Soup restaurant chain Hale and Hearty had to deal with a hot and steaming bucket of something yesterday, but it wasn't broccoli cheddar. In a bizarre email sent to customers Tuesday morning, the chain announced the 2008 opening of a "new" location, then shared this saucy detail: "As an added bonus: Mary- you know the cunt from 47th street- will serve you personally in any manner you choose. so cum one and all to our new location at 464 West Mount Pleasant Avenue, Livingston, NJ." Gawker jumped on the snafu, noting that the chain soon sent out an apology to its customers. But how did this happen? Rogue employee? Placeholder copy that never got caught? No, it was apparently just old-fashioned email hacking. Hale and Hearty CEO Simon Jacobs emails us this (profanity-free) statement: "From our preliminary investigation, it appears that someone obtained the username and PW for our daily email system at one specific H&H location (47th and Madison) and modified an old email to make it obscene and then sent it to that store's email subscriber list. We have changed the password and believe that this will ensure this does not happen again." So, in summary, if you've been putting off changing your corporate passwords, now might be the right moment. Otherwise, it's just a matter of time before that Post-it note with your login info ends up in the hands of someone with an ax to grind about some poor woman on 47th Street.

Photo: pamlau.com.