A Humble Beginning
Homemade soups, sandwiches, and salads– does it get any better than that? For the owners of the popular Midtown dining experience known as Süp, the answer is a firm no.
Coming from a background of food service- including both private cheffing and restaurant business- Christian and Kasey Christensen were eager to start up the grills and start stirring soups at a restaurant of their own.
Süp was established in August 2007 by the wife and husband duo. Süp’s rotating soup menu offers a plethora of unique choices, personifying cultures and places through taste; but perhaps, it is best described with four words: the ultimate comfort food.
The food isn’t the only part of the Süp experience that brings about a sense of warmth and comfort to every person who enters their doors. Even on the chilliest of northern Nevada days, the people running the restaurant are bound to bring a smile to your face and a good meal to your table.
A picture of one of the indoor dining areas available at Süp. The family business started with less than ten tables at a smaller location, and have now moved to the expanding and growing Midtown district. The new space has given the owners and employees at the restaurant a chance to welcome over one hundred people at a time, and new ways to order food for the average consumer.
Operating a Business in a Pandemic
The first wave of the SARS-CoV-2 virus triggered nationwide stay-at-home orders, leaving employees to navigate unemployment and business owners attempting to continue operations in a way that kept their staff healthy. For Kasey, her employees’ safety was priority over anything else.
“As far as work goes, we were able to keep everybody healthy, which was the biggest and most important thing for us,” says Kasey. “So, we changed everything, we didn’t do any indoor dining for almost a year. I talked with the staff a lot and I wanted them to feel most comfortable with what we were doing, and so I kept doing my best to gauge where they were at and we did what was going to be safest for them.”
Closed from March to May in 2020, Süp was no different than the rest of the world as they waited for further guidance on how to respond to the transmission of the new Coronavirus. “There was this really huge place of not understanding and our staff is the most important thing to us, and wanting to keep them safe, we didn’t really know how to make that happen in the beginning. So, we kind of took a step back and until we figured out what to do and how to operate safely,” Kasey details.
The effects of the pandemic were indiscriminate, and further exacerbated hurdles many people were already facing. Kasey was no exception. “My dad had passed away literally one month before COVID had shut everything down and so my mom was living with us. We wanted to protect her health and we also wanted to protect the health of all of our employees too, and there were just so many unknowns, so we closed for two months total.”
As cases slowed down and the world began to re-open, Kasey and her husband broke out a new game plan.
“We followed all CDC and local government guidelines with mask wearing and sanitation practices, as well as trying to keep minimal staff on at all times. We tried to make sure that the same staff were working together so that if someone did become sick we could try to track who had come into contact with them,” Kasey recounts.
“Luckily, all of those precautions really helped and kept a lot of our team safe. I have had no employee-to-employee transmission throughout [the last two years], which was really amazing.”
A photo of Süp’s outdoor dining area. It consists of a deck that has a canopy that helps maintain cool or warm weather for outdoor guests, twinkle lights, and patio heaters. Photo by Chloe Cross.
Taking Care of Soup-er Staff
Kasey and Christian not only placed the comfort of their team at the forefront of decision-making, but they also went as far as to alleviate food insecurity for their staff while the restaurant was shut down.
The couple launched a campaign where the proceeds from gift card purchases went towards groceries and necessary goods for their staff.
“We did weekly groceries for the staff in those two months we were closed. Each week we’d buy toilet paper as we had access to stuff through our vendors that they didn’t have access to. I mean, no one was able to find toilet paper. So we got things like that and we would do big grocery bags each week with some meats, some vegetables, some dry goods and things like that.” Without her staff, Kasey says, they wouldn’t have a business.
“We wanted to try to figure out how to take care of them,” Kasey says.
Süp employees working in the kitchen, with a back door that temporarily served as a pick up window for take-out orders. As the business has transitioned back to in-person dining, they now have parking spaces reserved for curbside pickup, a new point-of-sales system, and accessible online ordering. Photo by Chloe Cross.
Connecting with Staff and the Community
When speaking about her staff, Kasey couldn't help but get emotional as her eyes gleamed with pride.
“We get one life, and so how you spend your time is really important. To think that people spend part of their time working with us is just the most magical and humbling thing. The fact that people spend part of their time working with us is the greatest honor of my career and life, honestly.”
Throughout the whole interview, Kasey could not speak to the success of her business without crediting the work of her staff. The passion, energy, and compassion of her staff is integral to Süp’s mission of connecting with the community.
Kasey talked a bit about what she looks for in a team member, “I go off of gut a lot, I’m all about trusting gut and spirit and there’s feelings you get when you meet someone that tell you if they have potential, maybe they don’t have much restaurant experience but if I see that they’re eager or passionate about this then everything else is totally trainable.”
A photo of two Süp employees in the kitchen, taken in 2020 right after the restaurant reopened for take out orders. At this point, COVID-19 precautions were in full swing. Photo courtesy of Kasey and Christian Christensen.
Taking Care of Each Other
Kasey says that in the fast paced world of counter service, it is quintessential to have positive and friendly employees that can not only take care of their customers, but each other.
“I really look for individuals who stand out for being confident and for being friendly and kind first and foremost; the rest of it? Well we’ll be able to figure it all out as long as they’re willing to learn and be able to admit mistakes. I think admitting when we’re wrong is a big part of growth and being the best we can be.”
The relationship the owners of Süp have with their employees is collaborative and honest, as they rely on their staff for daily insights on how to grow the business and make it better each and every day.
“I used to wait on every table and take every order, and now almost 15 years in I don’t have to play that role anymore,” says Kasey, “but I have a team of folks that do, so their insight into what they see and what they experience is invaluable. I mean its just… I can’t do anything without it. So I take their input into how we run things and how we operate and the importance of that really can’t be overstated.”
Süp is about people before anything else. Connecting people, showing gratitude for people, and creating love and support for everyone involved.
Süp is located off of South Virginia street, sharing a block with numerous other local businesses.
A Network of Community Collaboration
Kasey and Christian have worked to maintain relationships with their fellow business owners through mentorship and a web of collaboration.
Süp gets all of their bakery items from local business Rounds, and their coffee from The Hub, also local. The quality of their product is vital to their mission, and working with local sources helps preserve that dining experience.
"Everything we do is made in house from scratch: all of our sauces are stocks, we roast our turkeys, we try to buy organic as much as possible and we source locally when we can with farm goods," Kasey shares. "We took all the good stuff from this farm to table movement but did it in a way that is quick and easily accessible for folks so it doesn't feel so far away and hopefully fits within a realistic budget,” she said.
This model also helps to reduce the restaurant's carbon footprint, preserves the quality of the products they serve, and invests directly back into the community.
Co-owner and founder, Kasey Christensen as she sits down for her interview with our reporters. She started her business with her husband, Christian, in 2007. Photo by Chloe Cross.
Cookies and Neighbor Solidarity
Kasey spoke of fellow business owners Haley and Jessie, who own the breakfast joint Two Chicks, which lives on the same block as Süp.
“When Two Chicks first opened we kind of mentored them because we had been in the game for a moment and Haley and Jesse have now helped mentor me through rough times.” Kasey’s advice for any local business owner is to be open to relying on those around you. “Just constantly learning and being a support system for the others around you, the more you let the competition part of it go and the more you just work together and collaborate, I just feel there is such power behind that.”
If you’ve ever dined at Süp before, you know every meal comes equipped with a small, chocolate chip cookie.
As with many of the other trademarks of the Süp dining experience, these cookies have a story behind them.
“So Christian's family is from Denmark and his Nono,” Christian’s grandmother, “used to make all these cookies every Christmas. She would have all of these people over to her house and they would make cookies together. When we got married we used that cookie as a little gift to each of the guests, with a little recipe card and their name at the table. So it was his Nono’s cookie, then our wedding cookie, and then it became our Süp cookie.”
Naturally, this was a lot of cookies to make in one day. As their business expanded, they began sourcing their cookies from Rounds Bakery. However, the spirit of Nono’s cookie is preserved with every meal served.
A char grilled steak baguette with tomato bisque soup. Each sandwich is served with a mini chocolate chip cookie and cranberry salad. Photos by Vanessa Ribeiro.
Unique Touches
The restaurant incorporates other unique touches that contribute to the dining experiences of their customers, with the revolving soup menu being a huge part of their business’s brand, as well as local Reno street signs as markers for customer’s orders.
This dining model was a product of intentional reflection of businesses that Kasey and Christian enjoyed dining at.
“We used to live in Colorado and there was a place there where they did a bunch of soups per day and living there we loved that concept of like multiple soups, it was really awesome, because there’s not really a lot of soup places,” says Kasey.
“But we knew we wanted sandwiches and salads and stuff like that, while also maintaining that fast counter service style. Both Christen and I had worked in fancier fine-dining table service restaurants so we wanted something that was quick but still brought all of the good things that came with that farm-to-table dining experience.” That very model was accepted by the Reno community with welcoming arms, with Süp now maintaining a faithful and growing customer base.
Before the pandemic shut down all non-essential businesses, Kasey and Christian had plans to move to a second location. But “with so much weight in the world” it was difficult to move forward, says Kasey.
Striking a Balance
Kasey said a large part of how she has been able to cope through this pandemic has been through balance; learning to prioritize the things that make her happy and being able to step back when needed.
“I think with my dad being ill and then COVID hitting it was just so much that I really couldn’t…. It was hard to function, and trying to figure how to maneuver through this world so stepping back was really an important step,” she shares.
With the restaurant business requiring speed and efficiency, it can be difficult to strike that balance in a meaningful way. “I don’t know, it’s like there’s always this voice that’s like ‘come on, more, do, hustle, become, be’ and sometimes it’s okay to just…be.”
Kasey says that despite COVID changing their plans, that she and Christian have still been experiencing tremendous loyalty from their customers.
“I’m so grateful for all the community support we get through all of our customers, it’s just been huge throughout this whole [pandemic]. We serve soup which is comfort food, so for a pandemic nothing sounds better than, ya know, grilled cheese and a tomato bisque.”
Kasey says that while their plans for a second location have been delayed, that is not to say there won’t be one in the future. However, for the time being, she was going to focus on her staff, herself, and her family.
“To be honest coming off this last fall, I was rough, I was feeling real down. The end of COVID was harder than the beginning for me, just because of the longevity of it and with the omicron strain having so many people being ill and sick, and just this heaviness in the world. I felt like, with coming out of such a tumultuous time and feeling so unsure of things, people were just looking for a little sense of normalcy.”
The whole team at Süp is proud of the way they have been able to serve and connect with the community throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, however long it lasts.