Column: As an L.A. newcomer, I adored Souplantation. I'm grieving its closing [View all]
The Los Angeles food scene is renowned for its richness and diversity. So when I moved here from New York in September 2018, I hoped to eventually find my way around the region through its cuisines, inspired by the example of the beloved critic Jonathan Gold, who had died two months earlier.
Instead I discovered Souplantation.
This soup-and-salad restaurant chain — with its no-nonsense buffet-style offerings and family-friendly seating — sustained me on many nights when I was too tired to cook. The wonton chicken salad was my standby. I relished the soups — the bacon bits in the Yankee clam chowder, the robust minestrone, the sweet and tart French onion soup.
A native New Yorker, I was unfamiliar with Souplantation, and only today, upon learning of its closing, am I learning of its origins. The first Souplantation opened in San Diego in 1978, founded by a surfer; the chain expanded in the mid-1980s, after it was acquired by two young entrepreneurs. It weathered an E. coli outbreak and a bankruptcy filing, growing to 97 locations and 4,400 employees at the time of its closure this week due to the coronavirus pandemic.
https://www.latimes.com/food/story/2020-05-07/souplantation-closing-los-angeles
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