Sweet Tomatoes Gone For Good

Self-serve buffets and salad bars are probably gone for good. Either as a legitimate source of illness spread or as a perceived source. Places like Las Vegas may be able to figure out a way to have staffed buffets, like a lunch line, where a server puts your food choices onto a serving dish for you. But that will drive up labor costs, and who knows if they are willing to use that system.
 
We enjoyed Sweet Tomatoes.

Without buffets it will be harder and harder for vegetarians to go out to eat.

I do believe cafeteria style serving or pre-plated could work instead. I hope places will try a new model.
 
Without buffets it will be harder and harder for vegetarians to go out to eat.
So true. A big reason we liked it so much is because our daughter is vegetarian and could have a healthy and filling meal there that she actually enjoyed and my wife and I could as well.
 
Restaurants with buffets cannot continue that business model. We drove by it last week when we went to Bahama Breeze, which by the way, has done a great job of social distancing the tables...all servers were masked. Love Bahama Breeze coconut shrimp!
 


Restaurants with buffets cannot continue that business model.
Yeah, there was a story on the local news about this yesterday. With self-serve and shared utensils, it just won't work. Lots of great buffets out there struggling to figure out what to do. Sadly, Sweet Tomatoes just saw no feasible solution.
 
Yeah, there was a story on the local news about this yesterday. With self-serve and shared utensils, it just won't work. Lots of great buffets out there struggling to figure out what to do. Sadly, Sweet Tomatoes just saw no feasible solution.

If they were a mom and pop shop with their income dependent on finding a solution, one would have been found or they would have gone under trying - the small restaurant owners I know and have been patronizing through the pandemic have been trying - and if that means a completely different menu adapted for curbside pickup and travel back to where ever it will get eaten - then its a completely different menu designed for takeout. My friends who run small retail operations were doing all sorts of strange things - including personalized home delivery - to keep making their rent payments and pay a skeleton crew. When you are a large corporation and the executives have gotten decent payouts pre-bankruptcy, its easier to declare bankruptcy, close your business, and reopen with a different concept having shed your debt and gotten a fresh start. (See Gander Mountain).
 
If they were a mom and pop shop with their income dependent on finding a solution, one would have been found or they would have gone under trying
Yeah, it's probably much easier to reinvent yourself (not that it's actually easy) when you're small and independent. No bureaucracy to deal with. If you want to change something, you just change it. But when. you've got 100 locations that would need to be totally gutted and redesigned with an entirely new dining concept, it's not so simple to completely start over. That's one of the pros of small businesses. They're much more nimble and can respond to market changes quicker and more efficiently.
 


Yeah, it's probably much easier to reinvent yourself (not that it's actually easy) when you're small and independent. No bureaucracy to deal with. If you want to change something, you just change it. But when. you've got 100 locations that would need to be totally gutted and redesigned with an entirely new dining concept, it's not so simple to completely start over. That's one of the pros of small businesses. They're much more nimble and can respond to market changes quicker and more efficiently.

It is likely easier with a large business - you get economies of scale you don't have with a small business - capital is much easier to find, and you don't need to gut (not initially - you just close the buffet spaces and remodel restaurants one by one). But its far more dollars in the pockets of executives and owners (I don't know if that corporation is private or public) to declare bankruptcy and then start over. AND its far less risky in a strange way. Unless the ownership structure/executive structure is tired of the restaurant business, expect them to reincorporate under a different name with a different theme, but with a very similar concept that will work post Covid - but they won't do it for another year or so - until the restaurant industry bounces back and they don't have the reduction in volume.
 
Plexiglass shielded buffets of the point & you get food plated by staff seems to be a reasonable alternative. Very similar to the cafeterias that are popular in the southern states.

Don’t know of any cafeterias who have an all you can eat option, but wouldn’t be surprised to see it attempted once the economy rebounds.
 
The "buffet" at Wynn in Vegas reopened. It's now all you can eat table service. It appears that you order like you would take from the buffet and they bring everything to you, so one slice of pizza, 2 meatballs, some scrambled eggs, whatever.

Here's a video showing it:
 
Probably our favorite off property restaurant to visit. So sad it's gone. We didn't have any Sweet Tomatoes where we live and this was always a MUST GO when we were somewhere that had one. We went to one out in Nevada on our trip out west, too. :(
 
The "buffet" at Wynn in Vegas reopened. It's now all you can eat table service. It appears that you order like you would take from the buffet and they bring everything to you, so one slice of pizza, 2 meatballs, some scrambled eggs, whatever.

Here's a video showing it:
This makes me laugh because I can't imagine how absurd some of these orders could be.
 

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