![]() ![]() Haywood said it’s “impossible to keep the company viable” with jurisdictions not allowing buffets to reopen. “It was the canary in the mine shaft,” he said. But when Georgia - criticized for reopening businesses too soon - did not allow buffets to reopen, Haywood said he didn’t see a “path” to reopening anywhere else. Georgia, where Garden Fresh has four buffet restaurants in Atlanta, was one of the first states to ease restrictions for restaurants. He added: “ Anything that’s communal, eater-tainment or buffet - anything that brings people together in groups is going to be challenged” to reopen - even in states where restrictions have been lifted, such as Georgia. ![]() Related: A reopening toolkit: What restaurants need to protect guests and workers from coronavirus “Our problem is this: we’re a buffet concept,” Haywood said. Haywood, in a phone interview Thursday with Nation’s Restaurant News, said the company has spent the last eight weeks “ exploring every possible option” for the company. Related: Golden Corral suspends company-owned buffets in wake of coronavirus Roughly 4,400 employees, including Haywood, have been furloughed. The San Diego-based company, owned by Washington, D.C.-based private equity firm Perpetual Capital Partners, temporarily closed its 97 restaurants, 12 commissary kitchens and two distributions centers when stay-at-home mandates swept the nation in March. Garden Fresh Restaurant Corp., the parent company of buffet brands Souplantation and Sweet Tomatoes, is exploring a bankruptcy filing as the company does not see a “path” to reopening restaurants amid the COVID-19 pandemic, CEO John Haywood said. ![]()
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