Daniel B.
Yelp
If you're looking for a quick, healthy, and delicious lunch in Brookhaven, look no further than Souper Jenny. Souper Jenny serves fresh and yummy soups, salads, and sandwiches made in-house daily. At the time of writing this review, the Brookhaven location is open Monday-Saturday, 11am-4pm, with the last hour takeout only. They're closed on Sunday.
Souper Jenny Brookhaven occupies the back side of the Nuts 'n Berries Natural Food Store & Cafe building. It sort of looks like a house. Somewhat limited free parking is available in the Nuts 'n Berries lot, an adjacent lot next door (designated for Souper Jenny), and on the street (Kendrick Rd NE). If traveling north on Peachtree Rd NE, the building will be on your left, just before the stoplight in front of Town Brookhaven, the big mixed-use development with Publix and Costco.
This is a cozy little cafe with not a whole lot of seating inside. During peak periods, a table can be hard to come by. Outside, they've got a small covered patio with a handful of tables. You stand in line and pay upfront for your order which is assembled on the spot. The menu is straightforward and changes daily. You can visit Souper Jenny's website (www.souperjennyatl.com/brookhaven) to see the current menu.
During our visit, soups included turkey chili, Mexican brisket & beer, Thai vegetable curry, and tomato, roasted garlic, and spinach. Salads included the "Big Green" (arugula, red and yellow peppers, Mandarin oranges, local feta, cashews, and house dressing), roasted winter vegetables, kale, apple & quinoa, and chicken Caesar. Sandwiches included roast turkey & Swiss, grilled cheese, and classic PB&J (peanut butter & jelly).
Soups were $4 per cup, $7 per bowl, and $12 per quart, salads were $4 for a half serving and $7 for a full serving, and sandwiches were $7 each (except for the PB&J which was $6). They also have refrigerated entrees and quarts of food to-go. These cost anywhere from $9-15 each and each can consist of multiple servings. Finally, they have a $14 lunch special that includes any two $7 items (soup, salad, sandwich) plus a roll, one piece of fresh fruit (typically, this is an apple), a cookie (baked in-house), and a drink (water, tea). These prices don't include tax and tip.
Souper Jenny uses local ingredients. For example, their simple PB&J is made with peanut butter from Georgia Grinders (Chamblee), jam from Fairywood Thicket Farm (Fairburn), and multigrain bread from Alon's (Atlanta).
We ordered a couple of their lunch specials and went with their chicken Caesar salad, roasted winter vegetables, Mexican brisket & beer soup, and roast turkey & Swiss sandwich. There were at least two trays of individually bagged cookies to choose from. I chose one double chocolate chunk cookie and one peanut butter cookie. The fresh fruit consisted of green apples. For our drinks, we grabbed tea from the self-serve dispenser and sweetened them with agave nectar. Yum. Everything tasted great and the portion sizes were quite filling. We left happy and satisfied.
The chicken Caesar salad came with nice, crisp leaves of romaine lettuce, big, crunchy croutons, grated Parmesan, and tender chunks of chicken. It was terrific. The roasted winter vegetables consisted of turnips, carrots, parsley, broccoli, and beets. It was outstanding, addictive, and refreshing (and these are veggies we're talking about here) -- this was my favorite of the items we tried. The Mexican brisket and beer soup was surprisingly spectacular. We were expecting it to be good, but not great. The soup was hearty and comforting, full of flavor, with very appetizing and savory taste and texture. The roast turkey & Swiss sandwich was good. It was prepared with pear jam and arugula on a soft cheddar jalapeno bun. The sandwich came with plenty of turkey and just about every bite was gratifying. The apples were fresh and ripe and the cookies were phenomenal. I highly recommend the cookies, especially the peanut butter cookie. It's one of the best I've had.
The quality of the service matched the quality of the food - it was great. The staff was friendly. Shout-out to Melissa W.
Just a couple reasons I'm giving Souper Jenny Brookhaven four stars instead of five: (1) The dining room and line routing could be better. I'm imagining a Souper Jenny with more space for additional seating capacity which would make the dining environment less crowded and more comfortable. Currently, it can feel crammed in here. (2) After tax and tip, the $14 lunch is more like $17+, which isn't an affordable everyday lunch for most people. Unfortunately, fresh, quality, healthy food is expensive.
This Souper Jenny originally started as a pop-up restaurant in November 2014 before becoming the chain's fourth permanent fixture in metro Atlanta.