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WCCO Viewers' Choice For Best Chicken Soup In Minnesota

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- A hot and steamy bowl of chicken soup is one of the most pervasive things that we eat.

Having roots in almost every culture, it's difficult to pinpoint its exact origin.

Pop culture and almost everyone's grandmother insist on chicken soup's healing qualities, which have even been supported by scientific studies to some extent.

But whether you're trying to get back on your feet, or you just need something warm on a blustery day, there's a place in St. Paul that has a cure for what ails you -- Cecil's Deli.

Owner David Leventhal has been at Cecil's for 55 years, and he has served a lot of bowls of chicken soup.

Cecils Best Chicken Soup
(credit: CBS)

"It's Jewish penicillin!" Leventhal said. "Who ever heard of a delicatessen without chicken soup?"

Good point, but why is the soup so darn good?

"We use fresh chickens, the vegetables are fresh, obviously, and it's homemade, "he said. "A lot of places buy it already prepared, but we don't."

It's pretty much the same recipe that Cecil and Faye Glickman used when the place first opened in 1949. You see, when it comes to the food at Cecil's, change is something best left on the table at the end of a meal.

"We still get people who come back and they'll come up to me and say, 'What's new on the menu?' And I'll say, 'Nothing,'" Leventhal said. "You like the chicken soup? It hasn't changed in 50 years."

And when you taste it, you'll know why.

"When I want to eat chicken soup, I always come to Cecil's," said a customer.

And so, as soup season gets into full swing, it's nice to know the good folks at Cecil's have our backs.

"They want a good chicken soup, we got it," Leventhal said. "That's why they come back."

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