LAST YEAR, ON the first Wednesday of August, Linda McKenzie went to church early and cooked up two big pots of soup.
At noon, the doors of the parish hall opened, and McKenzie waited for her first guests. And waited. And waited.
The grand total who showed up: three.
Last Wednesday, McKenzie went to church and cooked two large pots of soup.
By 11:30 a.m., people were gathering at the door.
By 12:30 p.m., all the tables were occupied, the first pot of soup was gone, and the second was going fast.
“People eat till they are full,” McKenzie said. “Some people have five or six bowls.”
McKenzie, a retired school principal, is the chef for Just Soup, a free lunch offered to anyone who comes through the door of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church parish hall.
Held every Wednesday, Just Soup has fed more than 1,500 people since it opened its doors one year ago.
“We have folks come from every corner of the community,” McKenzie said.
No questions, forms
There are no questions, no forms, no standing in line. Instead, guests are seated at tables set with white cloths and dotted with plates of butter for the Pane D’Amore bread.
Volunteers serve bowls of soup to the guests, who help themselves to fresh fruit, pitchers of lemonade and carafes of coffee. A dessert table offers chocolate-chip cookies and bars.
Candace Hurbert of Candice’s Cookies donates treats every week, as does an anonymous baker whom McKenzie calls the cookie fairy.
“Every Wednesday morning when I get here, there is a cardboard box on top of the fridge,” she said. “We have no idea who it is.”
She can tell when people arrive who haven’t eaten for a while: They come early.
When the emergency shelter was open last winter, attendance increased quite a bit, McKenzie said, prompting her to open at 11:30 a.m.
Other regulars are people who live in the neighborhood or attend St. Paul’s Wednesday morning service or stop by on their lunch break.
A sign board draws people passing through. In July, two women cyclists, one from Berlin and one American, stopped for lunch, McKenzie said.
“I was downtown and heard people talking about Just Soup on Water Street,” she said.
According to one regular, the soup is so good because Linda uses the best ingredients.
There’s always a vegetarian option, using produce from the church garden or from parishioners who bring in their surplus.
In addition to McKenzie’s speciality, chicken tortilla, she also is known for her split pea soup and the Senate (bean) soup.
“I also like the chili that Joe makes,” he said, referring to Joe Nuber, a guest chef.
Another regular said he heard about Just Soup from a friend who heard it through the grapevine.
Last week, he had the chicken tortilla, then a bowl of vegetable. He doesn’t have a favorite kind, he said; it’s all delicious.
“Whichever soup they put in front of me is the best soup,” he said. “It’s just that good.”
In all, 150 volunteers have been involved in some part of the soup production, including people who don’t go to St. Paul’s.
In June, a group of home-schooled students donated vegetables and waited tables, then sat down and ate with the guests.
Children from Vacation Bible School also served as wait staff.
Last week, Sally Gooding and Beth Cahape ladled and served soup, along with Anita Robb from Ohio, who was house-sitting in Port Townsend, and Marisa Moonen, 13, from Tucson, Ariz., whose family was visiting friends in town.
By 1:30 p.m., most of the rush was over, and people were sitting around talking.
“Everyone is on an even keel,” McKenzie said.
Budget cuts
McKenzie and Karen Pierce, deacon of St. Paul’s, recently visited the Port Townsend Community Center, where budget cuts have affected senior meals, to invite people to the soup lunch.
They also expanded it into clothing last fall after a woman needed a sweater, and McKenzie went home and got her one.
Seeing a need, Pierce put the call out for clothing and found her office filled with donations.
“It’s been incredible,” Pierce said, of the response from the church and the community.
Today, McKenzie and the volunteers are celebrating the first anniversary of Just Soup by not cooking soup at all; they are serving hamburgers and hot dogs instead. Then it will be back to usual.
“It’s fun for me,” McKenzie said. “I’ve always wanted to have a restaurant. Now I have one once a week.”
Just Soup is served Wednesdays from 11:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church parish hall, uptown on the corner of Jefferson and Tyler streets. For more information, visit www.stpaulspt.org or phone 360-385-0770.
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Jennifer Jackson writes about Port Townsend and Jefferson County every Wednesday. To contact her with items for this column, phone 360-379-5688 or email jjackson@olypen.com.
