Work is under way at the old Sweet Tomatoes in Fresno. What’s going into the building?
With yellow tape and work trucks outside, something is clearly happening at the former Sweet Tomatoes buffet in northeast Fresno.
Several readers have written to The Bee asking if a restaurant is taking over the space on Fresno Street, north of Herndon Avenue.
Others have been wondering, since Sweet Tomatoes is still alive and just reopened its first restaurant in Arizona, could it ever return to Fresno in a fantasy scenario?
Sorry to burst your tomato, but we don’t have good news.
The building at 7114 N. Fresno St. at Woodward Centre is being turned into offices.
The Jenny Martin Family Trust recently sold the building to a new owner who is converting it to offices, confirmed Jon Cox of retail real estate company Commercial Retail Associates. The property sold in early January for $1.9 million, according to public records.
Neither the buyer nor seller could be reached for comment.
The building will be separated into at least three offices, permit applications filed with the City of Fresno show. Indeed, a peek inside the building shows metal framing already separating what used to be the dining room into office space.
Fresno loved Sweet Tomatoes
Sweet Tomatoes was a popular all-you-can-eat buffet restaurant with a healthy emphasis. It had a large salad bar, soups, pasta and a bakery that served all kinds of bread and desserts. It was a favorite of vegans, vegetarians and others.
It once had two locations in Fresno.
The one on West Shaw Avenue was knocked down to make way for Texas Roadhouse over a decade ago.
The Sweet Tomatoes on Fresno Street near Kaiser Permanente Medical Center remained until the COVID-19 pandemic hit. In 2020, its parent company filed for bankruptcy and closed all 97 locations of Sweet Tomatoes and sister restaurant Souplantation nationwide.
Fresnans were devastated. Many took to the forum Reddit.com to mourn.
“I will never forgive covid for taking Sweet Tomatoes from us,” said user GingerLikesPizza. “I get my hopes up every time I drive past it because all the signage is up still and the inside looks intact, like they could just move back in there any day now.”
Sweet Tomatoes even landed at No. 10 on The Bee’s list of businesses readers want to come to Fresno (right behind Golden Corral, which is planning to open in the former HomeTown Buffet on West Shaw Avenue late this summer).
Isn’t it coming back?
Technically, Sweet Tomatoes is still alive.
Some “raving fans” of the restaurant bought the rights to the brand and reopened their first location April 1 in Tucson, Arizona.
What happens next is up in the air. The company is thinking about opening more locations, the chief executive officer told food website Eat This, Not That! But there does not appear to be any definite plans to reopen in Fresno or anywhere else.
In the meantime, some former large restaurant spaces in Fresno are sitting empty.
Restaurants are shrinking their overall size lately, especially as the trend of getting takeout or food delivered skyrocketed during the pandemic.
And it’s getting harder to make money in the restaurant world, especially in California, noted Lewis Smith, senior vice president of real estate company Retail California. The costs of labor, food, energy, fuel and insurance are all rising. A bigger space is more costly to maintain.
“It’s really difficult on the restaurant owner to actually turn a profit, a profit that would make sense to go through all the headaches and drama of owning your own business,” he said.
Fresno may see some larger spaces converted to other uses, such as retail or offices — like what happened with Sweet Tomatoes.
