Edible Underground, a prepared meal delivery service based in Frenchtown, is a long way from its beginnings as a soup club.
But just like the circa-2017 soup club, it’s still cooking up comfort eats.
Its recipe for success? Besides the home cooking, its founder Jennifer Hason’s playful personality.
“Big… sexy… delectable meals,” is what Edible Underground focuses on, according to its website, which calls Hason the “food pimp,” Andrea Henderson the “queen chef/goddess,” and Brigid Cornelius the “kitchen fairy/yum genie.”
Entrees are labeled as “din-din” and desserts are labeled as “yummies.”
Each week, the three-year-old business offers eight to 11 rotating main meals, as well as an array of soups, snacks, sides and desserts. Customers place their order by Wednesdays at 8 a.m. for Thursday delivery. The food arrives in insulated bags surrounded by ice packs.
Customers also can pick up their order in Frenchtown.
Entrees include chicken pot pie, chili, cranberry and onion chicken, meatloaf, chicken and dumplings, and spanakopita. Vegan and vegetarian meals also are available. For a single portion, entrees range from $15 to $19.
You won’t find a delicate salad or a diet dish on the menu here.
“We do comfort food from all over the world,” Hason said. “We call it ‘grandma food.’ A chef was once trying to insult me and he told me that I cook like a grandma, and I said, ‘That’s my identity.’ “
Hason worked as a clothing designer, an adjunct professor at Parsons School of Design and The Art Institute of New York City, and a bakery owner. But when her bakery in Frenchtown, Eat Cake, closed in 2012, she took a job as an office manager at an international trading company.
Five years later, she was feeling restless. She decided to get back to the kitchen.
“I asked my friends on Facebook, ‘Does anyone want soup? I’m going to start making soup,’ ” Hason recalled. She started selling soup out of her father’s Frenchtown home to a few friends. That first week, four people showed up to buy a quart of soup. Six weeks later, 60 people showed up.
Hason called it “Soup Club,” and people could only order soup if they were referred by a current “member.”
“It had a speakeasy vibe to it,” Hason said. “All of these people were becoming a community because they would see each other at soup pickup each week.”
The size of the club encouraged Hason to make what was once a side gig into a LLC in 2018. The name Edible Underground is a nod to its secretive, referral-only beginnings.
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Then Hason started hearing from customers who also were receiving meal kits from another company that provided ingredients to make meals.
“People were like, ‘Can’t you just cook for us? We have these things, but we still have to cook them and we just want to heat something up,’ ” Hason said.
So she did. The list of offerings grew from soup, pot pie and desserts to a full menu of entrees.
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Delivery is available to New Jersey, as well as parts of Pennsylvania and the surrounding area.
“When I started, people were calling and texting me to place their orders – it was a mess,” Hason said. “Now, everything just goes through our website and it’s fantastic.”
Order: edibleunderground.com; 908-531-8010
Jenna Intersimone has been a staff member at the USA Today Network New Jersey since 2014, after becoming a blogger-turned-reporter following the creation of her award-winning travel blog. To get unlimited access to her stories about food, drink and fun, please subscribe or activate your digital account today. Contact: JIntersimone@Gannett.com or @JIntersimone.
