Souplantation, the all-you-can-eat salad-and-soup buffet that closed every one of its locations in May 2020, is coming home. According to the Los Angeles Times, the chain will reopen in Fountain Valley in 2027, filling a former Souplantation site at 11179 Talbert Ave. that will span roughly 7,800 square feet. Marlee Lossing, Sweet Tomatoes' director of corporate affairs, told The Times the company has been working on a revival since the chain's acquisition in 2020, saying, "We want to get it right, so we move a little slower but very deliberately." The Orange County Register reports the return comes nearly 6½ years after the abrupt closure.

The brand never fully vanished. According to the Los Angeles Times, ST Three LLC — headed by Mike Malone, Garden Fresh Restaurants' former vice president of operations — acquired the brands after the parent company's liquidation, and Sweet Tomatoes returned in 2024 with outposts in Arizona and then Florida; the Orange County Register identifies the Arizona location as Tucson and the Florida one as Fort Myers. The Orange County Register also notes that fans filled the vacuum themselves, with the Souplantation-inspired Soup n' Fresh opening in Rancho Cucamonga in 2024 and proving popular enough to add a second location in Chino Hills.

The nostalgia pitch is explicit. The Los Angeles Times reports Lossing confirmed the restaurant will resume its monthly specials and that all recipes — Wonton Happiness Salad, Joan's Broccoli Madness, Big Chunk Chicken Noodle Soup, the macaroni and cheese, and the popular blueberry muffins — "will all taste exactly as die-hard fans remember them." The Orange County Register quotes her email saying the space gets "a slight facelift inside with updated decor, but the heart of the space remains the same. We are the exact same concept, and the best part is, all the recipes are the same." The Register's menu list also includes Caesar Asiago, Tuna Tarragon and Wildly Blueberry Muffins.

Fountain Valley may be only the beginning. The Los Angeles Times reports that while the Orange County site is the only one announced, the company is considering California and all other markets for expansion, and Lossing told the paper this could be the first of multiple new or returning Souplantation locations. No exact 2027 opening date has been given, but the stakes are high for a brand whose 1978 San Diego debut — as the Los Angeles Times recounts — grew into a Southern California staple, and whose reception was once summed up by L.A. Times Food writer Charles Perry in 1988: "A lot of restaurants could learn a thing or two from how Souplantation is run."