Sweet Tomatoes restaurants close in DFW

An email sent to members of the Sweet Tomatoes e-club says, “Unfortunately, your local Sweet Tomatoes in Fort Worth has closed.” Since this location of the soup-and-salad-bar chain is in the West 7th development, we chalked it up to the competition and rents that have spelled doom for many restaurants in the area.

But then we got a Twitter message that the Irving location had also closed. A call there went unanswered, as did a call to the location in the Arlington Highlands shopping center.

Turns out that Garden Fresh Restaurant Corp., which owns Sweet Tomatoes and Souplantation restaurants, filed for bankruptcy Monday and is closing stores nationwide, according to Nation’s Restaurant News.

“The San Diego-based company, owned by the private-equity group Sun Capital Partners Inc., reported between $1 million and $10 million in assets, and between $1 million and $10 million in liabilities,” Restaurant News reported. The company planned to close 20 to 30 underperforming locations of the chain, which is known as Souplantation in California and Sweet Tomatoes elsewhere, according to Restaurant News.

The Dallas Morning News reports that locations on Greenville Avenue and in Addison have also shut down. We have sent an email to Garden Fresh Restaurant Corp. for further info, but the Sweet Tomatoes website now lists only four Texas locations, all in the Houston area.

Sweet Tomatoes opened in October 2011 in Fort Worth, after the Arlington, Irving and Addison locations had opened.

This story was originally published October 5, 2016 at 1:49 PM with the headline "Sweet Tomatoes restaurants close in DFW."