Famed all-you-can-eat buffet chain makes California comeback

Souplantation is ready for seconds.

The adored all-you-can-eat-soup-and-salad chain, which abruptly vanished from California during the pandemic, is plotting a Golden State comeback — six years after leaving legions of fans mourning its bottomless bowls and mountains of salad.

But Souplantation may find somebody sitting in its old seat when it gets back.

In the years since the chain went belly-up during the pandemic, a remarkably similar spot called Soup ‘n Fresh has moved into former Souplantation locations in Southern California — and business is booming so much that diners will wait up to two hours to get inside.

Even more bruising for the returning buffet behemoth: Some customers insist the knockoff is actually better than the original.

“It’s SO good….my mom and I went and waited in line for a little over an hour and a half. WORTH IT!” one redditor wrote.

Souplantation’s return was first teased Oct. 5 when sister brand Sweet Tomatoes dropped a sunny social media video and a “Welcome to California” sign, along with a coy caption: “Stay tuned…”

The company has since confirmed to Eater LA that Souplantation will officially return to California in 2027, with its first restaurant slated for Fountain Valley in Orange County.

“We are thrilled to be coming back to California, where the love and demand for Souplantation has never faded,” a representative for Sweet Tomatoes told Eater. “We can’t wait to welcome back so many familiar faces and create new memories with our guests when we reopen in 2027.”

The homecoming marks an unexpected second act for a chain many though was dead for good.

Founded in San Diego in 1978, the sprawling soup and salad empire grew into an important suburban destination with 97 national outposts and operating as Sweet Tomatoes outside of California. But when Covid-19 hit in 2020, buffet dining seemingly vanished overnight. The company had already been through Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2016 and was acquired by private investment firm Perpetual Capital Partners.

After Covid, “we went from 100 percent to 70 to 30 to 10 percent that fast, before the restaurants closed down and the company ran out of money in one week,” Perpetual Capital Partners chairman Robert Allbritton told the San Diego Union-Tribune in 2020.

But with Souplantation not slated to ladle out its first bowls until next year, Soup ‘n Fresh has plenty of time to dig its trenches.

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