While I was in Manhattan I noticed an advertisement in the local paper about The Soup Man and the location of his store. I put one and one together and realised that this is the man that was portrayed as the Soup nazi in the Seinfeld series. I promptly took to my feet and went to the shop which was just around the corner from the Helmsley Hotel where I was staying. I was expecting to be kicked out for ordering chicken noodle soup, but alas the staff were polite and nice, and there was no chicken noodle soup. This guy Al Yaganeh who the character is portrayed and the owner of the "Original Soup Man" franshise makes real gourmet soup.
I ordered a chicken curry soup which had a name I cant remember, along with a ham and swiss sandwich. The presentation was great, and they even put a piece of bread, some grapes, a strawberry and a chocolate in to make my soup eating all the better.
The soup was fantastic, no wonder it was such a cult thing on the Seinfeld series....... although I did outlay just over $14US for the opportunity.
A great experience although I was hoping to get into some sort of verbal tussle with the Soup Nazi..... Maybe he was in Argentina?
Soup Man
3 comments:
HEY... It's my uncle Charlie
If it is then Al has a twin brother...
Heard that most of The Original Soupman locations are shutting down because they can' t make it..all over the country. The story that you hear on the NYC streets is that 45th St/3rd Ave, 78th Street/3rd Ave, Harlem closed because they could no longer incur all the losses from the business (six figure losses, in less than a year, each). High Cost of Products from Franchisor plus No Customers=Financial Disater!
Walk by the one's that are open 42nd/5th, 56th/Lex, Rock Center at 48th, Trinity Place, Hanover Square...there is never anyone in them. The poor Operators lost Hundreds of Thousands of dollars while their Franchisor continues to get richer. Other locations are for sale, too. Hanover Square, owned by one of the investors of Soupman opened in January 2007 and almost immediately put their store on the block. Hasn't sold yet. None of the stores can sell and the Franchisor denies there's a problem! Others closed down and some even filed for bankruptcy, Scranton, PA, Harrisburg, PA, Boulder, CO, Colorado Springs, CO, Myrtle Beach, SC. Maybe Al Yeganeh and the rest of the company should start feeding their Operators along with the Charities that they claim to donate to. There will come a time when their operators are on line at one of the Soup Kitchens because they lost everything to The Original Soupman. The operators are dropping by leaps and bounds while the Franchisor hides this information and gets richer. New operators and investors are none the wiser....but for how long.
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