After a motorcycle accident, good soup ends » Urban Milwaukee

Samantha Zielinski opened Good Soup last November, serving bowls of seasonal soup — complete with thick slices of homemade sourdough — from a small kitchen in the West View neighborhood.

Throughout its nine months in business, the restaurant, 3135 S. 92nd St., was especially mindful of third-shift workers, working late nights and early mornings to accommodate nurses and other healthcare workers.

Ironically, Zielinski will soon be shutting down Good Soup in order to take care of her fiancé and co-owner, Travis Reynolds, while recovering from a serious motorcycle accident.

The restaurant will sell the last of its inventory on Saturday, September 2 and Sunday, September 3 from noon to 6 p.m. The restaurant offers 16-ounce and 32-ounce containers of cold soup and full loaves of sourdough to go.

Before reopening on Friday, the restaurant was temporarily closed for the entire month of August, after Reynolds and his brother, SKILLSsuffered life-threatening injuries in a serious accident.

According to Zielinski, a woman attempted to turn left in front of the men riding motorcycles and collided with them. In light of the accident, she urged people to speak with elderly relatives about the possibility of quitting driving, in the hope of preventing future incidents.

“As we get older, we have to accept responsibility and new responsibilities,” she said. “This accident could have been avoided if the elderly person who hit her had been accompanied by a family member where she needed to go.”

After Zielinski announced the upcoming closure, customers flocked to the restaurant in record numbers on Friday afternoon. Within hours, several soups were already sold out.

The remaining options include Cheeseburger Soup (with or without bacon), Cheddar Broccoli, Chicken Wild Rice, Mushroom Barley, Dill Pickle Soup (with or without bacon), Chicken Tortilla and West African groundnut stew.

Zielinski said she hopes to eventually reopen the restaurant, even if it comes back in a different location or format. “We don’t know exactly where we’ll be or when you’ll hear from us next, but we’ll be back. Eventually,” Zielinski wrote in a social media post.

In her heartfelt post, Zielinski also thanked Good Soup’s regular customers, who she said have “made every difficult day a little easier.”

“This whole experience has been a dream come true,” she added.

Family members organized a fundraiser to help the brothers pay for their medical bills and living expenses throughout their recovery. By Friday afternoon, a GoFundMe had raised $29,423 towards a goal of $100,000. Donations can be made online.

Future company updates will be posted on the Good Soup Facebook page.