You guys remember the classic Soup Nazi episode of Seinfeld, right? The really mean soup guy who had a really specific set of instructions to order his soup or else you didn't get any? Sure you did, it's an American Classic. Not only one of the best episodes of Seinfeld, but one of the greatest half hours of TV.
Did you know that he was based on an actual person and after years of being pissed off by that episode, decided to franchise his soup kitchens? He did, and there's an "Original SoupMan" soup stand in the Roosevelt Field Mall.
For the last several months the mall completely renovated its food court and two Saturdays back it was finally ready for the public. You know who they got for the grand re-opening?
The fucking Soup Nazi. Larry Thomas himself would be on hand to serve soup from 11-3pm and you know damn well that I was gonna be there.
So here it is:
A bit blurry, but that's me getting soup from the Soup Nazi. I know, it's pretty great.
What's odd was that his presence wasn't that well known. One little blurb on Newsday's website and Twitter feed the day before was the only reason I knew he was coming. Lots of people were just passing by and gawking like "is that the Soup Nazi?" And then not going up to meet him like the jerks they are. Fortunately, this led to a pretty short wait.
But the 15 minutes I waited for this picture was worth every second. Totally nice guy to boot.
As long as you bought something from there, you got the following for free: the picture you see above, a box of SoupMan chicken noodle soup, and this pretty sweet autographed picture:
So I guess you're thinking to yourself "did he say all the classic lines like 'No soup for you,' or 'bread THREE DOLLARS EXTRA'" and the like?
To answer your question: yes. Yes he did. You'd think after 20 years of that he'd be sick of it but he was pretty happy to scream all those classic lines at you. Hell, his handlers were egging people on to ask him for extra bread. There's no feeling like hearing that in person, and directed to you no less!
And if you must know, I got the lobster bisque. The guy really knows how to make soup, it was pretty freaking good.
