The Best Soup Restaurant in Utah Has a Secret: Café Zupas Was Built by Two Guys Who Had No Idea What They Were Doing

There's a moment that happens to almost everyone the first time they walk into a Café Zupas. You glance at the menu — the tomato basil, the Wisconsin cauliflower, the lobster bisque — and you start doing the math on whether you can justify ordering two soups instead of one. You probably can. You probably will. And then the person behind the counter slides a chocolate-dipped strawberry onto your tray, and you realize this place isn't quite like anywhere else.

That strawberry isn't an accident. It's a philosophy. And it started in Provo, Utah in 2004 with two software engineers who, by all conventional wisdom, had no business opening a restaurant.

"We're just two software guys who came up with the idea when we were in MBA school together," co-founder Rob Seely once told a reporter. Their number one goal was to serve fresh food rather than reheated — a commitment the food industry warned them would burn through labor and money faster than they could keep up. They ignored the advice. Turns out, that stubbornness is exactly what makes Café Zupas Utah's most distinctive fast casual restaurant.

From MBA Classrooms to the Best House-Made Soups in Utah

Rob Seely and Dustin Schulthies weren't chefs. They were tech guys — the kind of people who built systems and solved problems with code. They worked for technology companies and traveled extensively, eating great food in other places, only to come home and find a frustrating lack of fresh, quality options in the fast casual space.

So they did what any reasonable software engineer would do: they built a system. Instead of buying pre-made soups from restaurant suppliers the way industry veterans advised, they engineered a scratch-made kitchen model from the ground up. "Our background in software helped us in creating systems for how we order, prep and use ingredients," Schulthies explained. The result was a model that could deliver genuine house-made soups, freshly cut salads, and handcrafted sandwiches every single day — at fast casual speed and price.

The first Café Zupas opened in Provo in 2004, right in the heart of Utah County. What started as a small soup-and-salad concept quickly revealed that customers wanted more. "Originally, our focus was really strong on soup and salads," Seely said. "But soon after we opened, we realized sandwiches were going to be a big key."

Today, Café Zupas operates 80+ locations across eight states, with over 200 premium ingredients delivered to each kitchen daily. They secured a major investment partnership with KarpReilly and, in 2023, a $55 million financing round to support continued expansion. What hasn't changed is the philosophy: real food, made fresh, served fast. And that strawberry. Always the strawberry.

The brand's tagline — "Nourish the Good Life" — sounds like marketing copy until you actually eat there. Then it feels like a promise being kept.

The Café Zupas Experience: Scratch-Made, Globally Inspired, and Worth Every Bite

Walking into a Café Zupas during the lunch rush is one of the most reassuring fast casual experiences in Utah. The line moves. The food is hot. And nothing on your tray came out of a bag.

Every meal is made fresh but served fast, with over 200 premium ingredients delivered into each store daily. The soups rotate seasonally, which keeps regulars coming back to chase their favorites — and creates a genuinely competitive internal debate about which soup reigns supreme.

The Wisconsin Cauliflower Soup is a phenomenon. This creamy, cheesy, velvet-smooth bowl of comfort has inspired dozens of copycat recipes across food blogs and TikTok. One food blogger described it as having "a smooth satiny texture" and "cheesy flavor" that makes you genuinely sad when you hear your spoon hit the bottom. Another says, "This is my all-time favorite soup at Café Zupas. I am always a little sad when I hear my spoon hit the bottom of the bowl." The cult following is real — seasoned Zupas regulars often order it half-and-half with the tomato basil, a combo so popular it's become an insider move.

The Try 2 Combo is the menu format that turns first-timers into regulars. Pick any two items — half soup, half salad, half sandwich — and suddenly you're not choosing between the Wisconsin cauliflower and the chicken enchilada chili. You're having both. In Utah, the top sandwiches are the Honey Bacon Club and Turkey Bacon Avocado, both built on fresh-baked bread with house-made spreads. The Nuts About Berries salad — raspberries, blueberries, strawberries, blackberries, cinnamon almonds, and raspberry vinaigrette — has been on the menu since day one and remains the bestseller.

The Good Life Bowls are the newest chapter in the Zupas story. Six globally inspired protein bowls — including the Korean Kick Bowl, Golden Curry Bowl, and the high-protein Power Bowl (38g protein) — that position Zupas squarely in the healthy fast casual conversation. These aren't just salads in a different container. They're full meals built around flavor-forward, macro-friendly combinations that feel genuinely modern.

And then there's the chocolate-dipped strawberry. It comes with every meal. It's dipped fresh daily in Belgian chocolate at each location. "It's just a special little thank you to our customers," a Café Zupas spokesperson said. In a category full of loyalty apps and discount codes, Zupas chose a strawberry. It's a small detail that tells the whole story.

Rooted in Utah, Reaching Across Eight States

Café Zupas didn't grow by franchising. Every location is company-owned, which means the quality controls that Seely and Schulthies engineered in that first Provo kitchen are still running in every single store from Salt Lake City to Chicago.

The chain has chosen to list name-brand suppliers such as Cox Honey of Logan, Winder Farms, and Muir Copper Canyon Farms — a transparency that matters in Utah's food scene, where diners increasingly want to know where their ingredients actually come from. This supplier-first mentality keeps the menu honest and the flavors grounded in real ingredients, no shortcuts.

The brand has deep roots in Utah Valley culture, too. Longtime BYU football fans practically consider a pre-game Zupas run a tradition. Families across the Wasatch Front have their standing orders memorized. The alcohol-free, Sunday-closed format (at most locations) aligns naturally with the rhythms of the community it was built in — and that authenticity has carried over as the brand has expanded into new markets.

Team members at Café Zupas can earn "ownership partner" status, and the company has a well-documented culture of taking top performers on international trips. It's the kind of detail that says something about how a company actually operates versus how it talks about itself.

Planning Your Visit to Café Zupas

Locations: Multiple locations throughout the Salt Lake Valley, Utah County, and beyond — including Salt Lake City, Provo, Orem, Murray, Sandy, Draper, Lehi, Ogden, and Logan. Find the nearest kitchen at cafezupas.com.

Hours: Most locations are open Monday–Saturday, 11 AM–9 PM. Closed Sundays.

What to order (customer-verified):

• Wisconsin Cauliflower Soup — the cult classic, especially good as a half-pour with tomato basil
• Try 2 Combo — the smartest way to eat here; mix the Chicken Enchilada Chili with the Nuts About Berries salad
• Turkey Bacon Avocado Sandwich — Utah's top-ordered sandwich for a reason
• Golden Curry Bowl or Korean Kick Bowl — if you haven't tried the Good Life Bowls yet, start here
• The free chocolate-dipped strawberry — obviously

Rewards: Download the Café Zupas app to earn points on every visit. The Good Life Bowls have featured special sweepstakes offers — worth checking before you go.

Gluten-free and dietary options: The menu has multiple gluten-friendly and vegetarian options; staff can walk you through modifications.

Instagram: @cafezupas

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Why Café Zupas Still Matters to Utah's Food Story

Twenty years in, Café Zupas is no longer just a local success story. It's a proof of concept — evidence that the fast casual model doesn't have to mean compromise. That two people with no culinary training, just a love of food and a software engineer's instinct for systems, could build something genuinely good.

Utah's best soup restaurant isn't a chef-driven concept or a Michelin-adjacent project. It's a scratch-made kitchen that figured out how to make a bowl of Wisconsin cauliflower soup so good that people across the internet are still trying to recreate it at home. And it still puts a strawberry on your tray every single time.

That's the whole story, really. They just never stopped trying to do more than you expected.

Find Café Zupas locations and check seasonal menu offerings at cafezupas.com.