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WE MAKE FAMILY MEALS HEALTHY, AFFORDABLE & FUN

SOUPLANTATION/SWEET TOMATOES MAKES FAMILY MEALS HEALTHY, AFFORDABLE AND FUN

Restaurants offer variety of choices and meal options;

promote health and nutrition for all ages

Souplantation/Sweet Tomatoes restaurants nationwide are making healthy eating even more fun at their restaurants this month. Garden Fresh Restaurant Corp., the parent company of 119 Souplantation/Sweet Tomatoes restaurants, recognizes that healthy eating habits start at a young age and parents are the key influencers and educators cultivating their kids eating habits.

Souplantation/Sweet Tomatoes restaurants offer kids an opportunity to build their own delicious meal from a 55-foot salad bar featuring numerous vegetable options, tossed salads and deli salads and eight made-from-scratch soups, muffins, focaccia,pasta and a fruit bar. The variety of foods is sure to satisfy even the pickiest of eaters. And, parents can feel good about the variety of foods since everything the restaurants serve are madefromscratch each day, every day and the food is changed out every 20 minutes.

Parents Magazine recently acknowledged Souplantation/Sweet Tomatoes restaurants as a great place for families. The April issue of the magazine, available on newsstands and tablets March 15, lists Souplantation/Sweet Tomatoes restaurants as one of 10 Best Restaurant Chains. Over 150 chain restaurants were considered, and Souplantation/Sweet Tomatoes restaurants were chosen for the honor thanks to its variety of healthy options and convenience, all while being fun for the whole family.

While eating healthy at Souplantation/Sweet Tomatoes is fun for guests of all ages, it also offers value for parents wanting to ensure their children eat well. For under $5, a child can get the full salad bar and buffet meal, which includes choices from pre-made and create-your-own salads, soups, muffins, focaccia, fruit, pasta and soft serve ice cream.

“The healthy all-you-care-to-enjoy atmosphere is a great opportunity for parents to encourage their children to try new foods, and saves parents the time from washing, cutting and chopping their kid’s veggies,” said Joan Scharff, VP of Brand and Menu Strategy.

Eating at Souplantation/Sweet Tomatoes restaurants can also be educational for kids. The salad bar features fun facts about the food as well as nutritional and health benefits information. Kids can also go online with the help of their parents to check out the “Sprouts Only” section on the restaurants website. There they will find fun games, coloring sheets and puzzles, all of which encourage healthy eating habits. And, as a bonus to parents, coupons for kid’s meals are often available within the “Sprouts Only” page.

In addition to the kids’ meal value at Souplantation/Sweet Tomatoes restaurants, all of the Souplantation/Sweet Tomatoes locations across the country will be featuring fun menu items throughout the month of March.

Classic Menu Favorites: For the month of March Souplantation/Sweet Tomatoes restaurants will feature classic childhood favorites like Grilled Cheese Focaccia made with a delicious blend of natural cheeses and made-from-scratch Classic Creamy Tomato Soup.

Breakfast for All Ages: Some mornings there’s nothing better than having someone else cook you a warm, healthy breakfast. Souplantation/Sweet Tomatoes are relaunching Sunday breakfasts across their restaurants on March 6 with some new menu items including baked cinnamon apples; chilaquiles, which are a traditional Mexican egg casserole; roasted potatoes; and baked doughnut muffins. Breakfast prices remain under $10 for adults and under $6 for kids.

Take-Home Cookie Dough: For a limited time Souplantation/Sweet Tomatoes restaurants will also help families bring home the fun with chocolate chip and peanut butter chocolate chip cookie dough buckets available for $5.99 each. Each bucket makes about 48 cookies and the dough can be frozen, giving parents an easy way to bake sweet treats in moderation. Cookie dough buckets will be sold at Souplantation/Sweet Tomatoes restaurants throughout the month of March as supplies last.

For more information on Garden Fresh Restaurant Corp., visit www.www.sweettomatoes.com or www.www.sweettomatoes.com and check out the Souplantation/Sweet Tomatoes blog at www.blog.www.sweettomatoes.com. Guests can also become a fan of Souplantation/Sweet Tomatoes at www.facebook.com/souplantation and follow Souplantation/Sweet Tomatoes on Twitter at http://twitter.com/souplantation.

About Garden Fresh Restaurant Corp.

Celebrating over 30 years, Garden Fresh Restaurant Corp. is a leader in the restaurant industry, having established a unique and successful business model for casual dining that has grown since 1978. The company’s chain of Souplantation/Sweet Tomatoes restaurants now totals 119 salad buffet-style restaurants across the western, southern and eastern portions of the United States. Souplantation/Sweet Tomatoes offers an exceptional, healthful dining experience with a daily selection of eight made-from-scratch soups and salads and hand-crafted muffins, pizza focaccia, breads and warm desserts. By combining high-quality, farm-fresh and scratch-made foods for a fixed price, the restaurants provide guests with the freedom to create their own unique meals. Souplantation/Sweet Tomatoes are built around fresh prepared, great-tasting recipes with a salad bar full of seasonal vegetables and tossed salads prepared exhibition-style every 20 minutes. Souplantation/Sweet Tomatoes restaurants are open daily for lunch and dinner and also for a special Sunday breakfast that features a variety of delicious morning favorites in addition to regular selections. For more information about Souplantation/Sweet Tomatoes restaurants visit www.www.sweettomatoes.com or www.www.sweettomatoes.com.

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38 thoughts on “WE MAKE FAMILY MEALS HEALTHY, AFFORDABLE & FUN”

  1. I see that a Lady Lake, Florida location is “coming soon”.

    Can you give us more information about that – like “when”?

    Thanks,
    Charles

  2. The food this month is amazing. Grilled cheese and tomatoe soups make me salivate just thinking avout it. Can’t wait to stop on by

  3. When I was young, many years ago, my Mom’s cousin Beabe would bake her special recipe Honey Cake for me. Whenever we were together, at her house or ours, she had freshly baked Honey Cake. Beabe and her husband Itzak were two of my favorite people in the world. They had no children of their own and I always felt that I had a special place in their hearts. They lived on the north side of Chicago, near a branch of the Chicago River. One day when I was visiting Beabe and Itzak, Itzak was pulling weeds in his garden, when he came upon a turtle. This turtle had burrowed in the soil under some bushes. Itzak carefully lifted this turtle without waking it, and brought it to me as a gift. This was exciting, but the turtle was asleep and his head and legs were well tucked inside his closed shell. I did not know how we were going to wake the turtle, but Itzak had an idea. He went to the kitchen to get a slice of freshly baked Honey Cake and he placed it gently next to the turtle. it took a while, but the turtle finally woke up. His head came out of hi s shell followed by his legs. He nudged and sniffed the Honey Cake and slowly walked away.

  4. I want to enter the blog about my favorite childhood memory that comes back to me with the food at Sweet Tomatoes, but I can’t figure out how. Can you help me?

  5. I love your chicken soup. It reminds me of the soup my mother use to give me when I was sick. Plenty of noodles!!!!!! yum!!!!

  6. I remember for a rare treat we would get chips for a treat. Most of the time on family picnics. We would all open our peanut butter and jelly and stick the chips right in the middle. Oh I can hear that crunch! Nothing is better than a pb&j with and crispy crunch of a chip.

  7. Chicken noodle soup and grilled cheese sandwiches were and still are my favorite mom-made comfort foods. Alphabet soup was also a nice occasional substitution for the chicken noodle soup.

    I just moved home to Hawaii from Utah and we need a Sweet Tomatoes/Soup Plantation here! 🙂

  8. Growing up we didn’t have alot but every time my Mom made SOS we couldn’t wait to get to the dinner table. I remember it was hamburger in a white sauce and we would pour it on top a slice of bread, add another piece of bread and cover it with SOS. YUM

  9. My favorite childhood food combination was most certainly chocolate chip cookies and milk. I always imagined having warm fresh baked cookies and a tall glass of milk when I got home! Yum, my mouth is watering just thinking about it!!! Hope I win free passes to my absolute favorite restaurant of all time!!!

  10. When I was growing up we always seemed to have an abundance of bananas in our house, so my mom would always make banana nut bread. It was always such a treat walking into kitchen filled with the aroma of banana bread!

  11. I just LOVE LOVE LOVE Soup Plantation! I go probably once a week!! There is just no way you could make a salad for cheaper at home. I would just DIE if I ever had to move somewhere that didnt have a SP close by!

  12. My mom made soups every day for lunch. Lentels soup, chicken soup, and vegetables soup. They were all made from scratch and they were the best! Everytime I eat at your restaurant I go for the soup section because, it reminds me of home, family, and especially my mom.
    Keep up the good work!!!! 🙂

  13. I grew up on a farm. I have two favorite memories. After a one hour bus ride through the countryside, we sometimes came home to the smell of sugar cake cookies. While some baked, Mom would be rolling and cutting out another batch for the oven. Fresh from the over was always the best. My second memory is of fried chicken. In the early spring, Mom would order 100 chicks. At 6 weeks of age, though still small, they were ready to eat.. Crispy chicken and country gravy.

  14. My favorite childhood food memory is fish sticks and fried potaotes. I loved anything I could dip in a sauce so I got two good ones on that night

  15. my favorite child hood meal was macaroni and cheese. Me and me best friend would eat that everyday. I think we ate that all through jonior high and high school no joke. As an adult I must say I have fell in love with tomato soup and grilled cheese one of my favorite.

  16. We were a family of six kids, two parents, and multiple friends dragged home for dinner on any given night of the week. My mom always made pot roast with tons of good vegetables (in a dutch oven in the real oven, not a pressure cooker like I use!) on Sunday nights and at least one of my four sisters’ boyfriends would ask to stay for dinner. I could smell that roast cooking all the way from my church pew Sunday mornings.
    BUT
    MY favorite meal my mom made, only once a month or so, was “golumpkis”! This is a traditional Polish dish that seems easy to make but I’ve never mastered my mom’s recipe. My mom made her filling with ground beef, rice, and season, then wrapped it all up like a little present inside a steamed cabbage leaf. I remember how pulling the toothpicks out of the golumpkis made dinner seem like it was prepared especially for me to unwrap and enjoy! Very good home cooked memories!

  17. Spaghetti in a creamy tomato sauce with some yummy buttery garlic bread to dip in the sauce was my favorite dinner combo growing up. My mom would whip this dinner up for us in no time on Sunday nights; our favorite night of the week, growing up! The thought of this combo dinner still tantalizes my taste buds and brings back the aromas from my mom’s kitchen!

  18. When I was young my favorit thing was Kraft mac and cheese at my godmothers farm! Every time I make it for my grandkids I get a warm fuzzy memory 🙂

  19. I have several favorite memories of when I was a little girl. One of them being when I used to help my mom cook. Not only was it fun to help her cook but when she was done we got to lick the bowl at the end. One of our favorite meals was Tuna Croquettes and Cheddar Cheese Au Gratin Potatoes. Yum. I’m getting nostalgic just thinking about it. Then it ended with fresh baked chocolate chip cookies. She would bake the last tray while we were eating dinner so we could have warm cookies fresh out of the oven for dessert. I wish she was still here now to make it with me. I am passing on this tradition down to my children. Maybe you can too. : )

  20. As a kid I remember the delicious smell of lasagna and fresh french bread cooking in the kitchen. My mouth would water just waiting for it to finish cooking so I could sink my teeth in! And dessert was always warm, gooey chocolate chip cookies with ice cream. Yum!

  21. I have several favorite memories of when I was a little girl. One being when I helped my mom in the kitchen. Not only was it fun to help her cook but when she was done we got to lick the bowl. One of our favorite meals was Tuna Croquettes and Cheddar Cheese Au Gratin Potatoes. Yum. I’m getting nostalgic just thinking about it. Then it ended with fresh baked chocolate chip cookies. She would bake the last tray while we were eating dinner. We would have warm cookies fresh out of the oven for dessert. I wish she was still here now to make it with me. I am passing on this tradition down to my children. Maybe you can too. : )

  22. My Grandmother used to make a cake called “Lemon Orange Pudding Cake” and it was delicious. My favorite fun snack at home was when my mother frosted a cake and had left over frosting–she would frost graham crackers and we thought that was THE best!!

  23. Growing up, my family would often make Chinese dumplings together. It involved a TON of work, but it was always a great time to bond together — and enjoy delicious food that we made as a team!

  24. Old time favorite for me is banana pudding with nilla wafers… Mmmm…. I also love alphabet soup as a kid.

  25. My favorite Sunday meal was homemade fried chicken and homemade french fries. My Mom didn’t have enough white potatoes one day, so she substituted sweet potatoes, and I have been eating them ever since—this was in the 50’s. Her dessert was cinnamon coffee cake from a recipe in her Sunbeam Mixer book that she got for her wedding in 1940. We still make it today and have passed the recipe out to a lot of people—I now add chocolate chips!!! Yum!!

  26. I can remember having chicken noodle soup with a tuna sandwich on white toast.
    The tuna only had mayonaise and had to be cut into four triangular pieces. It was
    my favorite.

  27. Wow, so many memories flood my mind; it’s funny how food and good
    times often go hand in hand. I think making homemade Icecream was always special because it took awhile and we all hung around to wait until it was ready. I also remember picking blackberries, as my dad drove us around in the back of his old pickup. Another fond memory was my mom singing, “mom’s little baby loves shortening bread,” as we made strawberry shortcake together.

  28. My favorite, like so many others, was chocolate chip cookies and milk. My mom also sometimes made those sticky things with rice crispies and marshmellow goo. Loved those too!

  29. I’m from Louisiana and we eat crazy things together. My favorite childhood memory would be on winter mornings my mom would make hot chocolate in a pot on the stove with the liquid syrup, then she would let me make my own toast (not in toaster) but under the broiler on the stove. I would make sure to put my butter right in the center and watch it melt under the high heat…tearing that warm bread and dunking it into my hot chocolate was the best! I would always save the buttery center for last!

  30. Every birthday my mom would make a made from scratch birthday pie…. I’ve always liked pie better than cake. I can remember a huge piece of pie piled high with fresh whipped cream… yum – I always licked the plate clean.

  31. I remember coming home from school every day and finding a freshly-baked pie or cake that Mother had made. I had something to look forward to all day at school. My favorite was the warm chocolate pie with LOTS of meringue standing up in a big curl on top of the pie. Of course the pie crust was home-made. Mother always put the pie under the broiler for a few seconds to brown the meringue. I wish I had a piece of her chocolate pie right now!

  32. I grew up in a large family with nine kids. At Christmas we would bake cookies and decorate them with sugar. Yumm, Yumm fresh hot cookies.

  33. My favorite childhood memory of delicious food combinations would have to be beans and cornbread. My mom and dad grew up in a small town in Texas and she called it “farm food”. It’s a hearty and inexpensive meal that each person can customize. My mom would soak beans in this funky orange pot overnight and the next day after work cook them up with onions and garlic. She baked delicious cornbread and then we would all take our plates and butter it up, put beans on it, and add anything else we wanted. I always put grated cheese, fresh tomatoes, chopped onions, and salsa on mine. My dad loved beets with his beans and cornbread… my sister and I always thought he was so weird! We would all end up drinking big glasses of milk with dinner on beans and cornbread night… what a great meal! What fun memories also!

  34. We didn’t have much money going up so we ate lots of pancakes. Sometimes my mom would make ‘homemade pancake syrup’ with sugar and maple flavoring extract or most times with just butter and sugar sprinkled on top. Even today I’ll eat my pancakes- one with syrup and one with butter and granulated sugar sprinkled on top.

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