When I think of a soup/cereal bowl, I think of something that holds about 2 cups, max. These bowls hold a little over 4 cups. Who wants anywhere near that much soup or cereal? Not I. I think they'd probably work fine as side-dish serving pieces, But that's not what I needed when I ordered these. I've asked Amazon before to please list volume on kitchenware...it's always such a gamble when one doesn't have that bit of info available when making an online buy...but they say they can only give the info that manufacturers provide. Tracy Porter, are you listening?