Sweet Tomatoes eyes Fresno and Clovis for possible comeback

Sweet Tomatoes has put Fresno and Clovis back into the conversation, but the message so far looks more like a market check than a comeback announcement. In a reply to a local fan, the chain said it appreciated how much the Fresno restaurant meant to the community and said it was considering areas like Fresno and Clovis for future expansion. It has not announced a lease, named a site or set an opening date.

That matters in Fresno County because the brand once had a real local footprint. One Sweet Tomatoes on West Shaw Avenue closed in 2010 and later became a Texas Roadhouse. The North Fresno location at 7114 N. Fresno St., near Kaiser Permanente Medical Center, was part of the chainwide shutdown in May 2020, when Sweet Tomatoes and Souplantation closed all 97 locations and about 4,400 employees were affected. Garden Fresh Restaurants, the parent company, said the self-serve buffet and salad-bar model was too difficult to reopen during the pandemic.

The old North Fresno site is not sitting idle as a potential restart point. By 2024, the building in the Woodward Centre office complex was being converted into offices, which means the chain would need a different property if it wanted to return to the area. At 6,700 square feet, the former restaurant had been closed since March 2020, a reminder that even a familiar name still has to find the right real-estate fit in a market where vacant or repurposed retail space is not automatically available.

Sweet Tomatoes’ broader revival suggests the Fresno-Clovis mention was not random, but it was still cautious. The company said in March 2023 that it was beginning to open locations again, reopening first in Tucson, Arizona. Later, it confirmed a second comeback location in Fort Myers, Florida, for 2026, with no franchise plans disclosed. That makes the Fresno-area interest part of a wider, slow rebuild rather than a one-off rumor.

For Fresno and Clovis, the real test is whether the local market can support a sit-down chain built around soup and salad bars after years of closures, conversions and changing dining habits. For now, Sweet Tomatoes is on the radar, but not in the market. Any official announcement, the company said, would come through its social media pages and website.