Located on the southwest corner of Anderson Mill Road and North Highway 183, Plaza 183 is home to restaurants like Tinos Greek Cafe, Breakfast House, and Reale’s Italian Cafe. Soon, it’ll be adding a brand-new all-you-can-eat soup and salad spot to the mix: Mama Lin’s Soup & Leaves.
If the Soup & Leaves sounds familiar, it should: Mama Lin’s Soup & Leaves is a new restaurant from the family that brought Austin Soupleaf Hot Pot. Located at 6929 Airport Blvd, Soupleaf is popular hot pot restaurant run by Nelson Lin, Nick Lin, and their mother, Jin Lin (the eponymous “Mama Lin”).
“We’re targeting April for an opening,” Nelson Lin told What Now on Monday.
As Lin says, the soup-and-salad buffet is a nostalgic concept from childhood that many will remember and miss, a memory that Mama Lin’s Soup & Leaves will be tapping into, while trying to avoid the pitfalls the business model faced in the past.
“We said, you know what? We have all the ingredients already. Let’s do a soup and salad place, but with Asian fusion. A lot of those old places got dated out; their menus got stale, and they never innovated because they were sort of trapped. We’re bringing it back, and we’ll be leaning on the classics, but we’re also doing it a little differently. That was our pivot.”
The 11,000-square-foot space will feature seating for about 300 people, with a classic buffet setup. Lin says there are a few a-la-carte items in the works, too, but that’s all under wraps for now. Expect to find delicious soups and vegetables crisp with that Lin calls “that Soupleaf freshness.”
Talking to Lin, the excitement for Soupleaf Hot Pot, Mama Lin’s Soup & Leaves, and the future, is palpable.
“With Soupleaf, it’s been a conglomeration of me, my mother, and my brother. We get to put our ideas together and do this restaurant people get excited about. I never thought that would happen.”
You can keep up with Mama Lin’s Soup & Leaves by following @soupandleaves on Instagram.
