Good Earth was a natural foods

restaurant chain A chain store or retail chain is a retail outlet in which several locations share a brand, central management and standardized business practices. They have come to dominate the retail and dining markets and many service categories, in many pa ...

and

bakery A bakery is an establishment that produces and sells flour-based food baked in an oven such as bread, cookies, cakes, donuts, pastries, and pies. Some retail bakeries are also categorized as cafés, serving coffee and tea to customers who w ...

originally founded in

Reno, Nevada Reno ( ) is a city in the northwest section of the U.S. state of Nevada, along the Nevada-California border, about north from Lake Tahoe, known as "The Biggest Little City in the World". Known for its casino and tourism industry, Reno is the ...

, by William Galt and Nancy Galt. The Galts sold the concept to

General Mills General Mills, Inc., is an American multinational manufacturer and marketer of branded processed consumer foods sold through retail stores. Founded on the banks of the Mississippi River at Saint Anthony Falls in Minneapolis, the company orig ...

in 1980. After expansion to more than 50 locations across the United States, the concept lost popularity. General Mills converted most of the restaurants into other chain restaurants they were operating, such as

Red Lobster Red Lobster Hospitality LLC is an American casual dining restaurant chain headquartered in Orlando, Florida. The company has operations across most of the United States (including Puerto Rico, Guam) and Canada, as well as in China, Ecuador, Ho ...

and Olive Garden. During the period in which Good Earth operated widely, it was "probably the most prominent chain example of a health-food concept", according to industry trade journal '' Nation's Restaurant News''. Many of the chain's recipes were developed by Tony Santa Elena and can be found in his cookbook ''Good Food''. It was based in California at the time of the purchase by General Mills. Most of the restaurants were in California, with several throughout

Greater Los Angeles Greater Los Angeles is the second-largest metropolitan region in the United States with a population of 18.5 million in 2021, encompassing five counties in Southern California extending from Ventura County in the west to San Bernardino Coun ...

and others in the

San Francisco Bay Area The San Francisco Bay Area, often referred to as simply the Bay Area, is a populous region surrounding the San Francisco, San Pablo, and Suisun Bay estuaries in Northern California. The Bay Area is defined by the Association of Bay Area Go ...

. Franchise locations in

Santa Barbara, California Santa Barbara ( es, Santa Bárbara, meaning "Saint Barbara") is a coastal city in Santa Barbara County, California, of which it is also the county seat. Situated on a south-facing section of coastline, the longest such section on the West Co ...

Berkeley, California Berkeley ( ) is a city on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay in northern Alameda County, California, United States. It is named after the 18th-century Irish bishop and philosopher George Berkeley. It borders the cities of Oakland and E ...

, and

San Francisco, California San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...

, were owned by Dean Stanley Ashby and family (wife Georgia Anne Ashby, and sons Aaron Stanley Ashby and Dean Stanley Ashby II). The popular tea served with meals and sold in bulk and packaged form to customers by the restaurants is still sold under the Good Earth brand as Good Earth Teas. Operating under the ownership of Parasole Restaurant Holdings, two restaurants remain in Minnesota, one located in the Minneapolis suburb of Edina and the other in the St. Paul suburb of Roseville.

References

External links

Galt profile and restaurant history at Daviddibble.com
Food and drink in the United States Defunct restaurant chains in the United States Restaurants in California {{US-restaurant-stub