As owners of an Italian Deli and Catering business, we’re constantly trying to improve upon our existing menu
and come up with new items for our lunch and catering menus. The deli and catering business is fun, but it can be challenging as well.
We are mostly known for our sub sandwiches which have garnered us a “Favorite Italian Deli” title and a mention in the Chicago Sun-Times newspaper food critic’s column. Trying to come up with catchy or clever names for our sub sandwiches hasn’t been easy, therefore we have taken to naming our subs for literally what they are: The tuna salad sub, the chicken salad sub, the turkey sub, the ham & cheese sub, the salami sub, the corned beef sub, the capicola sub, the prosciutto sub, the roast beef sub and the veggie sub.
However, four of our subs were given monikers for which aren’t so obvious: Our favorite, “The Nooch” Sub
which consists of Ham. Capicola, Cotto Salami, Provolone Cheese, Mozzarella Cheese, Mild Giardiniera, Lettuce, Tomato and our House Italian Dressing was named for our daughter Stephanie, who is lovingly called “Stephanooch” or “Nooch”, The “Bada Bing” Sub which consists of Prosciutto, Capicola, Provolone Cheese, Scamorza Cheese, Hot Giardiniera, Tomato and Lettuce, The American Sub named for American lunch meats and cheeses – Ham, Turkey, Bologna, American Cheese, Lettuce, Tomato and Mayo, and The Albano Italian Subs – Our “Namesake Sub” which consists of Capicola, Mortadella, Genoa Salami, ham Provolone Cheese, Mozzarella Cheese, Lettuce, Tomato and our House Italian Dressing.
We did come up with the “Presidential Sub”, but it was quickly nixed by our “marketing person”, (daughter) only to be replaced with “The American Sub”. Ordering the “Presidential Sub”, according to her, would be “sooo weird”. And so it goes – our continuous quest to come up with names for our delicious award winning subs that don’t sound “weird”. Hmm, let’s see. Our daughter is a high school cheerleader. How about “The Cheerleader Sub”. Weird? Affirmative.
This leave us to the “Build Your Own” sub where our customers can choose their own breads, meats, cheeses and toppings. The mentality here is “you create it, you name it”. Simple.
Naming the “Build You Own” sub really isn’t an issue. If a customer wants to create his signature sub (out of the ingredients from our “Build You Own Sandwich” portion of the menu), that’s fine. We will glady let them create their signature sub, name it and put said sub on our menu board for a week to see how well it sells – just for fun. People like to see their creations on the menu board. Okay, back to the task at hand of creating their “Build your own subs”. Like I said, it’s fine when customers build their subs from the ingredients listed on the “Build Your Own Sandwich” part of the menu: They can choose from French bread, rye, wheat, white bread, genoa salami, hard salami, prosciutto, capicola, mortadella, cotto salami, roast beef, corned beef, ham, turkey, bologna, Provolone, Mozzarella, Asiago, Fontinella, scamorza, American, Swiss, sharp cheddar, Muenster cheeses, lettuce, tomato, green pepper, red pepper, pepperoncini, dill pickles, onions, black olives, green olives, mild giardiniera, hot giardiniera, mayo, mustard, house dressing. Wow, lot’s of choices to construct your sub sandwich – more than enough to come up with tons of different sub sandwiches.
We had a guy come in and ask, if we could grill up some onions for him to put on his signature sub. No, sorry – no grilled onions. He was going to name it Mike’s Grilled Onion Special. Another customer requested pickled “sandwich spread” to be put on this sub. Pickled sandwich spread sub? Yet another asked for “just a little” sweet and sour sauerkraut (without caroway seeds) to be put on his sandwich to be named “The Sauerkraut Sub” This happens multiple times a day. We love to accomodate our customers, but sometimes we just don’t carry the items they ask for! You can’t please everyone, however hard we try.
There’s really only one thing that matters when we serve our customers and that is great tasting, high quality fresh food, kindness, respect and good will towards everyone.
Albano’s Deli & Catering – Where Everybody’s Italian
http://www.AlbanosDeli.com