It’s still listed as coming soon on the corporate website.
But drive by 14080 S. Tamiami Trail in Fort Myers, and you’ll see a full parking lot and customers lined up waiting to get a taste of what they’ve been missing.
Sweet Tomatoes oh-so-quietly opened on Monday, May 18, in its previous space between Volkswagen of Fort Myers and Lexus of Fort Myers.
“We are so thrilled to be returning to a community that has welcomed us back with open arms,” Marlee Lossing, Sweet Tomatoes’ director of corporate affairs, said via email.
But remember, this beloved salad buffet restaurant is currently in a soft-opening and training phase.
“During our soft open, we do not have official hours and we have limited capacity,” Lossing wrote. “This means that every day, our hours may vary based on our crew’s abilities, and we are not filling the restaurant to capacity, as our crew is still in training.”
When will Sweet Tomatoes officially open?
An official grand opening date will be announced within the next week, according to Lossing. Sweet Tomatoes will be closed on Sundays until the grand opening.
Once it does fully reopen, you can expect it to be pretty much the same as it always was (except now it’s cashless) with an all-you-can-eat buffet featuring an extensive salad bar, scratch-made soups, pasta and potato bar, breads and, of course, the soft-serve ice cream.
Sweet Tomatoes thrived after first opening here in 1997.
But when the pandemic hit in 2020, all 97 Sweet Tomatoes locations closed nationwide (including the Fort Myers one and another in Naples) and the chain filed for bankruptcy protection.
But it’s now under new ownership and making a comeback.
In April 2024, its first U.S. location reopened in Tucson, Arizona. Customer favorite dishes, including Joan’s Broccoli Madness and the Caesar asiago salad, returned, as did the classic mac & cheese, cheesy garlic focaccia, big chunk chicken noodle soup, deep kettle house chili and much more.
The Fort Myers location is the second to return. No other reopenings have been announced, so there’s no word on a possible Naples return. A Sweet Tomatoes had opened at 10940 Tamiami Trail, farther down U.S. 41 from the Fort Myers spot, in the spring of 2010.
“We always look into markets where Sweet Tomatoes performed well in the past,” Lossing wrote. “Whenever possible, it is especially beneficial for us to find former Sweet Tomatoes locations that have not been converted into another use since the initial closure in 2020. The Fort Myers location checked all the boxes for us.”
Originally established as Garden Fresh restaurant in San Diego in the mid-1970s, the company grew throughout California in the 1980s.
Palm Harbor was the first Florida city to get a location in 1990. There were 23 Sweet Tomatoes in the state in 2020.
Go to sweettomatoes.com or follow on Facebook and Instagram for the latest.
Robyn George is a food and dining reporter for The News-Press. Connect at rhgeorge@fortmyer.gannett.com
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This article originally appeared on Fort Myers News-Press: Sweet Tomatoes quietly reopens in Fort Myers, Florida
Reporting by Robyn George, Fort Myers News-Press & Naples Daily News / Fort Myers News-Press
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