Varsity Inn: Addictive Soup, Engaging Company and Good Prices Equal Success

Can we talk soup? baked Jersey tomato soup is seriously delicious and, apparently, addictive.

It drew Ginni and Frank Szczepanski to the Eighth Street eatery on a recent afternoon from their home in Marmora.

“I had a hankering,” said Ginni, retired recently after 37 years teaching eighth-grade math here in town.

After sampling a cup of the stuff, we can totally understand why they made the trip.

“It's a thick tomato soup with croutons and melted provolone and cheddar cheese on top,” longtime server Shannan Harris explained. “It's my favorite, too.”

Claire Bradley's dining companion described her as a “tomato soup freak” and meant it in the nicest way.

“Once you have it, you have to have it again,” Bradley admitted. But there's another reason she frequents the Varsity Inn. “Everybody's so nice.”

“'Cuz it's family,” chimed in John Montigney from the neighboring table. He should know, as he's been hitting the Varsity a couple times a month since the 1980s–walking by other eateries to get here.

Friendly staff is key to the restaurant's longevity, owner Keith Symonds said. He points to the Harris family–Shannan, 27, is the oldest of nine siblings who grew up in the neighborhood. All the Harrises have worked, still work or will work at the Varsity. Shannan started when she was 16. Sister Sarah is head waitress.

“I can't get rid of  'em,” Symonds joked. “The youngest is 14, and she just got her working papers.”

The college banners that decorate the Varsity's interior represent the staff's schools–including Penn State, Stockton, Ursinus, The College of New Jersey (Shannan's alma mater) and the University of Delaware, where Symonds went.

Symonds and his wife, Dawn, took over running the Varsity in 2001 and gave it a face-lift in 2006 that included brightening up the dining room and adding front windows that open up to the sidewalk, creating a two-sided counter with 20 stools. Summertime, these are the most popular seats. There's also a comfy banquette along one wall and a nice-size flat-screen TV.

Symonds said his father, George, “snookered” his mother, Barbara, into buying the restaurant. Built in 1905, it had seen many uses over the decades—Methodist retreat, one-room schoolhouse, restaurant, and, in the 1960s, coffee house where patrons hung out and listened to Bob Dylan and Joan Baez. His parents and aunt and uncle, Bill and Helen, opened the Varsity in April 1970.

“It's the same formula my father started out with: We have really good food and really good prices—and the best staff in the world,” Symonds said. “And it's a very clean restaurant.”

Plus, there's a good chance you'll run into someone you know, said Brian Edwards, of Beesleys Point, a sales associate with Ocean City Realty.

"I always get the creamed chipped beef—old school," Edwards said.

He chatted real estate and travel with Ron Shubert, who lives in Ocean City and Medford, and walks to the Varsity from his house less than a block away.

Symonds was busy cooking on a recent day, but took a few minutes to talk about the eatery with the trademark black and white awning.

“I'm a lousy speaker, but I'm still a pretty good cook,” Symonds said, selling himself short in the conversation department. But he was telling the truth in the cooking department.

Breakfast favorites include cinnamon-crunch French toast—four slices of thick and crispy French toast dusted in cinnamon crunch cereal, topped with caramel syrup and powdered sugar, with bacon or sausage for $9.99. There are some 20 different kinds of three-egg omelets, including the Jersey—pork roll, grilled onions and cream cheese for $7.50.

“My aunt taught me how to make omelets, my father pancakes and French toast and my mom soups,” he said. “The baked tomato is my recipe, but I learned from great people.”

Lunchtime, there are salads, soups, sandwiches and several different kinds of burgers, including a recent special—the Varsity ultimate cheeseburger melt, a flame-fired burger on grilled beefsteak rye, with Russian dressing, carmelized onions and Swiss cheese, topped with a tower of onion rings and with a side of French fries ($7.99). Now that's a meal.

Weekdays, a “We Love Our Locals” menu offers no-frills breakfasts, hot lunches and cold sandwiches for $5, a deal that's hard to beat.

No time to sit for lunch? Call in a take-out order–even soups are sold to go, in pints ($4.50 or $5) and quarts ($7 and $7.50).

Varsity Inn

WHERE: 605 8^th Street

WHEN: 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. every day

GET IN TOUCH: Call 609-399-1500, find it on Facebook

OTHER STUFF TO KNOW: Visa, MasterCard accepted. Street parking. Take-out.