Edinburgh soup café owner ‘gutted’ to announce closure after 12 years but said ‘it’s been an absolute blast’

Union of Genuis soup café on Forrest Road has announced it will close its doors

A top-rated Edinburgh café has announced it will close its doors after 12 years of trading in the city centre.

The Union of Genius soup café on Forrest Road opened in 2011, serving an ever-changing menu of nourishing soups that were well received by visitors and their loyal regulars. But a combination of a change in consumer behaviour owing to the pandemic and rising costs has forced owner, Elaine Mason, to make the difficult decision to close up shop.

Elaine said: “It looked as if we were going to make a recovery and we would be able to keep the business going, but the cost of living increases last year absolutely crippled us. The movement of people is different now after the pandemic, because more people are hybrid working and there is no longer the same footfall in town.

Union of Genuis soup café on Forrest Road has announced it will close its doors in the near future. Owner, Elaine Mason said: " I’m gutted because we’ve been in business for 12 years and it’s been an absolute blast." Photo: Lisa Ferguson

“And the rise in the cost of living meant that people no longer had as much money to spend. We found that our café never got as busy as it was in 2019. We were almost a third down to where we were a few years ago because our costs have at least doubled and it just wasn’t sustainable.”

Two years after opening the Forrest Road business, The Union of Genius expanded into Leith, opening a production kitchen in 2013 where they supplied soups to more than 30 cafés around the capital. But due to rising costs, many cafés they supplied to ‘were in the same boat’ and buying less. Elaine and her husband Bruce, will also be selling their well-known food truck ‘Dumbo’ - a handsome 1974 Citroën H-Type van situated in George Square which turned 50 this year.

Elaine said: “We’re in the middle of planning the closure, the café and van are up for sale and I am in talks with someone who will possibly take over our kitchen. I’m gutted because we’ve been in business for 12 years and it’s been an absolute blast - Edinburgh just took to what we were doing. I’ve had so many people email in asking for recipes over the years and sent recipes to people all over the world - the whole thing has been amazing.”

After opening the wholesale Kitchen in Leith, Union of Genius partnered up with the Bethany Christian Trust and the Edinburgh City Mission, donating 150 litres of soup every month to the charity’s Care Van that supplies meals and hot drinks to people in need. Elaine said the end of the 10-year partnership with the local charities ‘has been the hardest thing for me.’

The Edinburgh business owner said the idea to open a soup café first entered her mind in the late 1990s whilst working in Manchester. The ‘life-long soup lover’ said: “I had this idea of having a café that only made soup, with different types everyday, where everything was handmade and came with flavoured bread. The idea stayed with me and in 2010 I thought I can make this happen - and it worked for a while.”

After being voted Best Soup in Scotland by the Good Soup Guide in 2012, the soup café developed a loyal following and close relationship with local businesses over the years.

Elaine said Forrest Road has been a brilliant street to trade on and there is ‘always something going on.’ She added: “There are people we have fed since we opened - it’s honestly been amazing. I’ve been humbled by the amount of loyalty people have given us. It just has been fantastic.”