Souplantation and Sweet Tomatoes close permanently (2020)
Garden Fresh Restaurant Corp, which ran Souplantation and Sweet Tomatoes, filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy in May 2020 as the pandemic shut dining rooms. The company permanently closed all 97 locations rather than reorganize.
Hundreds of employees lost jobs; locations across California and Arizona were auctioned off.
The chain never returned; the case showed how a popular regional brand can vanish entirely in liquidation.
Like Opa!, Garden Fresh filed Chapter 7 — liquidation, not reorganization — so the whole footprint disappeared rather than emerging smaller. Both leave local diners without a place that once felt permanent.
