re: Five food or drink items that you really miss...

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Streetcar Sandwiches
Riverbend: 1434 S. Carrollton Ave.
1985-1995

In the mid-1980s, the roast beef poor boy was in an advanced state of decline. The generations younger than the Baby Boomers considered the sandwich yet another foolish relic of their parents' outmoded culinary furnishings, and they moved on to deli, if not to sushi.

It took a couple of outsiders to notice that the intrinsic deliciousness of a well-made poor boy superseded any modish considerations. Steve Wright and his girlfriend Sue (I forget her last name, but I do remember that she was a very good-looking, blue-eyed blonde) were both from Wisconsin, and knew each other from their time at Tulane.

During that time they discovered the poor boy's goodness, and wondered why poor boy shops were becoming rare. They thought that the college crowd would go for a good poor boy. They went into partnership to open a poor boy shop on Carrollton between Jeannette and Willow--the two streets with streetcar tracks leading to the nearby car barn. The name was obvious and perfect, striking just the right tone of nostalgia and hipness.

From the opening, Steve and Sue put out a first-class product. The beef was roasted in house--a practice used by fewer sandwich shops all the time, what with the easy availability of pre-cooked, pre-sliced beef and canned gravy. The other parts of the sandwich were equally good. They warmed the French bread as a finishing touch.

Streetcar was an instant hit. The fact that it was a colorful, casual shop run by young people instead of the old, worn-out joints manned by old men attracted a youngish crowd. Streetcar also drew tourists, because the place was being written about more often than any other shop except Mother's. The location on the St. Charles Streetcar line surely helped.

The shop advanced the poor boy culture by borrowing ideas from the gourmet bistros--Cajun-seasoned, grilled fish and grilled chicken became signature sandwiches, then spread elsewhere. Streetcar was a trend leader.

Streetcar's success persuaded the landlord that the building was worth a higher rent than Steve and Sue had originally negotiated. At renewal time, they entered a lease that made it very difficult for them to continue Streetcar's profitability. In the meantime, the couple split up. Steve married someone else, and the two of them had a son (at almost exactly the same time my son was born; we had become pretty good friends because of that).

The day came when the place ceased to be viable for a variety of reasons, some of them personal. The shop closed and sat there empty for a long time. A few years ago it was lightly renovated and became Panchito's Mexican restaurant. The last time I saw Steve, he was a waiter at Galatoire's. But he and Sue can claim to have had a big hand in reviving the poor boy institution with their excellent, forward-looking sandwich shop.

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