The Week the Wind Changes
There is a specific week in Bay Ridge when the waterfront stops being pleasant and starts being weather. The wind comes off the Narrows with nothing to stop it, the promenade empties out by four in the afternoon, and the people who were ordering iced coffee in September walk in asking for something hot without quite knowing what. That week usually lands in October.
This is the week soup becomes the right answer. Not as a side, not as a hedge against a bigger order, but as the actual thing you came in for. We keep two on the board, both of them the versions people already know, and the useful part of this guide is not what they are. It is how to order them so that you end up with the lunch you wanted.
What Is On the Board
Our soup section is short on purpose. Two options, both hot, both available in a smaller and a larger size. A short list means what is in the pot moves and what you get is what you expected, which matters more with soup than with almost anything else a kitchen makes.
Chicken Noodle
Chicken noodle is the one people order when they are cold, when they are getting over something, or when they do not want to make a decision. It is the least adventurous thing on this page and that is the entire point of it. It is also the better choice if you are ordering for someone else and do not know what they like, because almost nobody dislikes it and it does not fight with whatever else is on the tray.
Creamy Tomato
Creamy tomato is the richer of the two and the one with an obvious partner, which we will get to. It is the soup that reads as a meal on its own rather than as a starter, and it is the one most likely to be enough food by itself if you order the larger size. If you are deciding between the two on a genuinely cold day and you want the lunch that will hold you until dinner, this is it.
A sandwich plus a large soup is more lunch than most people finish. The size question is the one worth thinking about.
Small or Large: The Decision Nobody Makes Carefully
Both soups come in two sizes, and most people pick by appetite when they should be picking by role. Here is the way to think about it.
- Smaller size when the soup is a companion to something else. Next to a sandwich, a wrap or a salad, the smaller portion is the one that leaves you finished rather than defeated.
- Larger size when the soup is the meal, when you are splitting it with someone, or when you are carrying it somewhere before you eat it.
That last case is the one worth underlining. A larger volume of hot liquid holds its temperature substantially longer than a small one, so if the soup has a walk ahead of it or a delivery trip, the bigger size is not greed, it is physics. This is the single most practical thing in this article.
The Grilled Cheese Question
Creamy tomato and grilled cheese is one of the few food pairings that is genuinely as good as its reputation, and it is the order we see most once the temperature drops. Ours is built with up to five cheeses, with bacon or extra cheese available on top, which means you can calibrate it from a straightforward lunch to something considerably more serious. Against a creamy tomato, the straightforward version is usually the better call. The soup is already rich and the sandwich does not need to compete with it.
Chicken noodle wants the opposite treatment. It is a lean, clear soup, and it pairs best with something simple that gives you bread and nothing complicated. If you want the broader picture of the lunch menu, the Bay Ridge lunch guide covers the rest of what sits next to the soup section, and the lunch page has the full lineup.
Soup With a Salad or a Wrap
The other direction is cooler and lighter. A hot soup against a cold, crisp plate is a better contrast than two hot things on the same tray, and it is the order to make if you want lunch to not sit on you for the rest of the afternoon. A Caesar salad wrap is the easy version. Any of our salads, with grilled or crispy chicken added if you want it to carry more weight, is the other.
If that is the direction you lean generally, the salads guide and the healthy eating guide are both worth a read. Soup plus a half-portion of something green is an unglamorous order that almost always turns out to be the right one.
Something Hot at 10 Bay Ridge Ave
Chicken noodle and creamy tomato, two sizes, alongside the La Colombe coffee and Rishi tea. Open from 6 AM on weekdays and 7 AM on weekends. Order ahead for pickup or have it delivered.
Taking Soup Out Into October
Soup is the rare hot item that travels well. It is sealed, it is already liquid, and there is nothing in it to go soggy between our counter and wherever you are going, which is more than can be said for most things that come out of a kitchen hot. That makes it a genuinely good takeout order rather than a compromise one.
Two notes if it is going outside. Carry it level and carry it in the bag it came in rather than loose in a backpack. And if the plan involves the promenade, eat it before the walk rather than after, because the Shore Road waterfront in October is a wonderful place to walk and a poor place to manage a container. Our waterfront walk guide and the rainy day guide both cover the cafe-then-outside sequencing in more detail.
For delivery, pickup and delivery both run through GetSauce, and the full picture of how that works in this neighborhood is in the Bay Ridge delivery guide.
Soup for an Office or a Group
Cold-weather group lunches have a problem that warm-weather ones do not: a tray of cold sandwiches reads as generous in June and as thin in November. Adding soup to a group order solves it, and it covers the people at the table who did not want another sandwich in the first place.
Group ordering runs through our catering page, and the practical move is to call (718) 777-6969 with your headcount and your timing rather than guessing at quantities. We will tell you what makes sense and when the order needs to be in. If the group lunch in question is a recurring one, the office breakfast guide and the office catering page cover the other half of that week.
What to Drink With It
Soup is one of the few lunches where coffee is not automatically the right drink, because a hot soup and a hot coffee at the same time is a lot of heat at once. A La Colombe drip afterward is better than alongside. If you want something warm with the meal rather than after it, the Rishi tea side of the counter is the more comfortable fit, and the tea guide walks through it. For the seasonal end of the drink list, the fall drinks guide and the warm drinks that are not coffee are the two to read.
Where to Find Us
Pier 69 Market is at 10 Bay Ridge Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11220, open Monday through Friday from 6 AM to 9 PM and Saturday and Sunday from 7 AM to 9 PM. The phone is (718) 777-6969, and pickup and delivery both run through GetSauce. We are a waterfront cafe a few minutes from Owl's Head Park, the Shore Road promenade and the NYC Ferry landing, serving La Colombe coffee and Rishi tea. The current soups and everything else are on the menu, directions and hours are on the visit page, and anything else is on the FAQ or a phone call away.
