Why some restaurant brands are coming back from the dead

A Deeper Dive

It’s impossible to kill a restaurant chain, even when it’s dead.

This week’s episode of A Deeper Dive features a discussion on a fascinating phenomenon in the restaurant world lately: Operators bringing formerly dead or dying brands back to life. RB colleagues Lisa Jennings and Joe Guszkowski join me to talk about three such concepts: Steak & Ale, Souplantation and Sweet Tomatoes and Ground Round.

Steak & Ale, a Norman Brinker-created brand that was a casual-dining pioneer, recently opened a location in suburban Minneapolis, 15 years after the entire chain was shut down.

Sweet Tomatoes, a buffet concept that was killed in a 2020, pandemic-related shutdown, recently opened a location in Arizona.

And Ground Round—which still has a couple of locations open in the west—is planning a new location in Massachusetts.

Why are these brands coming back? And most importantly, can these chains survive off nostalgia alone? We’re about to find out.

We’re chatting about resurrected restaurant brands this week so check it out.