Orange County Souplantations Permanently Close Due To Coronavirus
ORANGE COUNTY, CA —Souplantation buffet style restaurants was a gathering spot for many, a place where even the pickiest of eaters could find something to put on their plate. After the global pandemic of coronavirus arrived, buffet-style dining could be a thing of the past, at least, according to the California chain restaurant.
Souplantation, which billed itself as serving "health conscious American eats with from scratch soups, salads, pastas and more, permanently closed all locations due to the coronavirus pandemic, they announced Thursday. The company has 97 restaurants, including 44 in California. The company closure means 4,400 employees will lose their jobs, the San Diego Union-Tribune reported.
In Orange County, the Brea, Fountain Valley, Fullerton, Garden Grove, Irvine, Laguna Niguel, Lake Forest and, Tustin locations will join the ranks of businesses who have fallen victim to the spread of COVID-19, according to the report.
San Diego-based Garden Fresh Restaurants, the parent company of Souplantation and Sweet Tomatoes, first closed the eateries in mid-March due to coronavirus concerns.
At the time, the shutdowns were announced as temporary closures.
"The FDA had previously put out recommendations that included discontinuing self-serve stations, like self-serve beverages in fast food, but they specifically talked about salad bars and buffets," Garden Fresh CEO John Haywood told the U-T. "The regulations are understandable, but unfortunately, it makes it very difficult to reopen. And I'm not sure the health departments are ever going to allow it.
"We could've overcome any other obstacle, and we've worked for eight weeks to overcome these intermittent financial challenges but it doesn't work if we are not allowed to continue our model."
Souplantation grew out of a single location that opened in 1978 in San Diego. But the self-serve model of the chain resulted in steep losses in business as the coronavirus crisis rapidly worsened in February and March, according to Robert Allbritton, chairman of Washington, D.C.-based Perpetual Capital Partners, a private investment firm that bought the company following a 2016 bankruptcy filing.
"We spent two years researching and trying to improve things and actually got the business turned around," Allbritton told the U-T. "We were growing the number of guests and were in the process of renovating the restaurants with new fixtures, carpeting (and) signage as late as January. We felt great about it. But I've got to tell you, when the virus hit, 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."
City News Service and Patch editor Kristina Houck contributed to this report.
This article originally appeared on the Los Alamitos-Seal Beach Patch
