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Salad bar-style buffet chains have been hit hard financially following the Covid-19 pandemic.
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Salad buffet restaurant chain Super Salad is down from about 150 locations to just three.
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Previously dormant Sweet Tomatoes plans to open two locations after going out of business during the Covid-19 pandemic.
The rise of salad bar restaurant chains in the 1980s accelerated in the 1990s and early 2000s, as the restaurant concept became popular.
The salad bar buffet restaurant chain Sweet Tomatoes and its sister Souplantation, which was founded in San Diego, and Dallas-based Souper Salad both started in 1978. Another popular chain, Fresh Choice started in California in 1986.
I remember the start of the salad craze in the early 1980s when I dined at The Salad Bar, a casual restaurant near Sacramento’s K Street Mall in 1982.
Unfortunately, the restaurant didn’t last long, but other restaurant chains with salad bars like Sizzler’s and Wendy’s filled the void until the industry prospered.
Super Salad expanded to more than 150 locations in the early 2000s, but industry headwinds and a slump in consumer confidence led to a 2011 bankruptcy filing and continued restaurant closings, according to Nationwide Restaurant News.
The restaurant chain today has three locations in Lubbock, Pasadena and El Paso, Texas.
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6703 Slide Road, Lubbock, Texas
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5822 Fairmont Parkway, Pasadena, Texas
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8900 Viscount Blvd., El Paso, Texas Source
Fresh Choice filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy on July 24, 2012 and closed its 20 remaining locations in December 2012, according to PacerMonitor.
The owner of Sweet Tomatoes and Souplantation filed for Chapter 11 in 2016, and then four years later, the buffet restaurant chain filed for Chapter 7 liquidation and permanently closed 97 of its locations, after the Covid-19 pandemic forced closures, according to Nation’s Restaurant News.
Sweet Tomatoes announced a return in 2025, with new owners ST Three LLC saying they will open locations in Tucson, Ariz., and Fort Myers, Fla. will open new locations in, Gulfshore Business reported.
The Covid-19 pandemic devastated the salad bar/buffet dining concept in 2020, as buffet-style restaurants closed across the country as the pandemic forced stricter health requirements on restaurants and consumers became fearful of the idea of eating at such establishments.
After Fresh Choice disappeared in 2012, another salad restaurant concept launched in 2013 in Gilbert, Ariz. — the Salad & Go’s fast-food drive-thru chain that grew to more than 140 restaurant locations by May 2025.
