Soup and Salad Bar Buffets (2026 Remix)

I have a lot of great memories of Souplantation. I used to go to the Porter Ranch location a lot. It was a guaranteed way to celebrate holidays like Mother's day or a flexible option when my family got together because it something for everyone: salad lovers have plenty of veggies to load up on and basic carb lovers had pizza and pasta to munch.

The location I frequented was also a staple among a mega church across the street. There was no problem in filling seats on Sunday as hundreds of people came across the street to be physically nourished after being spiritually fed.

Decades earlier, we would go to Fresh Choice. It was basically the same thing.

Like many restaurants, Souplantation was hit hard during the pandemic and closed. A lot of people felt the loss as the beloved salad bar buffet had nearly 100 locations nationwide.

Fans have been mourning and one of the reasons many haven't moved on is simply because their locations have not been replaced by other businesses. In fact, the signage remains for these empty buildings that are now surrounded by thriving businesses that have settled or continued to thrive during and after Covid peaked.

Fast forward to today and there seems to be light at the end of the tunnel. Not only is Souplantation (aka Sweet Tomatoes) making a comeback, there are also dupes:

Soup 'n Fresh

Souper Green

I think competition is good. There is space for multiple salad bars even if they all offer pretty much the same items.

As Spooky Foodie once noted “I really think it’s the feeling of cheating the system” that people love.

Apple should keep refining features. Example: Message History

Apple just announced some new hardware recently. Phones are mostly boring these days. We can confidently predict that features continue to be refined and the experience gets faster but what if Apple dedicated a little more resources into fixing things that just don't make sense?

The first iPhone came out in 2007. While I was not an original iPhone user, I did join much later and have remained loyal to their ecosystem. My circle of friends with iOS has grown and like many people, texting has become my main form of communication to keep in touch and express myself.

Apple added the feature to delete old messages in iOS 8 (2014). It's over a decade later and this feature has not evolved. The limitation with this feature is that it is global. That's not how communication works when you consider your spectrum of contacts: close friends, acquaintances, businesses, and service messages (2 factor).

The options are limited to keeping messages for 30 days, 1 year, or forever. For all messages.

If you have a significant other, you might consider ever message received a precious artifact of your relationship. I'm guessing you have people you chat with regularly for years and sometimes you want to review past messages for any number of reasons: when you announced news, a pic of something exciting, a moment some hot gossip was sent, etc.

You might also have a group text where nothing super intimate is ever shared but there is plenty of media being sent for the purposes of entertainment. A family chat might include pictures of your niece sent by your sister. We know your sister probably has these pics and can always reshare them later.

I suspect if your family group chat is like one of mine, you also have a person who shares 50 pictures while traveling for no matter how ordinary the trip may seem. These pictures are lovely updates but not necessarily something we need to hold onto on our phones.

Yet another possibility: you have a group of friends who doesn't chat often. Once a month, once a quarter, or maybe just some quick updates around everyone's birthdays. This isn't the kind of chat that takes up much storage. Why rush to delete it?

If you're following my illustration, you'll probably see the connection. I might never want to delete messages from my spouse's chat. I might not care to keep anything from my family's chat more than a month. For my friends I keep in touch with casually, I think a year is just fine.

We need this granularity from Apple. Different settings for different chats!

Marco's Pizza Bowl

I love pizza. They feel like the perfect combination of different food groups and the options are styles are endless. You never go to a pizza parlor (in the US) and find out they only sell one kind of pizza. 

Pizzas are so popular, they are often sold at venues other than restaurants like stadiums and big box stores like Costco. 

I don’t know much about Marco’s Pizza but one way they have decided to differentiate from competition is the Pizza Bowl. 

The pizza bowl employs almost the required ingredients for a pizza minus dough. 

Is it fair to call this item a “pizza” bowl? It’s more like a bowl of sauce, cheese, and in my son’s case pepperoni and sausage.

This pizza bowl was 13 dollars. 

It was piping hot. This should not have come as a surprise because it runs through the same conveyor oven system as a pizza but does not have dough to cook. Every ounce of heat energy used yields a nearly boiling dish to patiently consume once served. 

If you’re trying to dodge carbs, this could be an ideal treat. Personally, I was left craving pizza crust to balance out the saltiness of the all the other ingredients.

From a value perspective, I think the pizza bowl serves more than one person. It’s hard to imagine one person not getting full before consuming even half of it.

You work hard for your money. Is the pizza bowl something you'll be willing to try? Will you love it? Will you hate it? This can only be answered by trying it yourself.

YouTube Premium subscribers will get Peacock

Beginning in early 2027, Peacock Premium will be included in a bundle with YouTube Premium, making it immediately available to millions of existing YouTube Premium subscribers, substantially expanding Peacock’s reach and making it one of the most broadly distributed premium streaming services in the U.S. Subscribers will receive seamless access to Peacock within the YouTube experience, featuring marquee live sports including the NFL, Olympics, NBA, MLB, Big Ten and Notre Dame Football, Big 12, Big East and Big Ten College Basketball, Premier League, WNBA, Kentucky Derby, golf and more, hit series such as Love Island USA, The Real Housewives franchise, Law & Order: SVU, Saturday Night Live, The Traitors, All Her Fault and The Office; and award-winning and blockbuster films. 

On the surface this seems like a win for YouTube Premium subscribers like myself. I guess I'll be able to watch the entire catalog of The Office, Traitors, and Housewives on YouTube?

I manage a YouTube Premium Family Plan. Does this mean everyone in my household will have access?

I can only imagine this will drive up YouTube Premium costs. The service has become somewhat unnegotiable for me though as YouTube is such a valuable resource for information. I also use the music streaming service, though it really is not up to par with Spotify in terms of features.

On a technical level, I think YouTube has lower bitrates than most services. Hopefully the deal includes all their 4K (movies and shows) content is as well.

I'm guessing there will also be some interesting implications for the 2028 Olympics.

Source: https://www.nbcuniversal.com/article/nbcuniversal-and-youtube-announce-global-strategic-partnership-expanding-reach-peacock-and

Facebook introduces Seller even though it's Marketplace is not very good

Facebook is all about the algorithm. This means you really have no idea what content will pop up on the top. It could be the latest, it could be something popular, it could be something old, and unfortunately it could be something that seems completely irrelevant. Another key aspect any Facebook product: you're never done. 

Buying things should not work this way! The goal is to refine your results and discover the options you have. There should not be an endless list of things.

Here's an example: I searched for "Canon". After a little bit of scrolling, these are the results:

Notice how a projector is listed? What about the Meta glasses? These are not relevant to my search. They are noise making the search experience frustrating.

The more specific you are in your search, the more likely you'll see the algorithm at play. Here's a search for "Canon 6D II". This is a specific camera model. Notice in the second row of results a Sony camera comes up.

When it comes to shopping, it's perfectly fine and expected that there should be a finite listing of matches within your search criteria. 

Think about cars. If you were shopping for a brand new Toyota Camry you could easily find which Toyota dealers are closest to you and limit your research to those dealers (probably just a handful at most).

Facebook ignores this convention and simply wants to keep you curious for things completely irrelevant to your search.

Here's another example where I searched for "cactus"

After a modest amount of scrolling I just start seeing listings for barrels for some reason. I did some more scrolling and eventually hit a listing for tomatoes. I guess Facebook thinks I might eventually start craving tomatoes while searching for cacti.

Source: https://about.fb.com/news/2026/07/introducing-seller-app-facebook-marketplace/