Hopefully they will also go to some system like pre-plated food. They actually already did that for desserts like cakes and things. It might mean hiring a few more people and raising the price a few dollars but I'd be perfectly fine with that.
 


I'm heartbroken. We used to have two of these chains in St. Louis that we loved going to about once a month. The local ones for us closed about two year ago. So every time we went to Orlando, we would hit Sweet Tomatoes down there, and maybe because we didn't have it at home and hadn't been, everything just tasted even better than I remembered (loved getting to go). I've been down to Orlando three times in the last two year and made it a point to hit Sweet Tomatoes each time.

My whole family will really miss them.
 
When I was in the college program, my roommate and I ate there at least once a week. Loved the variety and back then it was really inexpensive (not sure what the pricing was like recently since we don’t have them here at home). So many nice memories of Sweet Tomatoes!
 
The CEO of OpenTable has predicted that 1 in 4 restaurants in the country won't survive the pandemic. I wonder how many places we'll lose in the Disney area. Other than Sweet Tomatoes, have you all heard of any others yet that have said they won't be back? I would think that the restaurants there are even more at risk if they depend largely on the tourist crowd because if tourism is off for months even after reopening on top of mandated lower capacity, I'm sure many won't be able to stay in business.
 
It was reported with the last few weeks that Steak & Shake will be closing a large number of their locations. I wonder if the one in Lake Buena Vista, near Disney Springs, will be among them?

Logans Roadhouse announced on April 4th that their closure would be permanent, and terminated all 18,000 of their employees.
 
After Jiko, Sweet Tomatoes was my favourite restaurant to dine in while in Orlando. I’d load up my plate with an enormous garden salad, and then get naughty with the flatbreads and frozen yogurt. This is actually one of the biggest disappointments for me and my family when it comes to dining in Orlando. It’s just so unfortunate.
 
It was reported with the last few weeks that Steak & Shake will be closing a large number of their locations. I wonder if the one in Lake Buena Vista, near Disney Springs, will be among them?

Logans Roadhouse announced on April 4th that their closure would be permanent, and terminated all 18,000 of their employees.

We rarely leave property when we stay at Universal or Disney but make an exception for Steak and Shake. We don’t have them in CT so it has always been a must do on our Fl trips. I hope it makes it through so we can grab a cheap meal with a yummy shake.
 

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