Categories: Articles

Sweet Tomatoes Honors The Honor System

This kind of blew me away. I had a dinner tonight with an old friend who I had not seen in over a decade (mostly because he moved down to Boca Raton and this is my first time down here). We decided on something light and healthy to eat, so he suggested a salad bar/all you can eat type joint called Sweet Tomatoes.
As we were in line, heaping on the arugala and black olives, I realized that the cash was at the end of what seemed like a never-ending row of eatable greenery. I glanced over and asked my friend how this place works. He looked a little dumb-founded. “You choose the food you want and then you pay when you get to the cash,” he said with the sarcasm on eleven. I figured that part out, but I was confused by the “all you can eat” part – how would they know if you paid the first time or not?
“It’s the honor system,” he seemed to have guessed. It is the honor system. We went back multiple times, we were never asked for a receipt or anything and had a great meal.
My guess is that for all of the people who would cheat a place like this, I believe Sweet Tomatoes core corporate philosophy is that most people are good, honest and want that type of treatment.
Sweet Tomatoes is by no means fine dining, but they are, without a doubt, a fine place to take the family. Don’t even get me started on the fact that a restaurant that focuses on healthy eating can rise above this fast food nation.

Mitch Joel

Mitch Joel lives at the intersection of technology, business transformation and consumer culture. He is the Executive Director of Next Era Institute, a strategic intelligence platform helping leaders understand the forces reshaping business, technology, culture and society. The Institute identifies which shifts matter, explores their wider significance and translates them into strategic direction and momentum. Mitch is also a globally recognized keynote speaker. He has delivered thousands of presentations across both B2B and B2C industries to organizations including Google, Walmart, LEGO, Shopify, Microsoft, Procter & Gamble and Unilever. Strategy Magazine has called him “one of North America’s leading visionaries.” Mitch built his career by working directly inside the waves of change that reshaped modern business. He founded and built a digital marketing agency that worked with some of the world’s largest brands and was later acquired by WPP, where he served as President of a firm operating in 25 countries with almost 3,000 employees. Mitch is the bestselling author of Six Pixels of Separation and CTRL ALT Delete, and the host of Thinking With Mitch Joel, one of the longest-running business podcasts in the world. His writing and commentary appear in outlets including Harvard Business Review, Fast Company and Inc. Magazine. He is a member of Dr. Marshall Goldsmith’s 100 Coaches and was named to the Thinkers50 Radar. Mitch also hosts Groove – The No Treble Podcast, documenting the oral history of electric bass players. Mitch is also Co-Founder of ThinkersOne, a platform that enables companies to bring personalized thought leadership from world-class experts into meetings, events and off-sites in focused 15-minute bursts.