Copyright © 2022, The San Diego Union-Tribune | | AdvertisementAdvertisement For the last three months, the Air Conditioned Lounge has been closed, its lively dance club silenced, but that doesn’t mean the North Park venue hasn’t been preparing for its reopening Friday, when bars finally get to resume business.“The bar has been maintained the whole time because we got federal PPP (Paycheck Protection Program) money so I continued to pay the staff and they’d come and clean the place,” said owner Gary John Collins, whose bar doesn’t sell food, unlike many San Diego County bars that got to...…Copyright © 2022, The San Diego Union-Tribune | | AdvertisementAdvertisement For the last three months, the Air Conditioned Lounge has been closed, its lively dance club silenced, but that doesn’t mean the North Park venue hasn’t been preparing for its reopening Friday, when bars finally get to resume business.“The bar has been maintained the whole time because we got federal PPP (Paycheck Protection Program) money so I continued to pay the staff and they’d come and clean the place,” said owner Gary John Collins, whose bar doesn’t sell food, unlike many San Diego County bars that got to...WW…

Copyright © 2022, The San Diego Union-Tribune | | AdvertisementAdvertisement Souplantation, the popular buffet-style dining brand founded in San Diego 42 years ago, is closing all of its restaurants permanently, a casualty of the coronavirus pandemic that is likely to be the death knell for all self-serve eateries.The permanent shuttering of the 97 restaurants, including 44 in California, was announced Thursday following weeks of efforts to salvage San Diego-based Garden Fresh Restaurants, the parent company of Souplantation and Sweet Tomatoes, which operates outside of Southern California....…Copyright © 2022, The San Diego Union-Tribune | | AdvertisementAdvertisement Souplantation, the popular buffet-style dining brand founded in San Diego 42 years ago, is closing all of its restaurants permanently, a casualty of the coronavirus pandemic that is likely to be the death knell for all self-serve eateries.The permanent shuttering of the 97 restaurants, including 44 in California, was announced Thursday following weeks of efforts to salvage San Diego-based Garden Fresh Restaurants, the parent company of Souplantation and Sweet Tomatoes, which operates outside of Southern California....WW…