Soup is hot

(TPCs Smoked Beef and Hatch green chili stew. Okay, it's not exactly soup. This is my crime.)

Soup is making a real comeback, after years of declining sales, mostly because customers and restaurant owners alike see it as a quick, healthy way to provide lots of flavor at a reasonable price point.

From National Restaurant News (registration required):

"It's a comforting product with very little fat and a high flavor profile," Freedman says. Creating comforting food is one of the goals of Garden Fresh Restaurant Corp. of San Diego, operator of 97 Souplantation and Sweet Tomatoes buffet restaurants, which offer six to eight soups daily.

"We really try to take things that are familiar to people and put our own spin on them," says Joan Scharff, executive director of marketing for Garden Fresh. That approach recently yielded the promoted pairing of creamy tomato soup with three-cheese focaccia "dippers."

Garden Fresh received so many requests from customers who wanted the company's cream of mushroom soup available more often, "We gave it its own day," Scharff says. Restaurant companies that are highly dependent on soup sales may face increasing pressure from specialty soup concepts. Among them are three-unit Zoup! Fresh Soup Co. of Southfield, Mich., and 10-unit San Francisco Soup Co. of San Francisco. "With soup you can serve high-end food in a quick-service format," says Steven Sarver, co-founder of San Francisco Soup Co. His restaurants sell soups starting at $4.50 for a 12-ounce bowl.

Are you eating more soup these days? What's your favorite?