Beloved Chain Restaurant Salad Bars That Are Gone For Good

Who doesn't love a good salad bar? After all, it's hard to dislike any kind of all-you-can-eat-food, especially one that gives you the opportunity to drown everything in as much ranch dressing as possible (or at least as much as you can before they have to refill the dressing tub.) And back in the '70s and '80s, salad bars were big draws for restaurants, luring in customers with the promise of leafy greens and unlimited refills. Not to mention the fact that they offered a slightly healthier option than burgers or steaks.

But these days, it can be hard to find any restaurant with a salad bar, largely due to increased worry about infection and food contamination. Thanks, COVID-19! And it doesn't help that customers are ordering in more and eating out less. Although, they're certainly not snubbing salad bars for dietary reasons, as it turns out Americans eat a lot more salad than you'd think. So, as these relics of fast casual dining become harder and harder to find, we wanted to take some time to remember some long-gone (but not long-forgotten) salad bars that used to inhabit our favorite restaurant chains.

When you think of a Pizza Hut buffet, you probably think of the lunchtime pizza buffet, which featured a bunch of pre-made pies that you could grab slices from for a quick (and gut-stuffing) meal. But you might not remember that Pizza Hut also used to offer a full salad bar for in-restaurant dining, offering the typical lettuce, tomatoes and dressing, along with slightly more unusual options like ham cubes, fusilli pasta and chocolate pudding. As a brief aside, in the '90s, we used to work as a Pizza Hut waiter, and we're still haunted by the sound that pudding made as we poured it into the salad bar tub. In fact, Pizza Hut had so many salad bar locations that it was the wasteful reason Pizza Hut used to be a top kale buyer. Spoiler: The brand didn't actually serve the kale to customers.

Now, there are still Pizza Huts that offer a salad bar, but the hard part can be finding one that offers in-store dining, as the chain has pivoted to focus on carryout and delivery, especially with the Pizza Hut Express locations. So if you have a Pizza Hut near you that still offers a salad bar, you should treasure it. Especially if you can also grab that pizza buffet, too.

Back in 1987, Wendy's decided to evolve the dine-in salad bars into a new "Superbar" concept, which featured a wide range of salad and food menus spread out over three different food stations, like its own version of a food court. The "Garden Spot" offered your traditional garden salad offerings like lettuce, carrots and dressing, along with vanilla, chocolate and butterscotch pudding for dessert. The "Mexican Fiesta" station offered everything you needed to make your own tacos and burritos, including seasoned beef, taco sauce, shredded cheese and chili. And the "Pasta Pasta" bar offered spaghetti and fettuccine noodles and sauces to slather them with. And, of course, you could mix and match ingredients to create your own signature dish, all for the low price of $2.99 for lunch or $3.59 for dinner, which, even adjusting for inflation, was a very cheap meal.

But the Superbar only lasted around 10 years, as Wendy's decided to transition to pre-packaged salads in 1997, saying that the salad bars were labor-intensive, which undoubtedly cut into the chain's profit margins. Although, it might have been for nothing as Wendy's profits haven't been doing too well lately. In fact we've seen signs that Wendy's might not be around much longer.

Founded in 1968 in Gainesville, Florida, Sonny's BBQ is a chain that offers slow-roasted pit BBQ like beef brisket, pulled pork and St. Louis ribs. But one thing it no longer offers is a salad bar, or as it dubbed it, "The Garden of Eatin'." The bar was simply huge and offered a wide range of salad ingredients and toppings, as well as prepared dishes like chicken salad, potato salad and seafood salad.  But while it was a big draw and enjoyed by customers, the chain stopped offering it in 2022, replying to a Facebook comment about it with the response, "after careful consideration, we have decided to remove the salad bar at all Sonny's BBQ locations. This decision is a direct reflection to allow our Pitmasters to focus on what they do best, which is BBQ. We encourage you to try one of the BBQ-inspired salads our Pitmasters created." 

And while the menu still offers salads in a section that's still labelled "The Garden of Eatin'" (which kind of feels like rubbing it in), they're all premade options like a BBQ Salad, Smokin' Ceasar Salad or BBQ Salad. And it's a shame that customers can't mix and match ingredients the way they could at the original Garden of Eatin'. It truly was a paradise. Sigh.

One of the first big steakhouse chains in America, Sizzler was founded in 1958 in Culver City, California, and built its reputation by offering large (and cheap) chunks of steak and beef, with a typical salad bar to round out the menu. But in the '80s, it expanded that salad bar into a "buffet court," which offered such eclectic delights as a taco bar, French onion soup, fried zucchini and carrot salad with raisins. And for dessert, it offered a soft-serve sundae bar with various toppings. That may sound a little basic now, but was an amazing value at the time, especially since it was all you can eat.

Unfortunately, the buffet court wasn't quite the success planned and five years after introducing the buffet court, it was forced to close 136 stores. And while it managed to stay open for the next couple decades, it was hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic. And in 2020, Sizzler, the last hope of buffet, filed for bankruptcy. But even that wasn't enough to completely destroy this chain, as there are currently 77 Sizzlers still open, scattered throughout the western and southwestern U.S., along with 10 in Puerto Rico. And while those stores still offer an unlimited salad bar, it's no longer the giant buffet court we didn't appreciate enough back in the '80s.

If the name of this steakhouse reminds you of the classic T.V. western "Bonanza," that's not a coincidence, as it was started in 1963 by Dirk Blocker, the actor who played Eric "Hoss" Cartwright on the show. If you're a fan of the sitcom "Brooklyn 99," you might be interested to learn that Blocker's son, Dan Blocker, played detective Hitchcock. And don't be ashamed if you also confused this steakhouse with Ponderosa Steakhouse, a separate chain that imitated Bonanza, taking its name after the ranch that was shown on the T.V. show. For decades, the two steakhouses were fiercely competitive with each other, although Ponderosa ended up becoming the bigger name, with almost 600 locations open at its peak. But that rivalry ended when the two companies merged in 1989, although all the restaurants kept the original Bonanza and Ponderosa names.

And as you might have guessed from its spot on this list, Bonanza offered an impressive all-you-can-eat salad bar, featuring plenty of standard salad vegetables, along with pirogies, potato skins and breaded meats. Unfortunately, Bonanza and Ponderosa sales declined throughout the '90s, and their parent company, Metromedia Restaurant Group, filed for bankruptcy in 2008, with only 256 locations still open.

Currently, there are only five Bonanzas still operating, while Ponderosa Steakhouse refuses to die, with a slightly more impressive 16 locations still in operation. So, you can still find a Bonanza salad if you want one, but you might want to hurry.

Founded in 1978, this emphatically named Texas-based salad chain drew in customers by offering a 45-foot long salad bar that also offered baked potatoes, a taco bar, pasta salads, garlic breadsticks, and even gingerbread. And if that wasn't enough, it also offered four in-house made soups per day, plus hot cornbread and honey butter with every meal. And customers were clearly interested, as by 2008, the chain had grown to an impressive 151 restaurants, spanning 17 states.

Unfortunately, the recession of the 2010s ended up hitting the company hard, and it was forced to declare bankruptcy in 2011. Since then, the number of Souper! Salad! stores has been whittled down to just three locations, all in its home state of Texas. But on the bright side, those three locations are still offering the same menu the classic store offered, including that Spice Rack Gingerbread, which we haven't been able to stop thinking about since we started this paragraph.

This New Jersey-based steakhouse was founded in 1966 and boasted a salad bar with unique options like chopped chicken liver pate and brown bread with raisins. The inexpensive prices and tasty steak dishes slowly grew the chain through New Jersey and into New York and Pennsylvania. But it turned out to be yet another restaurant taken down by the COVID-19 pandemic, as its remaining 13 locations were all shuttered in 2020. Most of them never reopened, although two of the locations are still open today in Scotch Plains and Woodbury, New Jersey, although they've been rebranded as "Charlie Brown's Fresh Grill."

Oh, and if you think it's weird to name a steakhouse after a cartoon character, we definitely agree. However, we haven't been able to find any actual connection to the Peanuts comic strip (which started in 1950). We also haven't found any connection to the 1959 hit song "Charlie Brown," by the Coasters or even why anyone thought Charlie Brown's was a good name for a steakhouse in the first place. We mean, at least "Peppermint Patty's" is vaguely food-related, right?

One of the most beloved chains on this list (at least to me) is Sweet Tomatoes, or Souplantation, as it was known in California. This salad-focused buffet also offered a wide selection of hot soups, including chili and a "Yankee Clipper Clam-Chowder W/Bacon" that we were obsessed with, along with flatbread focaccia pizzas, pastas and soft-serve ice cream. And, yeah, we have to admit that we were a regular at the Glendale Souplantation, where we easily ate our own weight in leafy greens weighed down with blue cheese dressing. Unfortunately, the COVID-19-related shutdown led to the collapse of this chain, as it closed all 97 of its stores across the country, before finally declaring bankruptcy in 2020.

However, the chain isn't completely gone, as in 2023 a former Souplantation in Rancho Cucamonga, California reopened with the same menu under the new name Soup N Fresh. And a former Sweet Tomatoes franchise in Tucson, Arizona also reopened in 2024, where it's still open today. And, yes, we can confirm that both of them have that classic clam chowder still on their menus, if you're willing to make the drive (and/or flight) to either location.

The Steak and Ale brand, which featured, well, steak and ale served in Tudor-style atmosphere, was founded in 1966 in Dallas, Texas by Norman Brinker, who went on to also create the Bennigan's chain. This is actually the chain that some credit with inventing the unlimited salad bar,  which it described as "all you can make, which sounds like quite a challenge. The salad bar was originally just something that came free with the steaks, but it proved so popular it had to start offering it as a standalone item.

Whatever happened to Steak and Ale? Well, the short answer is that stiff competition from other casual sit-down chains like Applebees and TGI Fridays, combined with the recession, ended up putting its parent company, Legendary Restaurant Brands, into bankruptcy, closing all Bennigans and Steak and Ale locations in 2008. In 2023, the brand was purchased by a new owner who announced plans to open 15 Steak and Ale locations across the country, although to date, only one has opened, located in Burnsville, Minnesota.

This bay area salad-buffet chain opened in 1986 in Sunnyvale, California, focusing a slightly more health-conscious menu than other buffets, offering low-fat soups, muffins and premade pastas like mac and cheese or lemon caper pasta. And it was certainly popular, as the chain ended up expanding out, opening branches in Texas and Washington.

Unfortunately, the chain hit some hard times in the 2000s, leading to bankruptcy, which forced the brand to shutter a bunch of stores in 2012. At the time, it announced that it was planning to update the remaining stores with a new "a la carte" dining service that would charge diners by weight, as well as adding a breakfast bar and beer and wine service. But it ended up not happening, and creditor debt forced the chain to shutter all of its remaining stores later that year.

However, it still had one last gasp at continuing, with two of the chains later reopening under the name California Fresh, where they offered similar recipes and service as the original chain. But as of 2025, both of them have closed, so it looks like the chain is finally gone for good.

This chain, known for it's all-you-can-eat salad bar and unlimited beer, wine and sangria, was named for New York restauranteur Charles A. Chessar, who opened his "Beefsteak Charlie's" steakhouse in Manhattan in 1910, naming after the nickname of a local sports editor. It offered steaks and beefsteak sandwiches and continued to grow after he ended up selling it to another owner, William Shoshnick, who eventually sold it when he retired in the 1960s, when it closed for good.

The Beefsteak Charlie's chain was founded by Larry Ellman, who'd also created the earlier Steak and Brew restaurants. After the Steak and Brew chain went into bankruptcy in 1975, he started renaming them as Beefsteak Charlie's, as neither Chessar nor Shochnick had trademarked the name, so he was free to use it. The rebranded Beefsteak Charlie's restaurants really emphasized the salad bar, which also offered unlimited unpeeled shrimp. To go with the huge portions, he also gave his Beefsteak Charlie mascot the motto, "I'll feed you like there's no tomorrow!" By 1984, there were 68 locations, but the company was sold in 1987 and ended up filing for bankruptcy again in 1989.  In 2009, a new restaurant with the Beefsteak Charlie's name opened in Massapequa, New York, only to close shortly thereafter.

Once one of the largest buffet chains in America with 626 locations, Old Country Buffet was known for its wide selection of choices, offering unlimited salad, as well as fried chicken, mac and cheese, soups, sides, and desserts for just one price. Started in 1983, Old Country Buffet merged with HomeTown Buffet in 1996, only to merge again with Ryan's Restaurant Group, which added in the Ryan's Grill Buffet and Bakery chain. Unfortunately, the expanded company had serious financial trouble, which forced it to declare bankruptcy in 2008 and 2012. By the time it was purchased by Food Management Partners in 2015, the company had shrunk to 300 locations, only for FMP to declare bankruptcy in 2016.

And the COVID-19 pandemic ended up finally destroying Old Country Buffet, as the parent company officially shut down in 2021, with the IP purchased in a bankruptcy auction by BBQ Holdings, the parent company of Famous Dave's BBQ, which said at the time that it had no plans to reopen any of the buffet brands that came with the sale. That is a shame, because Old Country Buffet was the one failed buffet restaurant that deserves a second chance.