Soup Friday: Copper Pub & Grille – Grandpa Soup (French Onion)
As I stood up from a rickety bench in the men’s gym locker room, my knees began to buckle and my lower back muscles started spasming. I quickly regained my balance, but was unsure of what caused these simultaneous issues. “Surely, my earlier workout of a light walk on an inclined treadmill could not have been a catalyst for this,” I thought. As I picked up my bag and headed for the exit, I disappointingly discovered the source of this reactionary pain. In the row of lockers behind me, two high school swimmers continued their discussion on teammate birth years. One was flabbergasted by the fact that the team captain was born before the year 2010. My knees suddenly buckled again.
I entered my car and turned on the heated seat in an attempt to relieve or at least comfort the pain of feeling old. As I searched for a Soup Friday destination, I received a snapchat from a college roommate. It contained a picture of him watching The Avengers with his newborn girl and her full head of hair. (Congrats Catullos!) I glanced up from my phone and caught an image of myself in the side-view mirror. My subpar hairline was having a rougher day than usual. At that moment, I desperately needed a drink. Without delay, I added the word “pub” to my in-progress Google search and one of the first establishments to pop up with pictures of soups in user reviews was a place in Linglestown called Copper Pub & Grille.
The Copper Pub & Grille exterior reminded me of a Bar Rescue post-renovation reveal. Would Soup Friday credits reveal a 20% increase in soup sales at this pub or would it soon be out of business?
The standard bar décor of tin beer brand signs and ads for inconveniently-timed discounts on drinks draped the interior walls. I missed the all day, every day $1.50 Michelob Ultra ad and ordered a $6 Tröegs Perpetual instead. As I finished saying the beer name, I positioned my driver’s license in my fingers at the edge of the bar as I prepared for a request to verify my age. To my dismay, the bartender immediately grabbed a chilled glass and filled it to perfection with just the right amount of foam at the top. I appreciated the exceptional pour, but started to dwell on the trend that I’ve been carded less and less in recent months. I remembered the day of longing for my babyface to evolve into a toddlerface. Sitting at that pub today, I craved the feeling of being irritated at a bouncer for nearly destroying my license by bending it in half as they refused to believe I was twenty-one years old.
I then examined the gristled patrons who sat isolated from one another around the bar. I’m not sure if the bartender knew their names, but she certainly remembered their drink orders as every time one of these seasoned regulars entered the familiar doors, the bartender expeditiously cracked open a distinct can of beer and placed it in their usual spot. While their bodies weren’t decomposing yet, most of the older clientele across the bar eerily resembled lifeless corpses as they stared blankly ahead at the television screens behind me playing long-form ads about non-stick pans. The only things that seemed to nourish these poor souls were sporadic sips of beer and the company of muted infomercial hosts. An intrusive thought crept in my head and whispered, “You’re staring at your future self.” Unsettled by this possibility, I searched for an immediate distraction.
After taking a sizable swig of my hoppy beverage, I decided to finally review the menu. I instantly regretted it. On top of the ambiguous soup of the day, the only other soup listed was a French onion soup they serendipitously-named Grandpa Soup. While I didn’t mind the fact that the Grandpa Soup lacked the fan favorite star of approval awarded to other Copper menu items like Charlee’s Mac & Cheese or the House Meatloaf that unexpectedly featured brisket, filet, and angus beef (I may need to come back for a future Meatloaf Thursday), I was perturbed by the absence of details about the soup itself or how it even earned the grandpa moniker. Nevertheless, I felt destined to order it today.
Minutes later, the bartender returned with an onion soup crock overflowing with grease, melted cheese, and parsley. For those curious, the soup lacked both a grandpa appearance and aroma. I attempted to use my spoon like a whisk to mix up its contents, but the cheese’s separation anxiety made this a much more laborious task as it refused to let go of my utensil as I cumbersomely circled it around the bowl.
I typically avoid ordering French onion for two primary reasons: it holds the record for highest burning my tongue rate in the soup division and I never feel satiated after eating it. Quickly without fail, the former trend continued as one blow of cool mouth air was not enough to prevent my impatient tastebuds from being scalded. After waiting a few moments for the soup to become consumable, my spoon plunged back into the dark, murky liquid in front of me and reemerged with an amalgamation of the soup’s contents. For those curious, the soup also lacked a grandpa taste (this soup blogger won’t reveal how he knows this). Together, the elements worked harmoniously. The light crunch of the onion slices and bread pieces soaked in beef broth complemented each other tremendously from both texture and taste standpoints. To the surprise of no one, the cheese amplified the flavor of anything it touched. The one partnership that negatively impacted the grandpa soup was the combination of too much salt in the broth and too little bread to sponge it up. Additionally, on their own, a couple of the individual ingredients stood out for the wrong reasons. The undercooked pieces of onion made a lasting impact as their taste lingered on my breath hours later. Halfway through the bowl, the cheese changed from a source of adulation into a source of agitation as my spoon kept getting trapped like a fly in the remaining webs of cheese. Worst of all, despite downing multiple IPA pints and every drop of the Grandpa Soup, my tummy still didn’t feel anywhere close to being full.
I peeked one final time down my bowl for any remaining soup. In what looked like a dark well, I spotted no final drops of soup or stuck boys named Timmy for Lassie to save (with that reference, maybe I am a grandpa after all). As I stood up from my barstool, I started to feel spry. My knees and back felt the same as when I walked in earlier, but I could also sense my body being aided by a sudden jolt of optimism (or more likely the 7.5% ABV beer). My bones and I may be aging, but soup will keep my tastebuds forever young.
Soup Score: