Also known as Sweet Tomatoes in some states, Souplantation is a buffet style restaurant and a personal favorite of mine. Consisting of a thirty-foot salad bar, a small bakery, a shifting selection of soups and pastas, and a do-it-yourself soft-serve ice cream machine, it is a perfect place to gorge, diet, or do both at once.

    For any who might be overwhelmed when faced with everything one could dream of putting in a salad, there are pre-designed combinations including classic Caesar and far more adventurous rotating options.

    Their fresh baked muffins and corn bread are light but richly flavorful, uncontested by the artificial-tasting supermarket equivalents, and contain their star ingredients, particularly the blueberries of the blueberry muffins, in abundance.

    The varying availability of many dishes depends partly on the month-long themes such as pineapple, strawberry, or mint, which are used to their full potentials.

    It is inherently vegetarian friendly, but at the expense of meat loving and carb counting patrons. Chicken is usually available at the salad bar, but for an extra fee, and the chicken noodle soup is filled with enormous chicken breast pieces, but it is not always available, and the buffet style allows these pieces to be fished out early in the life of a batch. Red meat is scarce, but appears occasionally in different preparations of pasta.

    Within its specialty, however, Souplantation excels. The made-from-scratch soups are exceptional and make Campbell’s Chunky soups look like broth. With jello, pizza bread, and standard macaroni and cheese, Souplantation is a perfect place for families as well as health nuts, and for anyone who likes to feel full. I give it four stars out of five.

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