Garden Fresh Restaurant Corp

***, Guest Relations Manager for Souplantation, spoke with [redacted] , discussed their dining experience, committed that the Company will use their feedback from this complaint to improve our business We use each and every bit of feedback from our guests to make dining with us a high-value/great experience [redacted] sent the [redacted] complimentary meal passes inviting them back to our restaurant as our guest

Revdex.com: I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted] , and find that this resolution would be satisfactory to me I will wait for the business to perform this action and, if it does, will consider this complaint resolved however I haven't received any complimentary meal passes yet Regards, [redacted]

Revdex.com:
I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted], and have determined that this proposed action would not resolve my complaint.  For your reference, details of the offer I reviewed appear below.
Regards,
[redacted]
I have been told by the Ag department at Fresno state there is no longer an egg shortage. I think they are just trying to push the Chocolate chip Brownie. There is eggs back in the grocery stores and at Places like Costco you can by a large supply of eggs. That is what I look forward to besides the healthly salads. We nee them back this month not in September. I hsave been a customer for many years of Souplanation and Sweet Tomatoes. Everywhere I live they have a Restuarnt I go two times a week. Thanks [redacted]

[redacted], Guest Relations Manager for Souplantation, spoke with [redacted], discussed their dining experience, committed that the Company will use their feedback from this complaint to improve our business.  We use each and every bit of feedback from our guests to make dining with us a...

high-value/great experience.  [redacted] sent the [redacted] complimentary meal passes inviting them back to our restaurant as our guest.

Revdex.com:
I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted], and find that this resolution would be satisfactory to me.  I will wait for the business to perform this action and, if it does, will consider this complaint resolved.
Regards,
[redacted]

Dear
Mr. [redacted],
I
want to thank you for your message to us through
the Revdex.com, I have also provided my direct contact information in this reply
should you want to discuss this incident further or any future visits. 
At Sweet Tomatoes, we believe that each day begins fresh, and
fresh...

begins right in our restaurants.  Before you ever walk in our
door, our unique farmer partners, many who we have used for decades, raise
local produce and rush it to our kitchens in refrigerated trucks, usually
within hours of harvest.  Here, our cooks passionately sauté, simmer,
and stir soups from scratch. Each day, we mix and knead authentic focaccia
pizza dough, from scratch, using just six ingredients.  We scratch
make all of our pasta sauces and pizza sauces, using fresh produce like
tomatoes, heirloom garlic from Gilroy, CA, fresh basil, herbs and
spices.  Before you walk in our door, we make all of our muffins from
scratch using real, wholesome ingredients like GMO free flour, sugar, eggs, and
milk.  Real blueberries are baked into our blueberry
muffins.  Real California strawberries are blended into our original
lemonades.   Dressings, like our Ranch, is house made from
buttermilk, real mayonnaise, and our proprietary spice blend.  The
effort we take to source fresh produce from our family farmers and to prepare
our food from scratch using real ingredients that are fresh and wholesome, (we
never use preservatives) requires a constant commitment to excellence.  
I also want you to know that the decision to not serve the Brownie
Bites was a tough decision made by our Culinary Team here at Sweet Tomatoes
offices and was in no way the responsibility of the Fresno Management Team.
 They were not lying to you either, Mr. [redacted], our Brownie Bites take
the most eggs of any recipe we make.  We have been impacted greatly with
the egg shortage and therefore made this tough decision (we know this is a
guest favorite) regarding the Brownie Bite. The GOOD NEWS is that we are
re-working the menu so that this will be a featured muffin for us the entire
month of September and it will definitely be back on the bar regularly as soon
as our suppliers can recover from the current egg shortage.
I am sorry to hear about the cleanliness of the restaurant on
your visit, I am forwarding your email and my response, to the senior
leadership for this restaurant as well as the General Manager.  We have an
amazing team in both this Sweet Tomatoes and the regional leadership team, and
I know they will want to hear of your experience and your feedback.
Again, thank you for your email.  We value your patronage
and that you have been a loyal guest since 1991. I hope that your experiences
with us over all of these years will sway you to not give up on us and I would also
like to invite you back in to dine as our guest.  I will be sending you two complimentary meal passes in the mail today.  I hope
that you will use them and that you will email me when you do visit again as I
would appreciate hearing any feedback from your experience.
Sincerely,[redacted]
Vice President, HR & Guest Relations
858-312-1340
15822 Bernardo Center Drive, Suite A
San Diego, CA  92127

Revdex.com:
I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted], and have determined that this proposed action would not resolve my complaint.  For your reference, details of the offer I reviewed appear below.
[i do accept the offer that you will and me 6 passes but I need to give you our correct Mailing address It is [redacted] 
[redacted]Please send them to this address as the other one is not good Thank you much rovide details of why you are not satisfied with this resolution. P
Regards,
[redacted]

Revdex.com:
I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted], and find that this resolution would be satisfactory to me.  I will wait for the business to perform this action and, if it does, will consider this complaint resolved however I haven't received any complimentary meal passes yet.
Regards,
[redacted]

I did make a purchase of a gift card of $100  in accordance with the offer and had received only 2 free passes. I emailed them saying I was missing one pass and they responded that the offer was only if you went to the store although it was clearly for online purchase,and if I wanted I could...

get a refund,I asked then to provide me what they offered they refused so I requested my money back which they promptly complied.

Revdex.com:
I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted], and find that this resolution would be satisfactory to me.  I will wait for the business to perform this action and, if it does, will consider this complaint resolved. This should not have taken so long.  I sent repeated emails and I never received a response.  We'll see if I get the information I was again advised I would receive.
Regards,
[redacted]

I am sorry to hear that my proposed action does not resolve your complaint.  I understand that it has been confusing that we are telling you we are experiencing an egg shortage and yet you are able to purchase them at your local grocer--and the Ag department at Fresno State apparently has disagreed.  As a company we use 67,000 pounds of eggs each month to create our made from scratch recipes.  Our suppliers are just unable to keep up with this type of demand during this difficult time.  Just yesterday CNN had an article/story regarding this CURRENT egg shortage.  I have included the hyperlink to cnbc.com (below) where you can hear/read this story for yourself.  The article expresses the likelihood that the avian-flu may get worse; 12% of egg-laying hens have already been put down and a "Nathional shortage" is expected with price of eggs possibly going up as high as $6.00 a dozen.  Already grocery chains on the east coast have reported an increase in egg prices rising 120% and they have begun to pass this expense on to the consumer.In closing, I again assure you that everything I, and my restaurant management, have said has been truthful and transparent. [redacted]

Hello, I am very sorry for our having dropped the ball in making good on our commitment to you to provide you and your group 6 meal passes to make up for your poor experience.  I have checked with our Guest Relations Manager and our receptionist here at the corporate offices--and I cannot track...

down where we had received a call from you.  I am very glad that you reached out through the Revdex.com giving us the opportunity to resolve this.  I have just walked back to my office from the mail room where I placed a note w/the promised meal passes to you at the address you provided in your message to the Revdex.com.  I hope that you and your group will use these to dine with us again soon.Regards,[redacted]Vice PresidentGarden Fresh Restaurant Corp

Thank you for your follow-up with the Revdex.com and I am very sorry that it escalated to this point for you due to our dropping the ball.  I have placed a note with two complimentary passes into the U.S. Mail this morning sending to the address provided in your complaint.  Please accept these...

along with our sincere apology for the poor experience you had on September 19th and our delay in getting these to you.   Again, our thanks for your patronage and giving us a second chance! Best,[redacted]

Given the nature of the case, I think I would like to go ahead and proceed with all or either one of the following categories: poor customer service, no contact by company, and refund.

Review: Business sent out an email buy $100 gift card get three free meals ,when I purchased, they claim I must go to the store and make a purchase not online ,although it does not say this anywhere on the emailDesired Settlement: send out a corrected email apologizing for the false adverstsing

Consumer

Response:

I did make a purchase of a gift card of $100 in accordance with the offer and had received only 2 free passes. I emailed them saying I was missing one pass and they responded that the offer was only if you went to the store although it was clearly for online purchase,and if I wanted I could get a refund,I asked then to provide me what they offered they refused so I requested my money back which they promptly complied.

Business

Response:

Thank you for providing us with your feedback in regard to our recent Gift Card promotion. You are correct in that this offer was "intended" as an in-store only promotion for a specific number of days--and you are correct that our creative (email) did not contain this information which was an error. As soon as we began to hear from our guests who purchased on-line and confirmed that the email did not specifiy "in-store only" we redirected these emails from the third-party gift card company to our Company's (in-house) Guest Relations Dept. AND have been sending these guests the third meal pass. I am very sorry that we did not have ourselves organized in this fashion when you emailed the gift card company handling these sales for us. I am sorry that you were forced to receive a refund as the only way to resolve this situation to your satisfaction. If you would provide me with your mailing address I would like to send to you three complimentary meal passes and invite you to dine with us as our guest again.

Review: On Saturday, May 16th, at 3:05pm CST, my boyfriend and I stopped by to have lunch at the Sweet Tomatoes restaurant, located at [redacted] We finished eating our meals and were preparing to leave the restaurant between 4pm/4:30pm CST. I decided to use the restroom before we left and as I got up and walked about 4 - 5 steps towards that direction, I slipped and fell on the hard dining area floor. As embarrassed and mortified as I was, my boyfriend helped me get up off the floor as a few of the patrons there asked if I was ok. I darted straight to the bathroom where I cleaned myself off. My boyfriend informed the manager at the time of the slick spot area as I was walking to the bathroom, however, when I left the bathroom it did not look as though it was cleaned because there was no "careful, it's wet" sign put out nor was there any indication that someone had attended to that area. After leaving the restaurant, the pain in my left knee started to set in more and lasted even after I returned home. As soon as I settled in, I called the restaurant and asked to speak to a manager to notify him again of the incident and ask it the substance was cleaned up. I spoke to a man named [redacted], who informed me that he just came in when the incident occurred and that he was aware of what happened because another manager/employee told him about it. I asked if the floor had been cleaned since the incident occurred and he assured me that it was. I sent a letter to their Corporate Headquarters to address the issue again because I wanted to make sure my concerns were heard and properly handled on a corporate level. Although I continued to experience soreness in my left knee, I quiver think what if I had hit my head on that hard tile/marble like floor or had brought along one of my nieces/nephews with me and they fell? So about 2 1/2 weeks after submitting the letter, this issued has not been resolved and Corporate doesn't appear to want to resolve or address the matter at all.Desired Settlement: 1. Explanation/Resolution from Corp. on the steps and measures that will be taken to avoid such slip and fall incidents in the future.2. A formal apology for the inconsiderate, careless, and unaccountable way the Staff at Sweet Tomatoes and Garden Fresh Restaurant Corp has handed this case.3. Compensation for the emotional and physical pain and suffering that I had to endure throughout this entire ordeal.4. Formal copy of the accident report-Unfortunately, I failed to request one on the spot.

Consumer

Response:

Given the nature of the case, I think I would like to go ahead and proceed with all or either one of the following categories: poor customer service, no contact by company, and refund.

Business

Response:

Ms. [redacted],

Review: We were overcharged for our meals with our group two months ago and Rachel out to the corporate office

They advised they would send us 6 meal cards and we haven't received them

We have tried following up several times and have not heard back. We also had one lady in our group who requested a refund backDesired Settlement: We would like the promised six meal card sent to us

Business

Response:

Hello, I am very sorry for our having dropped the ball in making good on our commitment to you to provide you and your group 6 meal passes to make up for your poor experience. I have checked with our Guest Relations Manager and our receptionist here at the corporate offices--and I cannot track down where we had received a call from you. I am very glad that you reached out through the Revdex.com giving us the opportunity to resolve this. I have just walked back to my office from the mail room where I placed a note w/the promised meal passes to you at the address you provided in your message to the Revdex.com. I hope that you and your group will use these to dine with us again soon.

Review: I bought a buffet lunch at Sweet Tomatoes Store 108 on May 29, 2014. When I try to get some chocolate ice-cream, the machine malfunctioned and splattered chocolate ice cream all over my white shirt. The assistant manager talked to me and inform me that the insurance company will call me within 24 hours to help replace my white shirt. I write to the head office and called their ###-###-#### number, customer service again promised that someone will call me within 24 hours but again nothing happen. I sent my shirt to dry clean but my laundry specialist could not remove the stain. My LL Bean white shirt is new and cost $40.Desired Settlement: I want Sweet Tomatoes to response to my complaint and pay to replace my LL Bean white shirt as promised by their store assistant manager.

Business

Response:

[redacted],

I have received your complaint, forwarded to me by the Revdex.com, and I want to begin by expressing how very sorry I am for the difficult time you have had trying to resolve your ruined shirt. I am sending you this quick email to let you know that I have requested a check be cut to you in the amount of $40.00 and I will mail this to your address tomorrow, June 19, 2014.

?I truly do not know what to say with regard to the difficulty you had in getting a response from our customer service hotline ?or our store management, except again, I'm sorry.

Best,

[redacted]

Guest ?Relations?

Souplantation & Sweet Tomatoes

Guest Service Line ###-###-####

Consumer

Response:

I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted], and find that this resolution would be satisfactory to me. I will wait for the business to perform this action and, if it does, will consider this complaint resolved.Thank you Revdex.com for helping.

Regards,

Review: Several weeks ago Sweet Tomato did away with their Brownie muffin. I was told in three weeks they would bring it back. The brought in Chocolate chip muffin. Currently there is no muffin I like there. I was told by a worker that because of the egg shortage they were not making those muffins, but I am sure the Chocolate chip, the Blue berry, and the other muffins they make all should take the same amount of eggs. I have been a customer of Sweet Tomatoes since 1991. They always had them in the Los Angeles area where I was stationed in the military. I want these muffins back.

Also the local resturantea Sweet Tomatoes in Fresno has gone down hill. They are not clean. Their ice Cream machine dumps water on the floor. They have leaks and water is ll over the place. Last week the tables were not clean very well. The chocolate syrup sprays out water all over you. It messed up one of my new shirts. I am really disappointed in The management here in Fresno at Sweet Tomatoes. So much I may not return. Today I was there and it was so gross it gave my wife and I Osco (nausea) They need to clean up. This egg shortage is just an excuse not to have the Chocolate Brownie muffins. I bake. I doubt that the Brownie muffins use any more eggs that the Blue berry or Chocolate chip Muffins. I am tired of being lied to by the management/. They just want to push the chocolate chip muffin on every one because people take to many of the Brownie muffins. Not that they care but I really am considering not returning to Sweet Tomatoes. I know by Business is not important. They have plenty more people coming there. Maybe it is time to Close this Sweet Tomatoes.Desired Settlement: Bring back Brownie muffins. Clean up the store here in Fresno

Business

Response:

Dear

Mr. [redacted],

I

want to thank you for your message to us through

the Revdex.com, I have also provided my direct contact information in this reply

should you want to discuss this incident further or any future visits.

At Sweet Tomatoes, we believe that each day begins fresh, and

fresh begins right in our restaurants. Before you ever walk in our

door, our unique farmer partners, many who we have used for decades, raise

local produce and rush it to our kitchens in refrigerated trucks, usually

within hours of harvest. Here, our cooks passionately sauté, simmer,

and stir soups from scratch. Each day, we mix and knead authentic focaccia

pizza dough, from scratch, using just six ingredients. We scratch

make all of our pasta sauces and pizza sauces, using fresh produce like

tomatoes, heirloom garlic from Gilroy, CA, fresh basil, herbs and

spices. Before you walk in our door, we make all of our muffins from

scratch using real, wholesome ingredients like GMO free flour, sugar, eggs, and

milk. Real blueberries are baked into our blueberry

muffins. Real California strawberries are blended into our original

lemonades. Dressings, like our Ranch, is house made from

buttermilk, real mayonnaise, and our proprietary spice blend. The

effort we take to source fresh produce from our family farmers and to prepare

our food from scratch using real ingredients that are fresh and wholesome, (we

never use preservatives) requires a constant commitment to excellence.

I also want you to know that the decision to not serve the Brownie

Bites was a tough decision made by our Culinary Team here at Sweet Tomatoes

offices and was in no way the responsibility of the Fresno Management Team.

They were not lying to you either, Mr. [redacted], our Brownie Bites take

the most eggs of any recipe we make. We have been impacted greatly with

the egg shortage and therefore made this tough decision (we know this is a

guest favorite) regarding the Brownie Bite. The GOOD NEWS is that we are

re-working the menu so that this will be a featured muffin for us the entire

month of September and it will definitely be back on the bar regularly as soon

as our suppliers can recover from the current egg shortage.

I am sorry to hear about the cleanliness of the restaurant on

your visit, I am forwarding your email and my response, to the senior

leadership for this restaurant as well as the General Manager. We have an

amazing team in both this Sweet Tomatoes and the regional leadership team, and

I know they will want to hear of your experience and your feedback.

Again, thank you for your email. We value your patronage

and that you have been a loyal guest since 1991. I hope that your experiences

with us over all of these years will sway you to not give up on us and I would also

like to invite you back in to dine as our guest. I will be sending you two complimentary meal passes in the mail today. I hope

that you will use them and that you will email me when you do visit again as I

would appreciate hearing any feedback from your experience.

Sincerely,[redacted]

Vice President, HR & Guest Relations

858-312-1340

15822 Bernardo Center Drive, Suite A

San Diego, CA 92127

Review: We purchased many gift cards. On January 25, 2013 we tried to use a gift card and it was denied stating there was nothing on it. At the register they could not tell us any other information. I called the gift card number on the back a few days later and found out there was a $30.53 charge on the card which we did not make. I could not find out any other information as it was automated. I called the corporate gift card line and left several messages in January, February and April. In April, I left 6 messages. I have still not received any call back. We purchased gift cards in good faith and expect to have a fair and responsive relationship with the company. I tried to go through the company, but to no avail.Desired Settlement: I want the $30.53 charge that was taken from my gift card erroneously put back on the card. We never made that charge. I would like a call back from the gift card department. The gift card number is [redacted]