SEINFELD Writer Recalls Taking Jerry Seinfeld to "Soup Nazi" After Episode Aired and Getting Kicked Out
One of the most iconic and quoted episodes of Seinfeld is the episode “The Soup Nazi,” in which Jerry and his friends find a man who sells the best soups they’ve ever tasted, but he’s very mean and very strict about his customers’ conduct when in line to purchase his soup creations.
When he finds someone acting in a way that doesn’t please him, he yells, “No soup for you!,” and tosses them out of line, never to be permitted to return. The episode is based on the real restaurant Soup Kitchen International, and chef Ali "Al" Yeganeh, who inspired the character and storyline.
It’s a great episode, but it resulted in unexpected (yet unsurprising) repercussions for the star and namesake of the show.
In a recent interview with ComicBook for the upcoming Jerry Seinfeld-produced and starring film Unfrosted: The Pop-Tart Story, writer Spike Feresten, who wrote several episodes of the series Seinfeld, detailed what unfolded after the premiere of the “The Soup Nazi,” saying:
"It made me hesitant to ever go back there, just in case someone said, 'That's the one who wrote it,' because the real guy in New York was not happy that we wrote that episode."
He recalled the Jerry Seinfeld encounter, noting that it ended up on the front page of the New York Post the next day:
"You know the story, right? The next summer I brought Jerry back there, and he said, 'Hey, I'd like to order soup,' and [Yeganeh] said, 'Get the F out of here,' and threw him off the line," Ferensten explained. "[Jerry] goes, 'What's the problem? I made you famous,' and he said, 'You didn't make me famous -- The Today Show made me famous.' He said, 'Well, I want soup,' and then he literally said a real version of 'no soup for you' with a lot of expletives -- no effing soup for you, get out of here.'"
Yeganeh's original Soup Kitchen location closed in 2004, as he did his best to expand. He reopened the original location in 2010 under the name "the Original Soup Man," which was also the name of a number of franchises he managed.
The company still exists, although Yeganeh isn't part of day-to-day operations anymore. In 2017, one of his executives was arrested for financial crimes, forcing the company into bankruptcy, although it emerged in 2018 with new management and seems to have weathered the crisis.
Since 2005, The Original Soup Man has also sold heat-and-serve soups in grocery stores, and at one point even licensed the likeness of the actor who played the Soup Nazi.
Unfrosted debuts on Netflix on May 3.