Soup, Sandwiches, Revolution

Ginger Hood, staff writer

Got a taste for revolution? Revolutionary Soup is located on the Downtown Mall, hidden away on 2nd Street across from the huge mural. It’s open from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Saturday, and while parking is hard to find on the Downtown Mall, Revolutionary Soup is a short walk away from the Water Street Garage.

I braved the two-block trek and took the steps down into Charlottesville’s homiest underground soup spot with one question in mind: what’s cooking?

The first thing that greeted me as I walked in was a familiar wall of fliers and a short stairwell leading down past the poem of the day and around to the restaurant itself. With warm lighting and air to accompany the warm soup, the whole room immediately feels welcoming. The ambiance of Revolutionary Soup is cozy and local, giving off the same feeling as a familiar folk song.

While their soup is the main attraction, Revolutionary Soup also offers sandwiches, salads, and wraps. All menu items are marked for allergies, and a handwritten sign encourages customers to ask about ingredients. The menu marks gluten free, dairy free, vegetarian, and vegan items, with many baring two or more of the abbreviated letters.

Of course, the main event is the food. I went with my family to try a variety of different soups, but tasting is encouraged if you don’t want to commit to an entire bowl right away. Some soups are seasonal – others, year-round – but all soups come in four serving sizes: small, medium, large, and quart.

My family and I tasted two different small soups and a grilled cheese, all served hot enough to ward off the cold and rainy weather outside. Each soup came with a side of cornbread or a bread roll and a free apple, which all went nicely with the soups.

 The small classic miso ($4) was by far the lightest soup, with a salty broth perfect for people with sodium deficiencies and fresh green onions that gave it a good crunch. It’s not the most filling of the soups on the menu, and it can be quite salty – and even too much – for those who don’t like salt. It also has carrots in it, which is a bit unusual, but it works well with the rest of the textures and flavors in the soup. I found that despite its unusual execution, it was my favorite of the two I tasted. Overall, a solid choice for a year-round soup lunch.

The three sisters ($4.75) is a seasonal staple of the Revolutionary Soup menu. It’s a much thicker, almost stew-like soup with a little spice that heats up with a slow burn. The corn adds a little crunch, the beans are well cooked, there’s peppers for color and generous pieces of tomato and squash. The small size was satisfying on its own, but the soup I took home was still pleasantly warm an hour later – a bigger size wouldn’t be a bad idea for sharing or keeping leftovers.

The plain grilled cheese ($3.50) was a bit generic – but it’s easily spruced up with other topping and bread choices, like tomato slices or bacon on either sourdough or sunflower wheat bread. It was the perfect warmth, toasted well but not burnt, and it was great for dipping in soup.

However, my favorite part of Revolutionary Soup is the checkers table – complete with a poetry drawer. While the top of the table seems like a regular checkers table – with a cup of bottle caps to use as checkers – the poetry drawer is full of napkins, receipts, and even book pages with poetry written on them.

Anyone with something to write with can leave a poem, and looking through the poetry drawer is a staple of the Revolutionary Soup experience.

Overall, Revolutionary Soup is a reasonably priced, inviting, and unique restaurant experience – vive la revolution!

108 2nd St. SW, Charlottesville

434-296-7687