The Popular Florida Restaurant Where A Piping Hot Bowl Of Soup Is Only $0.18

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We typically associate soup with the colder months, but who's to say that you can't eat a hot, nourishing bowl of soup at any time of year? In fact, somewhat counterintuitively, eating hot soup during a heatwave can even cool you down. If you happen to live near Destin, Florida (a seaside town on the Florida Panhandle), you can head on over to McGuire's Irish Pub where you can enjoy a bowl of delicious soup for a mere $0.18. There are a couple of asterisks, but fewer than you might think.

The first one is that there's only one soup on the menu that's sold at that price. The soup in question is McGuire's take on Senate Bean Soup, that perennial Capitol Hill favorite. It was first served by McGuire in 1977 at the same price it's sold at now and it remains untouched by inflation even as the soup served to the U.S. Senate increased to $7. If you're wondering how the pub stays in business, well, here's where the other asterisk comes in: it's only $0.18 if it's ordered as part of a meal. Ordered on its own, it comes in at $18. Still, if you're looking for a little something extra to satiate yourself at dinner, it's a terrific bargain.

If you're not in Destin (or Pensacola, where McGuire's has another location) and you want to try the famous soup, you're in luck. McGuire's has actually published its recipe to its Facebook page, free of charge. Plenty of restauranteurs would sooner part with a kidney than their prized recipes, but clearly McGuire's isn't so precious about its food. (It even has a cookbook called "McGuire's Irish Pub Cookbook" with recipes ranging from oyster stew to hash burgers.) As for the Senate bean soup recipe, the pub's version is a fairly standard one made with dried navy beans, ham bones, and assorted vegetables. If you have the patience to see it through (it takes eleven hours of cook time) you'll be richly rewarded.

If you are in Destin or Pensacola, what should you order to pair with your Senate bean soup? Being a restaurant located near the water in Florida, it stands to reason that McGuire's would offer plenty of tasty seafood, from ale-battered shrimp fried in peanut oil to chargrilled tuna steak. It also makes good on the Irish part of its name by selling hearty dishes like lamb stew and steak and mushroom pie as well as steaks ranging from New York Strip to Prime Rib, which are certified USDA Prime (the highest rating on the USDA beef scale, just ahead of Choice), and a multitude of burgers.