Sandwich Maker Gets Grilled

In a textbook example of backfiring advertising, a Quizno's commercial inspired me to eat at Subway. Quizno's was copying Subway's $5 sandwich promotion, but Subway is closer to me. With Hoboken being such a quality sandwich town, I only find myself in the Washington Street Subway location a few times a year. But it's always very clean, and the staff is always quite friendly and helpful, and tonight was no exception. And I could get a meatball sandwich for $265 less than Bernie spent.

So I'm sitting there, eating my sandwich, drinking my soda, crunching on my Baked Lay's (sure, I made it a Combo!), reading record reviews from the back of MOJO Magazine. I'm as happy as a bivalve mollusk and minding my own business when two women enter: one in her late 40s I'm guessing, and the other presumably her mother.

"Could we get a grilled cheese?" the younger one asks the woman behind the counter.

My first thought was, had these women never been inside a Subway restaurant before? But because I'm a good citizen, my thoughts quickly turned to helping them. Where could I send them for a decent grilled cheese? Alas, the nearest diner was many blocks away. I felt useless.

The woman behind the counter was baffled by the request. Soon enough, a male staffer joined her, and a discussion took place. "Yes, yes, we can do that," he said. His confidence allayed my anxiety.

But that was the calm before the storm. "No, we want grilled cheese," said the customer. "Not grilled chicken."

She looked over to me with a "Is it me? Or is it them?" expression on her face. I sympathetically offered, "There used to be a diner on the corner where you could get a nice grilled cheese. Subway's not really the sort of place for that."

At this point I should add that this particular Subway branch is operated by an all-Indian staff. So perhaps cultural upbringing prevented the sort of improvisation that might have resulted in an acceptable, makeshift grilled cheese. Instead, I watched helplessly as a 6-inch rosemary-garlic roll was cut in half and layered with slices of American cheese. "Anything else on there? Lettuce?" asked the counterman. I shook my head sadly: The grilled-cheese concept was not getting through to this man.

The two customers consulted, and decided to put three slices of salami and some tomato on the sandwich. The lamentable creation was placed open-faced into the mini oven for an incredibly short time. I couldn't watch anymore. I buried my head in my record reviews as the sandwich was wrapped and the women left the restaurant.

And then I got even sadder. I could've sent them to nearby Panera! With the wider selection of bread styles and the panini press, I'm sure a very respectable grilled cheese could've been churned out. Oh hindsight, how you mock me.

I finished my meal and thought about typing up this story and getting a chance to use the "sandwiches" label again. And that's when the craziest thing happened: The younger of the two women re-entered the restaurant. I braced myself for her inevitable gripe that melted cheese on a sub-sandwich roll did not constitute grilled cheese. Perhaps she would also demand her money back. And this time I would redeem myself with my excellent Panera suggestion.

"That sandwich was really good," said the woman. "Could we get another one?"

The Last Sandwich

"I've got bad news for you," said the guy behind the counter. "We're out of sun-dried tomatoes." And after a quick pause: "Wait, never mind, you don't get sun-dried tomatoes. Of course I get it wrong on the last time."

The last time? His sentence didn't make sense to me, but I didn't give it much thought as I fetched an orange juice from the refrigerated case.

My prosciutto-and-mutz sandwich was ready, and I took the $7.50 out of my pocket. I like to bring exact change, but I don't like to seem anal, so I always pretend that it’s a happy coincidence to have the precise amount on me.

"So thanks for your business over the years…."

Thanks for my business? The last time? He must've seen the confusion on my face. "You didn't know? Yeah, we're done. The lease was up, the rent kept going up, we couldn't do it anymore."

And so that's the end for Piccininni's Salumeria, the Italian deli at the quiet corner of 6th and Park in Hoboken. It's an all-too-common story in this town, but when you're a regular, it hits particularly hard. With the caveat that clearly it's infinitely harder on the out-of-business shopkeeper than on the guy who needs to find a new place to buy a sandwich.

As a creature of habit and as a person who doesn't cook, I'm a regular at a number of food establishments. Of course, there are different levels of being a regular. In some places I've developed friendships that transcend commerce. A couple of places count on me for amusing holiday cards. At the diner I only know the night crew, and I speak broken Spanish with them. And then there's a place or two where it's just the standard relationship: They recognize me, and they know what I order. (And they usually remember it doesn't involve sun-dried tomatoes.)

Such was the case with Piccininni's. I knew that the guy behind the counter was the son of the owner. I assume the last name is Piccininni but I don’t know for sure, and they don’t know my name either. But they made a real good sandwich. Fresh mozzarella cheese, known as "mutz," is one of the things Hoboken is famous for, in addition to being the birthplace of Frank Sinatra, baseball, the zipper, and Mallomars. I moved here in 1994 and my then-roommate Joe introduced me to perhaps the perfect use of the cheese, the prosciutto-and-mutz sandwich. In those years we lived closest to a deli called Luca Brasi's, so that's where we scored our sandwiches.

In 2000 I moved 5 blocks north and 5 blocks west, a little too far to make Luca Brasi's the regular stop. I now lived directly across the street from Hoboken's most famous Italian deli, Fiore's. In the Sopranos episode where Furio made mozzarella, the close-up hands were really from Fiore's. And though the food there is excellent, and I did enjoy rubbing elbows with Danny Aiello one December 24, Fiore's did not become my regular prosciutto-and-mutz place. The line was always way too long (it's just a sandwich, people!) and a comprehensive study by the Newark Star-Ledger claimed that Piccininni's actually made the better Hoboken mozzarella. Most important were the hours of operation. The delis tend to close before I get home from work, so weekend lunches are my only opportunity to go. Saturday lunch is booked. (Creature of habit, remember?) As for Sunday: Fiore's is closed, Piccinini's wasn’t.

So that became my tradition over the past eight years. I'd go order a sandwich. Getting ever so slightly more health-conscious over time, the accompanying beverage switched from a bottle of Coke to a can of Coke to a bottle of orange juice. I'd bring something to read in case there was a line, but it was never too long. I was a little jealous of the rapport that many customers had with the guys behind the counter—they'd speak Italian and laugh heartily—but I'd remind myself that there were other places where I was the preferred regular.

In the colder weather, I'd go home and eat in front of the TV. On nice days, I'd go sit on a bench in Church Square Park, one block from Piccininni's, and read the paper while I ate. Few things made me happier.

And now it's gone. I had my last Piccininni's sandwich today, and I'm not sure what I'll do next week. Slink back to Luca Brasi's? Or maybe Lisa's Deli up on 9th. And begin the slow process of becoming a regular all over again.