My Nashville Roast Beef Beef

Lunch Matters is proud to announce that I have discovered an idea hitherto unconsidered in all the history of the world, an idea which should make me famous and—if my pending deal to brand novelty t-shirts goes through—quite wealthy. Put simply, my theory is this: Growing Up Can Be Sad.

Nashville boasts a small chain of sandwich shops which gave me much joy in my high school days. I won’t give their name because, well, you’ll see. But before I criticize, let me praise. Actually, before I do anything, let me heat up some Indian leftovers. I’m too hungry to tell this sad, sad tale.

A Few Minutes Pass…

Naan. Yum!

As I was backstorying, I spent many afternoons at one of these three sandwich shops stuffing my face with sammich or soup. At $8 or $9, the place was expensive for Nashville, but as a teen, these eight dollarwiches were revelatory. Piles of meat stacked on fresh bread, adorned with veggie sprig and lively sauce—they mindblew every time. Best of all was the roast beef—O, how pink was that beef!—served with a side of peerless tomato soup. The modern decor suited what was a thoroughly modern meal. It was a cutting edge brunch.

But as they say, you can’t go home again and eat a really good roast beef sandwich. Embarking on a Nashville to Asheville road trip this past week, my thoughts turned to proper road food. Rather than scarf a further Hardee’s cheeseburger—those suck, I had learned a few days earlier—I decided to revisit the sandwich shop of my halcyon days. Attempting to save time, I called in my order—a bizarre operation involving conversation with a woman at a phonebank who demanded my email address so she could send me an order confirmation. Before leaving with the food, I was forced to wait to sign an a contract stipulating that I had requested my roast beef—nullifying the usefulness of ordering ahead but providing a strange window into the Deli of Tomorrow.

No matter. I had sandwich in hand. All was fine until I began to chew. The bread was as fresh as ever, and the sauce just as crisp, but as I sped down I-40 at 80 miles per hour—girlfriend behind the wheel—I felt no fireworks. Love had died. The rose colored beef of my memory was a melancholy brown.

I redact the sandwich shop’s name because I don’t mean to rag on them. They make good food. They sell bread bowls. They have an incredibly complicated system for ordering by phone. All this deserves commendation. But good is all they are. When I was seventeen, they sold the finest sandwiches in the world. Now they are only ordinary. As the first person on earth to suffer this wistfulness, let me say this: roast beef doesn’t keep. Not for three days, and certainly not for ten years.