Seinfeld Writer Recalls Real-Life "Soup Nazi" Calling Out Jerry Seinfeld After Iconic Episode

Shockingly, he didn't love being called a "Nazi" on national television.

By Russ Burlingame

Not long after the "Soup Nazi" episode of Seinfeld aired, Jerry Seinfeld apparently went back to the Soup Kitchen International, Ali "Al" Yeganeh's restaurant on which the episode was based. As you can probably guess, it didn't go great, and for years, writer and producer Spike Feresten has told the story that Yeganeh kicked Seinfeld out, with an accompanying "no soup for you." Speaking with ComicBook.com in support of Unfrosted, his new movie with Seinfeld, Fereneten added some details and color to the story, giving fans more of a sense for how the confrontation went down all those years ago.

It started when we asked whether he was ever hesitant to order soup at a restaurant after that. Ferensten said no -- because who ever knows what the Seinfeld writers look like? -- but that he was hesitant to return to the scene of the crime, so to speak.

"Nobody knows it's me who wrote it," Ferensten said. "It made me hesitant to ever go back there, just in case someone said, 'That's the one who wrote it,' because the real guy in New York was not happy that we wrote that episode."

He recalled the Jerry Seinfeld encounter, noting that it ended up on the front page of the New York Post the next day:  

"You know the story, right? The next summer I brought Jerry back there, and he said, 'Hey, I'd like to order soup,' and [Yeganeh] said, 'Get the F out of here,' and threw him off the line," Ferensten explained. "[Jerry] goes, 'What's the problem? I made you famous,' and he said, 'You didn't make me famous -- The Today Show made me famous.' He said, 'Well, I want soup,' and then he literally said a real version of 'no soup for you' with a lot of expletives -- no effing soup for you, get out of here.'"

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Yeganeh's original Soup Kitchen location closed in 2004, as he did his best to expand. He reopened the original location in 2010 under the name "the Original Soup Man," which was also the name of a number of franchises he managed. The company still exists, although Yeganeh isn't part of day-to-day operations anymore. In 2017, one of his executives was arrested for financial crimes, forcing the company into bankruptcy, although it emerged in 2018 with new management and seems to have weathered the crisis. Since 2005, The Original Soup Man has also sold heat-and-serve soups in grocery stores, and at one point even licensed the likeness of the actor who played the Soup Nazi.

Unfrosted debuts on Netflix on May 3.

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