Back in the early months of 2020, due to financial difficulties related to COVID-19, every Sweet Tomatoes location in the U.S. had to shut down. All 97 locations were buffet-style restaurants with 50-foot-long salad bars and separate pasta, bread, and dessert sections. Back when Covid was spreading like wildfire, very few people were going to buffets in general for fear of getting sick, but other places were able to stay open because they did some deliveries while Sweet Tomatoes relied 100% on people eating at their locations. Unfortunately, Sweet Tomatoes wasn’t able to adapt fast enough and had to close.

Now, almost 4 years later, Sweet Tomatoes is making a slow return. They couldn’t just open all of their locations immediately though, they had to find somewhere to start. Luckily for everyone in Tucson who has desperately missed the beloved salad buffet, they’ve decided to start by reopening their restaurant in Eastside Tucson, at Broadway and Wilmot. With the building that housed their Tucson location still vacant, along with it being one of their most popular locations, it was the perfect place to begin Sweet Tomatoes’ second coming. The projected plan is to reopen on February 26th after some renovations. While currently there are no plans to open any other restaurants, I have a feeling that the popularity of their first reopened location will cause them to start opening more and more of their old buffets.

At the very least, everyone in Tucson who remembers their incredible salad bar, their delicious soups, and their heavenly mac-n-cheese will definitely be flocking to the buffet on opening night. I don’t know about you, but I’m personally very excited to finally have Sweet Tomatoes back in Tucson.