Every so often, the last chapter of a story ruins the whole thing. As you know, I was a big supporter of the Souplantation chain, promoting them here often. Their tomato soup even got nice mentions on the TV shows, The Big Bang Theory and Two and a Half Men because of this blog's relentless plugging.
They've sent an e-mail out to all the folks on their mailing list and also posted a statement on their website. The first paragraph is very nice but the last one makes me sorry I patronized and recommended them so much…
As you may have heard, we are unable to re-open out 97 Souplantation and Sweet Tomatoes restaurants due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The outpouring of love on social media has been overwhelming and we are so grateful to all of the sweet memories you have shared with us. We would like to thank our 4,400 team members for their dedication and love they have shown to our local communities. We will miss you tremendously and wish you all the best.
For our gift card inquiries, refund options are limited at this time. You may be able to dispute the purchase with your bank or credit card company. Otherwise, there may be an alternative option available through the court in the future.
In other words: "Yes, we know a lot of you paid us in advance for future meals but since we're shutting down, we're not giving you that money back. If you don't like it, you can go to a lot of trouble to call your bank or your credit card company and see if they'll give you a refund — yeah, like they're really going to do that — but we got your money so we don't really care unless someone takes us to court over this."
I wish I had those sweet memories of the place but this kind of kills any I might have had. And I don't even have an unused gift card.