Few things are etched in our local food consciousness like the roast beef poor boy. Yes, I said poor boy, because that is what it is. Too bad the term had been bastardized into the silly word po-boy. Are we too lazy to write a simple “o” and “r”?
Someone asked me on The Food Show recently why I called it a poor boy and I was surprised at the question. Are there still people around who don’t know how this iconic sandwich came to be?
The real story as told by one of the two key players in its creation can be found on gendusabakery.com. John Gendusa, founder of the century-old bakery that bears his name, teamed up with restaurateurs Benny and Clovis Martin of the Martin Brothers family restaurant to feed hungry streetcar workers during their strike. And for the next 45 or so years it was poor boy, until someone in the 1980s contracted the term.
Regardless of how it is spelled, it is universally agreed that this simple sandwich is delicious. What is not settled orthodoxy is where to find the “best.” We decided to compare a dozen like Tom used to do. But how to narrow it down?
A lot of people have a favorite place that is a long-term habit, usually formulated by things like convenience or price. We decided to simply savor the taste irrespective of any other trait. Most of them have very similar characteristics, but it is also surprising to see how different they are from place to place.
To make up the survey list, it was easy to collect a dozen just by the names heard the most. We broke them into a half dozen each and will report on this classic New Orleans dish in two parts.
Tom and I ran around two separate days collecting roast beef poor boys. It was pointed out to me that I shouldn’t collect them and drive because they would be a mess when we finally got to eat them. What I learned is that most of them are a mess five minutes after they are made. Now I understand why Tom has always ordered any poor boy with “light gravy.” All the delicious attributes are diminished by sloppiness and bread that falls apart under the weight of sogginess.
These poor boys are not rated in any countdown but are described as we tasted them. The order was determined by geography. We started at Mahony’s on Magazine. The smell when it got into the car was strong and so appealing I couldn’t wait to dive into it. The meat was very generous and really great, though I couldn’t help but wish it was on a pile of mashed potatoes. It was shredded in chunky sheets like tender roast beef from a crock pot. And then I was surprised to taste something sweet, which was offputting. I thought it might be sweetness in a condiment, but I think it came from tomatoes in the sauce. It was a really delicious sandwich, but the meat seemed better suited to a plate lunch. I could see why every car that pulled up had a license plate from another state. Tourists aren't familiar with that “roast beef poor boy” flavor. I’m sure they also liked the whole scene here, the quintessential poor boy joint: minimal in every way featuring local art and very friendly service.
From there we went to Poor Boy Sandwich Mecca. Parkway Poor Boys isn’t a sandwich joint…it is a destination. The place has evolved so much since our first visit in 2007, and it is by far the most interesting of these places. A lot of rooms wrap around a large kitchen filled with workers trying to keep up with the demand. And there is so much demand that they had to put in a large parking lot and owner Justin Kennedy gently talks you through the process of ordering with a series of recordings. They recently claimed a space that had been dormant and made it Jay’s Place, the only fully-airconditioned area there. That room is also full-service. It has the same funky vibe as the other rooms.
I had heard that the Parkway roast beef was debris-style, but it was thick slices of very tender roast beef in a gravy of the perfect consistency What surprised me was that it didn’t grab me with a lot of flavor. It was a delicious sandwich primarily because of the tenderness of the beef. The combination of the dressings and mayo blended into a great sandwich. I can understand why it is king.
We also include DiMartino’s in this list because it remains one of Tom’s favorites. Despite the fact that it isn’t on traditional French bread, all the other elements are true to the ideal. The roast beef is top round, thinly sliced, and the bread is toasted, which makes it more desirable than the others. The price is right, the portion is generous, and the taste is perfect. DiMartino’s is hardly a joint. It is a full-scale restaurant and in Covington a rather glamorous one, so it’s more appropriate to pick up the poor boy than to eat it there. We get other things when we sit.
Another one in this first half dozen is the roast beef sandwich at Cafe Navarre. We ate that one on-site. It was smallish but very tasty. The meat was like Mahony’s, shredded in chunks, and the gravy was by far the thickest of all these sandwiches, and the darkest in hue. The place is full service and totally funky, and I find the service here wanting.
The next sandwich was a pickup, It really grabbed us. We love Bear’s in Covington but had never been to the one sharing space with Gennaro’s Bar in Metairie. This was an expensive sandwich at $15 for a small but I understood why with one bite. (NOTE: The large is only $2 more.) The roast beef on this one was thinly sliced, which I used to prefer but I have since come to like the chunkier meat like the meat on the other sandwiches better. There wasn’t an excessive amount of gravy on this bread, and it definitely tasted the best of all of them. Tom loved this one too. This little place adjacent to Gennaro’s has the look of a poor boy joint. It is small and minimalist, with a few tables on a concrete floor and a stand to place an order. You are going there to eat a renowned roast beef sandwich. Period.
From Bear’s, we made our way to Short Stop Poor Boys, a single location that remains from a once pretty big footprint of sandwich shops around town. I love this story because I grew up with the Hendricks. The father and mother started with a snowball stand in Kenner that grew into a grocery, and then sandwiches were added. The grocery faded away as it became a chain of poor boy shops all over Metairie. Both parents became real estate moguls in North Carolina, leaving the operation in the capable hands of their eldest son.
I had heard Short Stop was a debris poor boy in the style that my father made. (It was his signature dish and he was very particular about it, always talking about the importance of cutting meat across the grain after it had chilled.) Even though Tom was always lukewarm about the Short Stop version of our iconic sandwich, my brother’s validation that it was like our dad’s made me want to try it.
It was exclusively debris. There was no definition of sliced meat or chunky slices. In keeping with Tom’s thoughts, I felt this was the least of the ones we tried that day. It wasn’t bad at all, and will definitely satisfy any craving for a roast beef sandwich quite nicely, but it shouldn’t be held to a higher standard than that.
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Short Stop has an extensive menu and seems to operate at the affordable end of the sandwich world, with decor to match. It is sort of utilitarian, but clean and comfortable and busy busy, with a very personable and attentive staff.
The poor boy sandwich world operates like the wider restaurant world. People go to places that speak to them for usually emotional reasons they can’t even explain. Taste is also a subjective thing.
I would go to Parkway first because the place is so interesting, and while the sandwich is not my favorite, it is very good. All the rest of these are just a place to park yourself to eat the sandwich.
We should have parked somewhere to eat these sandwiches, but to be fair in comparing freshness we broke into them in the car. I stopped eating Mahony’s after a few bites when I felt I had the idea. One-half of the Parkway poor boy was eaten in the car, as was the entire small Bear’s sandwich. And we had half a half of the Short Stop version.
Eating a poor boy sandwich in the car is probably the only thing in this piece that is definitely not recommended.
