Garden Fresh Restaurant Corp. will open its first quick-serve restaurant, Souplantation Express, Jan. 17 in Carlsbad, Calif.
The new restaurant model is designed to complement the chain's 40 Souplantation and 78 Sweet Tomatoes full-scale restaurants.
Contrary to the existing buffet-style of guests self-selecting their own meal from fresh salads, soups, pastas and baked goods, Souplantation Express customers will choose from more than 30 ingredients to customize their salad. As the customer chooses their ingredient selection, a Souplantation Express employee will build the selections into the customer's individualized, unique salad. The menu also will feature five house-made soups, macaroni & cheese, garlic asiago focaccia breads and freshly-baked chocolate chip cookies.
"We are eager to see how our guests respond to the new Express concept," said Garden Fresh CEO Michael Mack. "We'll use what we learn from this first Souplantation Express to perfect the experience here and in other markets. We plan to open four more Express restaurants within the next 12 months, as well as eight of our existing buffet-style restaurants."
The new quick-serve Express design can accommodate spaces as small as 1,500 square feet compared to the existing buffet-style Souplantation and Sweet Tomatoes model that requires more than 7,000-square-foot of restaurant space.
"The Express design enables us to extend our Souplantation and Sweet Tomatoes brands to spaces we previously couldn't accommodate due to size," said Garden Fresh vice president of business development Dan Anderson. "By launching Souplantation and Sweet Tomatoes Express restaurants, we'll be able to extend our brand of fresh, wholesome food to more people, while also fitting into our own guests' busy lifestyles."
