When craving soup, I don’t typically think of dining in to eat it. The most edible soup comes from chains such as Panera Bread or Zoup! or a local grocery store’s deli where you can pour readily available soup into a 12-ounce container with a lid and then take it home and eat as you wish. But if you are anything like me, you stay far away from the canned stuff. It tastes like sodium and chemicals mixed with vegetables and noodles, occasionally with sparsely scattered processed meats.

During a recent visit to Michigan in below-freezing temperatures, we landed on an extraordinary soup shop I never knew existed. I was craving nothing but warm soup, so I asked my brother if we could stop at Panera Bread before he dropped us off at Gerald R. Ford Airport. My brother took us on a detour to open our eyes to a much more authentic café than Panera Bread, a trendy hole-in-the-wall café called Uncle Cheetah’s Soup Shop.

Located on Wealthy Street near East Grand Rapids, we entered the small nook of a restaurant filled with people and over a dozen homemade soups to choose from on a chalkboard. I was in pure awe; I wanted to try them all. But like an ice cream parlor, the soup was behind the counter in enclosed containers with little sample cups. After sampling the Roasted Red Pepper and Carrot Ginger, I decided on it due to its unique and creamy flavor. I then shifted my eyes to the other chalkboard with unique grilled cheese options containing specialty cheeses, one of which was goat cheese, my favorite. They also sold handcrafted salads topped with fresh nuts and homemade dressings. After dining in, we all felt warm, comfortable and complete.

After looking around the shop, it dawned on me that this was the sister restaurant to one of my favorite spots called The Electric Cheetah, which served comfort food such as homemade mac and cheese, grilled cheese, salmon, soups and salads, and many other unique dishes, not to mention its list of over 50 different root beers! So it was no wonder Uncle Cheetah’s was so good! It was a blessing that I never discovered this place during college, or I would have been a soup addict!

— Christyn Pek, account executive