The San Francisco Soup Company (Stonestown): A Review

The San Francisco Soup Company's first location opened up about ten years ago in the Crocker Galleria in downtown San Francisco. Since then they seem to be enjoying some pretty good success, expanding to sixteen restaurants throughout the Bay Area, including this stand in the Stonestown food court. Quick-serve soup is the main focus here but they also serve sandwiches, wraps, salads and various sweets on the side.

They ask a bit of a premium price for their soup, but to be fair it is also pretty decent quality. Soups on offer at this location are the Southwestern Corn Chowder, Smoky Split Pea, Tomato Bisque, Grandma Mary's Chicken Soup, Mexican Chicken Tortilla Soup, Turkey Chili and New England Clam Chowder. All soups are also accompanied by a honk of somewhat dry and thick sourdough bread on the side. Aside from the main items the soups do come with a pretty thick assortment of little veggies and such - green onions, corn, potatoes, bell peppers, carrots, tomatoes and so on. I think the Smoky Split Pea and the Turkey Chili are the real winners here, with pretty good sized chunks of tasty ham and turkey (respectively), and I have to admit the Grandma Mary's chicken did hit the spot when I was going to school nearby and had to tough out a test day while feeling way under the weather. The Tomato Bisque tastes fine, but is a questionable value with nothing but tomato soup and cream in it basically, yet priced the same as the other soups. The downer of the menu is the New England Clam Chowder, which tastes almost identical to canned Campbell's or something like that. In a city that prides itself on clam chowder in a bread bowl as a famous local dish, this one is a serious head-scratcher and a disappointment.

Also on the menu here are a small assortment of half-sandwiches and small wraps - tuna salad, roasted turkey, ham & Swiss, roast beef, egg salad, or a Hummus vegetarian wrap. There's also a range of side salads and you can make a custom tossed salad. For a medium soup serving with a half sandwich or a side salad you're looking at about 8 bucks, sans drink. That's a bit of a steep price for soup-and-sandwich, but you do get a pretty good amount of soup, and they do the whole "organic ingredients from local suppliers" thing.

Since it's a food court, you're stuck jostling for a soiled table while some Parent Of The Year candidates let their spawn run around screaming in between everyone's tables while completely ignoring them. Not much the Soup Co. can do about the ambiance, really. Healthy and tasty options are few and far between in this area, so if you're stuck in mall hell for some reason this one is worth a look. Just save your San Francisco clam chowder experience for a proper restaurant near the water.