Loose Leaf Notes

-The following first appeared in The Floyd Press on April 28, 2022.

Customers were waiting for the doors to open for the Earth Day Soft Opening of the Soup Shop, said shop owner Susan Huff. Huff, who started making soups from farm fresh local ingredients and delivering them to customers last summer, now has a brick-and-mortar store that sells a little bit of everything local.

“Floyd is a farming paradise,” said Huff, who described her focus of supporting local farmers by purchasing and cooking with organic and seasonal ingredients as the inspiration behind The Soup Shop, a bright yellow house located at 7360 Floyd Highway in Copper Hill.

Educated in biodynamic farming, Huff once owned and operated the first organic restaurant in St. Petersburg, Florida.  She and her husband John Bell discovered Floyd County when they were traveling from their home in Michigan to another home in Florida and stopped at the Spikenard Farm and Honeybee Sanctuary in Floyd.

The couple met with Spinkenard director, author and lecturer Gunther Hauk, who Huff referred to as her “first biodynamic teacher” when he was based in New York. Following their visit, Huff and Bell moved to Floyd a week later and have been in the county for the past three years, living the winter months in Florida.

Huff primarily sources the ingredients for her signature soups from Riverstone Organic Farm, Patchwork Family Farm and Field’s Edge Farm.  She said it was important to go to the farms herself and make personal connections.

Along with her soups, which are frozen in 32 ounce containers and ready to be used as needed, Huff also makes salad dressings, spreads, sandwiches and sweet treats that will be sold in the store. She carries jam, honey, dairy products, fresh eggs, salads and Big Indian Farm artisan breads from Floyd. Local grass-fed beef comes from Clover Hill Angus in Bent Mountain and is used in her Best Beef Stew recipe.

The idea is to have a one-stop-shop establishment. “I’m trying to have a little bit of everything,” said Huff, who noted that she plans to continue taking soup pre-orders and making deliveries to downtown Floyd once a month.

Rashminder Hargis, another woman chef, is owner of Meta Meals, an organic-focused vegetarian and vegan ethnic food company whose snacks are for sale at the Soup Shop. Hargis and her husband, who are in the process of moving to Floyd from Roanoke, served fresh food samples at the soft opening. They’re currently running a crowd funding campaign to launch a Mega Meals food truck with plans to park it at Buffalo Mountain Brewery.

The Soup Shop is spacious and colorfully decorated with limited indoor seating and ample picnic umbrella table seating on the outside deck, which is under construction. The customer base for soups is a mix, said Huff, but currently is primarily 50 – 70-year-olds who want healthy foods, know the importance of sourcing locally, but don’t want to cook.

The shop has an active Facebook following. Commenters rave about Huff’s soups, which include those with tantalizing names, such as white chicken chili, lentil carrot kale, creamy wild mushroom, West African stew, roasted red pepper and bacon and more.

Customer traffic remained steady throughout the opening.  “I have to go make more soup. We almost sold out,” Huff said as the opening came to a close.

“I started cooking beans at 6 a.m. this morning. I have 12 crockpots set out.” That’s what you do when you have a passion for supporting local farms and cooking with whole foods as path to wellness.

The Soup Shop can be reached at 727-902-0453 or susan.huff@icloud.com. A Grand Opening is planned for Saturday May 21 and will include music, food trucks and games. Visit floydsoup.com or the Soup Shop Facebook page for more information.