Well, well, well, meine kleine Tyrannjugend, we've come to the end of our seventh and final season of Sandwich Bully, a sandwich blog that I was cajoled into writing on Facebook by Kafe Nasty at the bar.
We've enjoyed more food than we disliked, we've had some weird service encounters, we made sure we tipped, we were stymied when the option for tipping wasn't presented, and only once did we nearly shit ourselves in a paddle boat. But most often, we found ourselves cruising the skyway looking to satisfy our weirdo man-preggers cravings every Monday through Friday, around one pm, because that's when lunch is.
And then there was this little thing that happened...
Yeah, there was that. Shut a lot of places down. Oh, and then there was...
Yeah, the event that turned Minneapolis into a war zone due to a combination of a police department left unchecked, out of town hooligans, a pussy-boy-mayor, and a governor who unleashed the National Guard on every corner to hassle the homeless folks.
A lot of places shut down. And I don't want to make the whirlwind of lives lost about businesses shuttering. One of my old neighbors died from a rubber bullet to the head, I could not give less of a shit about the white lady who complained on the news about how the windows got smashed out of her Zappos store. (I really hated the white lady who complained on the news about how the windows got smashed out of her Zappos store.)
But, still, I'm just some doof noodle who writes about sandwiches and that's what you come here for, sandwiches, if you're not here to read my off-color nine-eleven jokes, my flagrant overuse of obscenities and vulgarities, the (I like to think) wide-ranging horror movie and nineties music references, and all those times I talked about using a stainless steel Moroccan wiggler before I actually got one because I'm a poser. But most of it's sandwiches. And some of those sandwiches can't be gotten anymore.
So, in this last entry, let's play catch up with all those skyway lunch spots that we've visited before. It's like when Growing Pains went off the air and their finale was a clip show. We'll begin our journey at the southern end of the leg of the skyway I would traverse and work northward, closer to where I work. Why? Because, spoiler alert, the southern end is a bummer and the northern end is all fucking happy sunshine rainbow cum times. Much like sex: It starts out all like, "Bummer," but always ends with happy sunshine rainbow cum.
On the titties.
Or the neck.
That shit's kind of hot.
ANYhoo...
HOT INDIAN FOODS
Reviewed: 23 May 2019
Editor's pick:
But what stands out are the russet and sweet potato frites - so, yes, I had a burrito with a side of fries, it is possible - that, I shit you not, taste exactly like Rally's fries, so you know I'm a fan. And you know what they give you to dip 'em in? Not catsup, no. A pickled chutney aioli. So, again, tangy, creamy, spicy, yada yada yada.
Current Status: Closed-ish?
Remarks:
I've been taking half-days on Fridays for almost two years now, since I accumulated seven weeks vacation time (and in two years, I've used four weeks' vacation time). Every once in a while, I'll stop off at Ginelli's on my way home for a slice of pizza. Every time I check next door to see if Hot Indian Foods has reopened and, while the store front is still up, it's still closed. They have a location at the Midtown Global Market and a food truck so it's not like they went completely out of business but, damn, where am I going to get my chana masala burrito now?
AFRO DELI
Reviewed: 25 May 2019, and sometime between 8-15 May 2021
Editor's pick:
From 25 May 2019:
Back in the nineties, there was this thing that we did in the Midwest because we saw it on TV and it was, in the parlance of the nineties, the bomb. Evaluating it with a good two decades distance, I can vouch that this was some nasty bullshit. See, what you'd do is you'd take a whole block of rubbery-assed Velveeta and cube it up, throw it in a microwave safe dish with a whole jar of salsa and microwave that sucker for a minute and then - here's the thing - you didn't throw it in the trash where it belonged, no. You ate it. On chips. On chips. While you watched the ABC TGIF lineup.
With this motherfucker.
Current status: Open
Remarks:
The Dinkytown location is better than the skyway location. In fact, that excerpt above is from the Dinkytown location. You know what the skyway location review was? Literally two words:
Awful falafel.
What? It sucked. Not going to mince purple prose on a place that makes shitty falafel. Would you want to wax poetic on a place that serves shitty falafel? No. So I talked about the good location here.
VELLE DELI
Reviewed: 9 August 2016, 24 January 2017, 7 May 2018
Editor's pick:
From 7 May 2018:
Anyway, Aunt Mi Sook, now a widow with nowhere to go, lived with my grandfather, a Korean War veteran who spoke no sign language at all. While she lived with him, she made kimchi [sic] the old fashioned way: Put all the cabbage and chilis and seasonings in a jar and bury the fucker in the backyard. At a later date, Aunt Mi Sook would go out to the backyard, dig up this jar of fermented cabbage and chilis, take it into the house, open her up, and chow down. Well, I think she ate it like a normal person. Not like a jar at a time. Grandpa Charlie would complain to my mom all the time about how the stuff stank up the whole house.
Current status: Open - regular hours, full menu
Remarks:
I've been there since everything closed down. It's still the same. The banh mi is still a crap shoot in terms of what's on and off point, the indurrito is still a silly name but what else are you going to call an Mexasian fusion wrap?
Eh, they're alright. The price tag is what deters me most of the time. I wish I could elaborate further on what they're doing but, last I was there, they were doing alright and they were still a few bucks over my price range.
TWIN CITIES BITES
Reviewed: 21 December 2018
Editor's pick:
The tomatoes looked sketch as shit but I was fine.
Current status: Gone
Remarks:
Yeah, it pretty much sucked.
They actually closed before the pandemic, if memory serves.
ED'S PANTRY
Reviewed: 13 June 2019
Editor's pick:
The real cardboard cutout of a bikini babe with eighties Appalachian weathergirl hair that comes to life after the lights of the video store are turned off for the night via possession by an ancient warrior wielding an industrial chainsaw to fight off the tentacled beasts that come crawling through the vortex to the hell dimension to breach our reality and collect the souls of sorority virgins in the New Zealand kiwispolitation flick, Galandra: Wayward Warrior Queen and the Virgins on Sorority Row, released in the UK (and winding up on the Video Nasty list) as Tentacle Soul Suckers, in Germany as Böse Tentakeln aus Jenseits der Galaxien Verlagen nach Jungfräulichem Blut, and in Japan as 触手レイプ！ミュージカル (Shokushu Reipu! Myūjikaru!), was the giardiniera which they didn't use nearly enough of, so this was basically a Muslim chicken club with a couple pickled peppers on it. It really needed more. Otherwise, the flavor is akin to just something you whip together using what you have in the fridge.
Current status: Honey, I don't know but I think that jawn is gone.
Remarks:
You know? I hate to say it but I don't think it will be missed. I don't miss it. I was never compelled to go back, anyway.
WALKIN' DOG
Reviewed: 18 May 2018, 26 May 2020
Editor's pick:
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Status: Open - Regular hours, full menu, new location in same building
Remarks:
Walkin' Dog is one of those places that closed when they were told to and opened as soon as they could. Homie there charges a fair-ish price for what he's selling and, hey, honestly, he's not doing Wienery style dogs. He's fixing franks for a few bucks a pop. I like to hit him up occasionally on my half-day Fridays and get a pair of Vienna Polishes with mustard and onion and eat them outside. I've warmed up to the Vienna Polish after accepting that it's not a kielbasa, speaking of which, Sikora's closed permanent (which we've criminally never addressed here before) so now I can no longer get my beloved biała kielbasa or pączki and that's not even the biggest bitch of them all. You know what my own goddamned mother told me a few weekends back?
I have no Polish heritage.
Last thirty years, I've been operating under the - well, I guess we call it a delusion now, that I was half Irish, then a lot of German, and a little bit of French and a little bit of Polish because that's what my asshole mom told me and now? Nope! Nope! And you know the even bigger bitch of all this? She told me I had neither French or Polish ancestry while I was wearing my "It's not a party until the kielbasa comes out!" t-shirt.
Ma, you got me all fucked up.
So now I'm just some German-Irish dickhead.
Fucksake, everybody's German-Irish.
Fuck.
It was bad enough that I was no longer interesting because I was over forty. Now I'm over forty and I have the Ugg Boots of ancestry.
Jesus Christ, you know what? You go ahead and go back to what you're doing. Just give me your car keys and don't pay any attention to me taking the garden hose out to the garage.
GREEK GRILL & CAFE
Reviewed: 11 February 2019
Editor's pick:
Anyway, I wound up at Greek Grill & Cafe which I've had twice before and I guess I forgot about the food because all I could remember was Greek folk music recordings of ABBA songs on the muzak and that's the kind of thing that makes me happy.
Status: Probably open, I think it might have been open the last time I was at My Burger (we'll get to them in a minute) down the hall.
Remarks:
I hate being a Negative Ned but there's nothing outstanding about GG&C. Nothing terribly wrong with it, either, but nothing I'm going to rave to people about.
ERBERT & GERBERT
PHOTOGRAPHIC EVIDENCE UNAVAILBLE
Reviewed: Desperate End-Of-Winter Slump Post
Editor's pick:
Only thing I don't get is why they scoop the fucking bread out of the fucking sandwich and then wrap up the scooped out fucking bread on top of the fucking sandwich. Jesus Christ, guy, just leave the fucking bread in the fucking sandwich. Why do you have to complicate shit?
Status: Gone
Remarks:
It's just a fancy Jimmy John's where they give their sandwiches dumb names in the hopes that you'll degrade yourself by saying their dumb sandwich names.
MY BURGER
Reviewed: 13 January 2017, 21 November 2018, 8 March 2019, 15 March 2019
Editor's pick:
Status: Open - Regular hours, full menu
Remarks:
Don't worry, they're still as expensive as they always were.
ALLIE'S DELI
Reviewed: 14 March 2017
Editor's pick:
Status: Gone
Remarks:
I've never seen so many people working in any other skyway deli I've been to. it was like a well-oiled machine. The place moved more bodies than a discount mortuary.
As far as the food? I've had much better. The Italian was just pig meat, some kind of cheese, onions, and peppers with Italian dressing.
You've never missed a tomato so much in your life.
BROTHERS
Reviewed: 16 August 2018, 15 March 2021
Editor's pick:
From 16 August 2018:
The guy asks if I want mustard. I say yeah, yellow mustard. He says, "Behind you."
Status: Pretty sure they're still open.
Remarks:
The second time I went there, the same guy asked me if I wanted mustard and I said, sure, yellow mustard. He pointed past me and said, "Behind you."
I love that man like a father.
•••
Here, our journey through the skyway splits in two directions and reconnects later, so, from here, we'll be addressing the splits, labeled west and east. You know, like how Avengers West Coast were different from the Avengers. Thanks to the MCU, you know who the Avengers are but can you name the Avengers West Coast? You think it over and we'll have the answer for you... after the "break".
Get it? "Break"? Break like... Because the path splits in two and - You get it, right? Right? Come on.
THE SPLIT - WEST
D. BRIAN'S
Reviewed: 3 February 2020, 12 February 2021
Editor's pick:
Status: Don't know
Remarks:
Don't care
BEAN COUNTER
Reviewed: 5 March 2019, 18 June 2019
Editor's pick:
From 5 March 2019:
"Y'all got a jelly donut?"
Status: Gone
Remarks:
Bean Counter wasn't a bad little spot, it was just a little bit of an extra hike for me which is why I didn't go there much and I really did want to go back in the event that they reopened; they were reasonably priced and very nice. But, after a while, the "We'll be back, please stay safe" sign came down and the lights never came back on.
BEP
Reviewed: 31 January 2017, 2 November 2018
Editor's pick:
From 31 January 2017:
I asked for the works and this dude was even happier. I think he was high.
From 2 November 2018:
I get up to the skyway and I see a line out the door at Bep Bep Bep and I say nope and I walk over to whatever is supposed to be on the other side of the mezzanine level, passing one-time mayoral candidate LA Nik, the man so proud to be from and represent Minneapolis that he named himself after another city...
Status: Couldn't tell you, homie
Remarks:
Don't put mint on your banh mi. Shit tastes like toothpaste.
THE SPLIT - EAST
BROADWAY PIZZA
Reviewed: 23 April 2020, 10 March 2021
Editor's pick:
From 10 March 2021:
Like if this sandwich were a coworker, it'd be the coworker you're always happy to talk about the Tigers with but, fuck no, you are never helping them move.
Current status: Open - Regular hours, full menu
Remarks:
Sandwiches are just so-so; the build your own pizza option is the kitty's titties, though. You get to put together, what is it? an eight inch pizza? and it's ready in ten? fifteen? minutes. They don't have fresh basil, though, which is a drag because I discovered, while living with Kafe Nasty, that a sausage-alfredo pizza with spinach and basil is the jam. Came up with that one myself. Still proud of myself for it.
GOOD TO GO
Reviewed: 25 & 27 February 2019
Editor's pick:
From 25 February 2019:
But the real child chess prodigy at the heart of a bitter custody battle that has been stretched out months longer than needed by cruel and bloodthirsty divorce attorneys under the gaze of an indifferent and apathetic magistrate who's seen cases like this six times a day for the last thirty years and admits to problems in a system whose failings fall most harshly on autistic and emotionally [sic] children like this but is powerless and generally unwilling to attempt to change said system [deep breath] is the sumac aioli.
Current status: Gone
Remarks:
I don't remember the sumac aioli being that inspiring but OK.
BURGER PLACE
Reviewed: Never
Current status:
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Remarks:
Just throwing this one in there for being the only place I've ever been made to feel not just unwelcome but unexpectedly adversarial. That cashier was goddamned intent on making sure I knew she considered me "the enemy".
Well, in terms of places in the skyway, anyway.
There was the one time at Psycho Suzi's when it turned out that the server for the table for myself, my then-girlfriend, and her two friends was a gal I had fooled around with a few times earlier that year and then - Look, I'm no saint. Yes, I ghosted a person after she opened up about her past but I was really immature then and I really regret it. And, sure, there are details that I feel justify my ghosting but that's not the point, my point is that I did something shitty to somebody who was just trying to find love and thought that I might have potential in that area.
And I was a piece of shit.
That night was one of the most mortifying experiences of my life.
ANYhoo, one time, my coworker who'd never seen E.T. opened her burger box from the Burger Place and found a shoe-print in the lid.
1-2-3-SUSHI
Reviewed: 12 June 2019
Editor's pick:
The wasabi was olive-hued, the ginger was pale.
Current status: Gone
Remarks:
It actually wasn't bad. Eight dollars for a build-your-own roll. I dug it.
GREEN + GRAIN
Reviewed: 22 May 2019
Editor's pick:
I don't owe you motherfuckers a goddamned thing.
- and -
So, what did this taste like? It tasted like a salad. You ever have a salad? Yeah, this is what it tasted like.
Current status: Open
Remarks:
Too expensive to return to.
•••
Did you remember who the Avengers West Coast were?
Well, they were, in alphabetical order: Hawkeye, Iron Man (Jim Rhodes), Mockingbird, Tigra, and Wonder Man, with Hank Pym also on staff.
Thanks for playing!
THE RECONNECTION
SUBWAY
Reviewed: Never
Current Status: Open - Regular hours, full menu
Remarks:
Just want to shout out Lily who always tried to remember my regular order - foot long roasted chicken on asiago parm - but was always, always wrong. Like she would see me in line and greet me with a big smile and ask, "Six inch?" And I'd tell her twelve and she'd say, "Grilled chicken, right?" And I'd tell her roast chicken and she'd say, "Whole wheat?"
I think maybe she was looking out for my health more than I was.
I'd eat this while I watched Mr. Lucky on Tubi, one of the greatest one-season shows ever produced.
SORRENTO CUCINA DUE
Reviewed: 2 & 23 March 2017, 12 December 2018
Editor's pick:
From 23 March 2017:
I get back to the office and unwrap my sandwich. Two half links slathered in marinara and buried under a mountain of giardiniera and sautéed bell peppers and white onions. I went to tuck this fucker in and -
Every veggie on the sandwich was balls cold.
Current status: I saw the manager who always tried to upsell me on a combo in there the other day prepping pizzas or something. So I guess they're still going.
Remarks:
That was not an uncommon experience at SCD. Like all the times the manager tried to upsell me on shit I didn't want or the time I asked, I think innocently enough, if they could do a chicken parm sub and the lady behind the counter said no and I thanked her and left and I heard her talk shit to another customer, "Don't try to order something not on the menu, then."
SIMPLE SANDWICH
Reviewed: 14 April 2017, 16 January 2020
Editor's pick: N/A
Current status: Open - Regular hours, full menu
Remarks:
I used to talk about how they weren't the best but I've since come to appreciate the staff there who remember me and my usual order. They're always super friendly and I think they charge a fair price so I kind of have to take back all my lack of enthusiasm. They're one of three or four places that opened back up right away after that first month of COVID in Minneapolis and they didn't change anything they did.
I think what really changed my mind on them was, truthfully, repeated visits. It's a place that grows on you. Sure, coleslaw instead of pickles on a Cubano sounds sacrilege but it's actually pretty good. And I have a lot of comforting memories of having a sandwich and a salad while watching Green Acres on my lunch break. It's a place that embedded memories in me and, for that, I will insist you give them your money.
iGRILL
Reviewed: 13 February 2019
Editor's pick:
The day before I got this sandwich, there was this guy out front talking about their new breakfast menu. Eggs, hashbrowns, French toast, pancakes, sausages... I told him I would be there tomorrow and I was true to my word. I stepped over there and asked if they had a breakfast sandwich. He says he can have that ready for me in five minutes and disappears back into the kitchen.
Current status: Gone
Remarks:
I live for that kind of spontaneity.
But that sandwich sucked.
In fact, the whole place kind of sucked after the soft open.
During the soft open, when you'd ask for tandoori chicken, they'd give you two pieces but after the full open, they'd give you one. One. You'd have to ask for two and they'd give you an annoyed eye-roll. Like, come on, dude, you're going to give me one wing? It's chicken. It's the most abundant and cheapest animal on the planet to kill, your books won't go into the red because you gave me a second piece of chicken.
Speaking of chicken, there were chicken bone shards in their vegetable biryani.
NEWMART
Reviewed: Never
Current status: Gone
Remarks:
There's a proper location in Eagan, so I could go there.
Mike, the guy that ran the skyway location, was this cool guy who loved putting power metal and Mike Beato videos on the store TV when he wasn't straight marathoning Magnum P.I..
But that place was the place to go when you just needed a pop or some snacks or a roller dog. I went there nearly every day and developed something of a rapport with the guy. It wasn't so much that it was a handy convenience store but it was a dude I checked in with on the daily even though we really didn't know each other.
I remember it was the Xmas Eve right before COVID and I had to hustle ass to grab my lunch because I eat my lunch late in the day and I was racing back with whatever sandwich I had to grab a Coke Zero from Mike and found him just locking up. He was closing early, no skyway traffic on the Eve after all. I said something like, "Oh, damn, man. I was hoping to get you before you closed."
He asked what I needed and I said, "Just a Coke Zero."
He opened the gate, reached in the Coke cooler, and handed me the bottle, and told me to just get him back as he pulled the gate back down.
After Xmas, I headed over there and got my morning snacks and he rung me up and I told him, "I owe you for that Coke Zero."
He looked surprised but just said, "Oh!" and added that to my bill which I happily paid.
•••
THE FOOD COURT
CHINA KITCHEN FKA SHANGHAI KITCHEN
Reviewed: Never
Editor's pick:
An aside from Clearing Off My Memory Card, 18 February 2019:
Shanghai Kitchen is now China Kitchen or something, which is a drag, because the old dude that ran Shanghai was always happy to see me and hooked me up on the reg with hot pepper sauce on my steamed veggies gratis. Eventually, he started putting chicken on my veggies, too. That was nice.
Current status: Open - Regular hours, full menu
Remarks:
A few months before COVID hit the Twin Cities, Shanghai Kitchen was sold and became China Kitchen.
Shanghai Kitchen was cool because right about the time I was starting to really take some weight loss seriously, they were the one place I could go and order just steamed vegetables. On account of my lunch being later in the day (one thirty to two thirty), homie who ran the place would usually have some sauce left in a pan of pork or chicken and, as you read above, just top my veggies with that. He also told me about a weight loss elixir of lemon juice and vinegar that I tried, but I used apple cider vinegar.
I saw no results. But the guy was nice and that was what counted.
Then one day the place is China Kitchen and they have the same menu but it's... different. Just... like the difference between Kool-Aid and Flavor-Aid.
Anyway, COVID hit and China Kitchen stayed shuttered for months, I feel like almost a year or more. They're open again and it's... fine, I guess, but I miss that old dude who ran it back when it was Shanghai.
LITE BITE
Reviewed: 25 November 2019, 13 January 2020, 23 January 2020
Editor's pick:
From 13 January 2020:
I've classically given Lite Bite shit to the point where I'm not even sure I ever mentioned in our hallowed halls exactly what degree of livid I was that they had the hairy goddamned balls to charge me eight dollars for a fucking Carl Buddig turkey sandwich.
Current status: Gone
Remarks:
I'm still convinced they were the fuckers that gave me food poisoning. Not like "ew, I'm feeling queasy" food poisoning, I'm talking squatting-naked-in-the-tub-puking-and-shitting-simultaneously food poisoning. Good riddance.
FRANK'S-A-MILLION
Reviewed: 28 November 2018, 17 July 2019, 30 January 2020
Editor's pick:
From 28 November 2018:
Anyway, Franks-A-Million is run by this guy who looks and sounds like he's ex-Russian mafia and he has this little mute Mexican dude as a sidekick who always either looks confused or bummed out, like he just got dumped and he doesn't know why he's at work today all the time.
Current status: It's been open fairly consistently lately but I'm never compelled to order from them. That's because I pretty much just brown bag it these day. That's how I lost thirty pounds.
Remarks:
When FAM reopened, it was like sighting a yeti. You'd be on your way elsewhere and you'd see the gate open for the first time after three or four months and there was a sandwich board out front telling you they were doing potato soup and a sandwich for ten bucks or something and they had never done soup and sandwiches before. After that, they'd be closed for another three or four months.
I still haven't stopped in since they reopened because, to this day, nobody knows when they're going to be open. It's a lot more often than not anymore but, still...
Anyway, whenever I talk about FAM IRL, I still use that description of the staff. Except I say the dude is ex-KGB. It just started coming out like that.
ANDREA PIZZA
Reviewed: Never
Current status: Open - Regular hours, full menu (however, they do keep a more limited by-the-slice selection under the heat lamp)
Remarks:
Right before everything shut down, I had been complaining about how burnt out on pizza (that I ate almost every day) I was.
Then the place closed.
By the two month mark, I missed it.
When they reopened, they reopened full force but have, since then, adapted to the new skyway ecosystem. There aren't as many people traversing the food court, thus they don't make so many pies.
Once after the reopen, I saw their spinach and mushroom slice too late, after I already put in my order, and I swore that I would make it my goal (I have a shittily low bar) to get that slice the next time they had it. Queue the montage of me making a fly-by for almost nine goddamned months to see if they had this slice before I see it again. We can set the music to mclusky's "Forget About Him, I'm Mint".
Then, one day, they had it. And I got the fucker.
And found, to my horror, that they put this combination not on olive oil but on marinara.
That may be literally the only foul they've hit while at bat.
OAXACA, WHICH REPLACED CRAZY TACO AND HAS SINCE BEEN REPLACED BY JALAPENO'S
Reviewed: 2 October 2018
Editor's pick:
Last week, Gangsta Sandy from Family Court Services came in saying she tried the new place that may or may not still be called Crazy Taco and said it was better than old Crazy Taco but still just OK.
Current status: Replaced by Jalapeño's (who put the tilde over the E instead of the N), who are open regular hours with a full menu
Remarks:
On Oaxaca? Easily the best Mexican food in the skyway and, yes, that's going up against Los Ocampo's Los Ocampo Express location. I convinced Miss Janie to get the tinga one time.
She asked me what that was so I told her and, wouldn't you know it, I saw her at the food court later on, eating a tinga burrito bowl and pointing at it with her fork and telling me, "This meat is the hit!"
Sadly, Oaxaca didn't make it even six months.
On Jalapeño's?
They are very nice people whose boss happens to be over-charging for bland-as-fuck chicken. Carnitas are OK.
SKYWAY WOK
PHOTOGRAPHIC EVIDENCE UNAVAILABLE
Reviewed: 26 January 2017
Editor's pick:
You Minneapolitans are into some perverted shit after all, like vegan butcher shops.
Current status: Open - Regular hours, full menu
Remarks:
None.
What? I don't feel like beating this place up.
MAX'S CAFE
Reviewed: 9 March 2017, 9 July 2019, 23 October 2019
Editor's pick:
From 9 March 2017:
I take a pic of it for Instagram because fuck you, I'm a twenty one year old white girl and it's pumpkin spice season, and I look at it carefully, trying to determine what's on it.
Current status: Man, every time I've passed by there the past few months, the gate's been closed and an Edina Realty sign was hung on it. Make of that what you will.
Remarks:
Always too pricey for my blood but I always had the tiniest crush on the Melanie Lynskey lookalike that worked the front counter so I'd stop in when I wanted a eight or nine dollar panini which wasn't often.
After reopening was allowed, "Max" worked front and back of house himself with seemingly random hours and a severely limited menu, basically just selling oatmeal and bagels to get by. After a while, Max's was open more frequently but there were still the random days it was closed.
I'd been back there since COVID only twice, once early on to find out they were offering only oatmeal and bagels, which I skipped on, I think I was in the mood for a breakfast burrito, and a second time to get one of those bagels with extra cream cheese and it... wasn't... I don't know, man, it just wasn't what you'd expect for the price tag. That wasn't extra cream cheese.
It was kind of a drag, seeing the place limited like that. They were still doing the Bob's Italian Panini but I wasn't getting it when I could go across the hall and get a Dagwood Special that was twice the size for a buck or two less.
They were open more often, maybe closed once a week if they closed during the week at all, and still running on a limited menu. Maybe I should have gone in and gotten the panini again but I doubt my just-once-more-for-old-time's-sake purchase would have been the one to keep them open; after all, businesses close for a variety of (mostly financial) reasons that customers can't do anything about.
DAGWOOD'S
Before we go any further, I'd like to express my mifftitude over that I had a brand new Dagwood's pic from 10 August this year just for this final entry and I can't find it on any of my devices. But this pic, from the 10 June 2019 entry is representative of exactly what you get from Dagwood's, so we're using that.
Reviewed: 13 September 2016, 20 July 2018, 10 June 2019
Editor's pick:
N/A
Current status: Open - Regular hours, expanded menu
Remarks:
Look, I know I've been less-than-generous in my reviews of Dagwood's. They've always been good just not brain-scrambling good.
They are situated at the northern-most food court on my leg of the skyway and they still charge dirt cheap prices and they've been open since the day they were legally permitted to reopen and they did it with a full menu. I've come to love the penne regate eaten while I watched The Prisoner and the Dagwood's Special eaten while watching Bewitched. Their prices have gone up a little (the sandwich I purchased on 10 August was eight dollars even) and they still undercut and oversell their competition. The lady that runs the place clearly does this because she's put her life into it. I will be a little bummed if they ever close.
The sandwich I most recently had, purchased and consumed primarily to right the wrongs of underselling them to you, was exactly as I remembered. The bread was baked fresh in the last hour or so (they bake their own bread and probably have to do that a lot to keep up with the orders), the mayo was smooth and creamy, the Italian dressing was dripping out into the wrapper and soaking into the bottom of the bread, the meat - ham, pastrami, salami - was the well-remembered big wad of salted protein, the cheese was browned on top, the tomato was freshly sliced so it wasn't all wrinkly and soggy (looking at you, Subway), and the onion was there for... texture? To back up the shredduce? It certainly wasn't there so you could taste it. But it's comfort food, essentially.
It'll cost you eight dollars and five minutes to get a wrist-to-elbow hot hoagie surrounded by what must be half a family-size bag of Old Dutch ripple chips. There's no pretention at Dagwood's, nobody trying to impress you with the absolute best you ever had. No 'nduja, no house-made giardiniera or vinaigrette, no locally sourced BGH-free meat, no cherry pepper aioli - all things I love, understand. But they replace wow factor with consistency, reliability, and quality. Your mom can't make pico de gallo to save her life but what she does with an Old El Paso or Ortega kit is worth garroting somebody over and that's what Dagwood's is: Kind of like home. Even if you get it to go, it feels like submarine sandwich night at your parents' place: "Come on in, pull up a chair, get yourself some of this sandwich."
It comes back to my argument of gourmet vs simplicity: There's care and attention in both but there's more honesty in simplicity. Remember that time Kurt Cobain said he could never play like Andres Segovia? "I can't play like Segovia. The flip side of that is that Segovia could probably never have played like me." That's kind of Dagwood's-ish. Can they make an expressly gourmet Italian sub? Could they present you a hoagie on par with a Ramsey or an Oliver or any of the Iron Chefs? No. But could Ramsey, Oliver, or any Iron Chef make a hoagie like Dagwood's? Not if any of them had an instruction book and lived a million years.
This is a place I will unreservedly instruct you to give your money to.
That's it.
Have a good one.
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