Retreat, Yellowbelly owners launch Soupboi, a delivery-only concept

Retreat Gastropub and Yellowbelly owners Tim Wiggins and Travis Howard aim to warm up winter lunches with Soupboi, a “ghost kitchen” operating inside Yellowbelly. The delivery-only concept is only available through Doordash.

“It’s a cool way for us during the day to take the people we already have there and without increasing staff at all, we are able to push out a whole different menu and do something that doesn’t have to fit inside the Yellowbelly brand or the Retreat brand, it’s its own thing,” Wiggins said.

In the past few years, Wiggins said ghost kitchens have become popular trends in places like Chicago, New York and Silicon Valley – places with heavy delivery circuits.

Currently, the menu offers four different vegan soups: cauliflower red curry, tortilla soup, coconut and ginger soup and miso mushroom soup for $12 (16 ounces) or $21 (32 ounces).

Wiggins said Soupboi was inspired by the team inside Yellowbelly’s kitchen, executive chef Ben Tulin and sous chefs Amelia White and Michael Wise.

Wiggins said the soup-only concept came about after recognizing that Retreat and Yellowbelly fare was not ideal for takeout.

“[Ben] was like, ‘The only things that gets better and the only thing that you can heat up and it will be the same is soup,’” he said. “That was the ‘a-ha’ moment of like, ‘This is the only thing that I would order to-go because I can microwave it for 30 seconds and it tastes exactly the same.’”

Soupboi is slated to remain open through March, but Wiggins said they’re discussing the possibility of keeping it open longer. The kitchen operates from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday through Friday via Doordash and may extend to weekend hours in the future.

Brenna Sullivan is an editorial intern at Sauce Magazine.