This man loves Tanya’s Soup Kitchen so much, he flies food across the country every month
He lives in Boston, where presumably, one would be able to find plenty of good soup.
But Mika Pyyhkala, an employee of Envision who travels to Wichita once a month for work, says the chowders he encounters at home just don’t measure up to the delights he finds at Tanya’s Soup Kitchen — the restaurant at 1725 E. Douglas that he discovered while poking around online a couple of years ago.
So Pyyhkala has found a way to keep Tanya’s soup in his life, even when his life is in Boston.
Methodical by nature, Pyyhkala has painstakingly developed a system that allows him to take a month’s supply of the restaurant’s soup home with him on the airplane each time he visits.
He’s been doing it since 2018, and now, he has his method down to a science. Friends in Boston whom he’s deemed worthy to sample the soup have gotten hooked on it, too, and now ask him to bring back their favorites when he visits.
Pyyhkala works as the director of digital accessibility for Envision, which provides services and support for people who are visually impaired. He used to come to Wichita for work once a week, and that’s when he discovered Tanya’s Soup Kitchen.
His favorite soup there is the Friday special — the tomato curry. Gazpacho and gumbo also are on his list of favorites, but he’ll try anything.
When he’s in town, he often dines in at least twice, gathering up 16-ounce containers of soup to-go as well. When it’s time to fly home, he’ll take back between six and 15 containers on the plane.
Pyyhkala was last in town this week, and on Wednesday, he demonstrated his well-rehearsed and highly involved packing method.
He’d picked up two containers of his favorite tomato curry on Friday and had frozen them in the office freezer. Since then, he’d acquired containers of lentil soup as well as etouffee, and on his way to the airport that day, Pyyhkala said, he planned to swing by a final time to pick up a couple of containers of a chilled Israeli spicy watermelon soup.
Pyyhkala said that through trial and error, he discovered that a cardboard, suitcase-shaped luggage box made by U-Haul was the best vessel in which to transport his soup treasures. He can fit about 16 containers maximum into a separate box, which he then places inside the luggage box.
He’s also learned the hard way that the containers really need to be slid into seal-able plastic bags before they go in the box, just in case there’s a leak.
He watched YouTube videos until he settled on the best ice packs for the job, which are made by Cooler Shock and Pyyhkala is certain could keep the soup cold for up to two days should the worst happen and his soup box, which he always checks onto the plane, gets lost.
But he also has come up with safeguards in case of the worst. Pyyhkala attaches a Bluetooth Tile device to the soup box so that he always knows exactly where it is. And he also recently purchased a Bluetooth thermometer, which he places in the box so he can keep track of the temperature inside.
Part of the thrill, he admits, is figuring out how to get the soup home safely.
“I like the challenge and problem-solving aspect of it and testing out different products, whatever they be, from boxes to thermometers.”
Kelly Rae Leffel, who owns Tanya’s Soup Kitchen, said she knows Pyyhkala and is flattered by his dedication to her restaurant.
When she first became aware of his bulk purchasing habits, she assumed he was just taking lunch back to the office. She was surprised to learn that he was taking it halfway across the country.
And soup isn’t the only thing he takes home. When she offers special dishes like bread pudding or mac and cheese to-go, he buys those too, she said.
“I love that guy,” she said. “When he shows up, he lightens and brightens all of our days. I just find so much joy in seeing him.”
This story was originally published August 27, 2020 at 11:19 AM.
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