How ‘The Bomb’ Became NYC’s Most Talked-About Italian Sub | Sandwich City | NYT Cooking

The thing is, the doctors, they tell you you're not allowed to eat processed meat when you're pregnant. So a lot of women, they wait until that final day when the baby comes out, and the first thing they crave is a sandwich. If you're from the area, you know The Bomb. Sixty percent of our business is The Bomb. They have a sandwich here called The Bomb. When people come from far away, they're not getting a ham sandwich. They're going to get The Bomb. What comes on The Bomb? If you want a good sandwich, this is the place. This is Sal Chris and Charlie's Deli, home of The Bomb. I'm Nicholas Gordon, and I am the owner of Sal Chris and Charlie's Deli. We're located on 33rd Street and 23rd Avenue in Astoria, where every day is a holiday. Hello, Deli. We've been here since 1987. Oh, I've been in here my whole life. It's probably one of the best sandwich shops born and owned in the city. We're a cold-cut place. That's it. No hot food, no grill, no breakfast. Big, nice mortadella. Just straight-up cold cuts, meat, cheese, and salads. We have our tuna fish. We have a chicken salad, egg salad, shrimp salad, potato salad, macaroni, coleslaw made every day, fresh. People just create whatever they like, you know, so they can get everything on their sandwiches. And when they apply everything, it's usually hot peppers, sweet peppers. These peppers will all go in three weeks. It's a lot. These shelves, I don't know how they hold up. But, you know, some people love the jalapenos, they like banana peppers. So we try to keep it, you know, pepper-friendly. Thank you, my friend. Have a good day. We get our bread from Bakery Boys in Corona twice a day. My father was in the bakery business. He knew a lot about the bread. When he bought the store, he wanted to make the best sandwiches that you could get. So he said that if he's going to do it, he's going to go all out and make it the best. So yeah, over here we got a party sub coming out. Somebody's throwing either a big party, or usually it's for good things. Hopefully this is not for a bad thing. This is probably half Italian, half American. You know, the Party Heroes, you can get it however you like it, you know. This is like standard, it's half and half. Well, the most talked-about sandwich is the bomb. And the bomb just took off. From what my father has told me, if somebody was on the line, the guy said, give me whatever you want. They would make a sandwich, they put everything in it. It had peppers, mustard, mayo, vinegar, oil, onions, and a whole mixture of meats and cheeses. The guy on the line is like, what is that? I want that too. And then my father's like, oh, we got this, this is it. We put the mustard on first. Then we add the salami. Turkey. Pepperoni. Some roast beef. The mortadella. We got the American cheese. We got the provolone cheese with the lettuce. Tomatoes. A little onions. Pepper, salt, oregano. Olive oil, vinegar. A little mayo. Hot peppers, sweet peppers. There you have it. The bomb. Ever since we came up with the bomb, everybody went with it. It's been the staple of the store since the 80s. This is what you get over here. A nice, big sandwich. Still reasonably priced. Thank you. Do you consider this a family business? 100% a family business, yeah. Emiliano's been here for 20 years. Delfino's been here for over 15 years. They went to war, my father. John is my brother. He's been a very, very big part of our success. Without him, the store wouldn't be as organized. I started here when I was 14. Then at 16, I started working full-time. Thank you, brother. Have a good one, man. One time when I was 8 years old, I walked behind the counter. I took a big bologna and I just started eating the bologna. Like a carrot? Yeah, I just took it and started eating it. I was so hungry. What did your dad do? Nothing, they left. They took pictures and everything. They recorded it. It was a funny time. Yeah, so my mother was working here. When I started working at 14, I came in and I saw my mother. She's like this little, tiny, 4'11 girl. When Chris came in, that was it. Everybody was like soldiers. Little boss is back. Time to work. So my name is Chris. I'm Charlie's wife. And me and Charlie started this business back in 1987. Nick and John are my sons. So they both work in here and they love it. And they took the store to the next level. This is the creator, Charlie Gordon. He's the one who created everything. This is the legend. That's supposed to be me. That's my husband, Charlie. And then Sal, which you notice is the name on the awning. He worked here when we first bought the store. So we decided to put his name first. So he's Sal. I'm Chris and Charlie. So that's how Sal, Chris and Charlie. That's how the name started. Sal was an older gentleman. He was here for like three prior owners. Everybody knew who Sal was. You would walk with no money in the store and you would walk out with 20 bucks in your pocket. That's how nice this guy was. I've been coming here probably since this place opened. I knew his father better. Do you remember when Sal used to give the manja, they called it, when you were online? Yes. He would roll this up like this and he would feed you online while you were waiting. And he would just keep giving them out samples. Have this, my boy. Try this, my boy. And then after they were done waiting online, they would be full because he gave them like three of these. Hey, you want salami? When we took over, Charlie always likes things. He goes over the top. So when he started making the sandwiches, he would just pile that meat on. I would yell at him, what are you doing? You gotta weigh the sandwiches, you're losing money. He doesn't care. He's like, I'm making it with love and I'm gonna make it as if I was gonna eat it and that's how he started making these huge sandwiches. The Bomb is kind of a version of Charlie and Sal because Sal created it with giving little munchies to everybody and Charlie just took it to another level. This was the sandwich king. Everybody knew to come here for the Bomb. There was no TikTok when we were teenagers so we got to keep it a little gatekeepy but I'm sure it's blowing up now. That's why you can't get in here around 11am. We're in a story. It's like my mother when she gets me in. Nobody move. Nobody gets in. Because of social media, it's definitely bigger now. They have a sandwich here called the Bomb that you can literally feed a family of 20 with. So this is the official Sal, Chris, and Charlie's Instagram. We started out with maybe 500-600 followers. Now we're already at 61,000. I'm not so big on the content filming us literally. I prefer to use other people's videos so that it's authentic. People say this is the best Italian sandwich in all of New York. This hits the spot every damn time. 95% of the people, they get the Bomb. It's affected the business because people see that and they travel from everywhere. They would just come in and literally put the video right in our face and say, I want that. They wouldn't even ask questions, what's in it? They would just go like this. From there we realized how much the social media was helping the business. Guys, you had to see the size of this thing. I had to have them cut it in four just so I could get it through the car door. And we definitely noticed a lot of new people coming in from everywhere, from Jersey, Connecticut. We have people coming from even other countries. The Bomb itself here, I think it's authentic. It's something that nobody can mimic. It's something you just have to come in and experience at least once in your lifetime. And I think that's what gives people the reason to come inside and try it for the first time. Charlie passed away in 2019. He was the king of the sandwiches, so in honor of him we put a big crown on top of the awarding. Even before he passed away, he knew the store was very popular, but my boys took it to a different level and we're really, really, really happy and I know he's looking above and he's very proud. 23rd Avenue, the sign that's there, they're going to make, they vote it and it's going to probably happen in December and they're going to name it Sal Chris and Charlie's Way. I used to see signs when I used to walk around and I'd go, wow, that's an honor to have your name up there and now that they're doing it for us, I don't even know what to say. Words can't even, I'm very, very happy. My father, he dedicated his life to this store so I don't want to just run it down and then it's not the same anymore. I try to keep the tradition as much as possible. I don't like changes and I think that's what the key is, man. Just keep it nice, simple, because when you extreme change, people talk and we don't want that. We want to keep everything the same too and that's it. Just keep going, never stop.