Celebrating a Sandwich

Neon Memes • Friday last. Night. Cold. The Grove Deli. Comfort―! Weary at the end of this past workweek and preemptively glum at a forecast of freezing rain, I visited Webster Groves and that family-owned eatery (8144 Big Bend Boulevard, 314.962.9078). And what a tonic the visit was! As I'd discovered in mid-October when my friend Kevin Renick gigged there, the Grove Deli graces the municipality's main drag between I-44 access and Webster University, but a block south of it and Big Bend's parallel-parking nightmare sits a medium-size free lot off Log Cabin Lane. (Potential visitors should consider that a strong hint.) Once I'd parked my ZX2 and slouched into the eatery, I ordered its toasted Italian sandwich ($5.99 plus tax) and directly noshed on bliss: thin-sliced ham, pastrami, pepperoni, prosciutto and salami, topped with provolone, tomato, onion, perhaps a touch too much lettuce, enigmatic "spices" according to the menu, and vinegar and oil on French bread. Accompanying it were a dill spear―always appreciated―and a choice among chips, pasta salad and potato salad―usually (as here) superfluous. By and large, the sandwich hit the spot so well that I considered ordering a second. (But I didn't. Got my girlish figure to think of, y'know?) ―Bryan A. Hollerbach, Managing Editor