Ike's Love & Sandwiches

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• Top 6 Sandwiches in America

  Currently #4 · score 0

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• Katz's Delicatessen

  Katz's Delicatessen has been serving hand-carved pastrami sandwiches from the same corner of Manhattan's Lower East Side since 1888, making it one of the oldest continuously operating delicatessens in the United States and a direct link to New York's Jewish immigrant food culture. Its pastrami sandwich, still hand-cut to order by countermen slicing from whole steamed briskets rather than pre-sliced deli meat, has become the reference standard against which nearly every other pastrami sandwich in the country is measured, piled high enough that eating one with both hands is genuinely difficult. The deli became internationally famous beyond the food world after serving as the setting for the fake-orgasm scene in "When Harry Met Sally..." (1989), with a sign still marking the exact table where the scene was filmed, giving it a rare crossover between culinary and cinematic landmark status. Katz's combination of its century-plus unbroken operating history and its defining role in American pastrami sandwich culture has made it one of the most iconic single sandwiches in the country's culinary history.

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• Primanti Bros

  Primanti Bros began in 1933 as a cart serving truckers in Pittsburgh's Strip District wholesale produce market, and its signature sandwich — piling french fries and coleslaw directly inside the sandwich alongside the meat — became one of the most distinctive regional sandwich inventions in the country. The sandwich's origin is widely tied to Pittsburgh's working-class trucking and rail-yard culture, with the fries-and-slaw-inside format reportedly designed so laborers could eat a complete meal one-handed without needing a plate or side dishes during short breaks. The original Strip District location remained open essentially around the clock for decades to serve overnight shift workers, and the chain has since expanded regionally while keeping the same distinctive sandwich format that made it a defining piece of Pittsburgh food identity. Primanti Bros's combination of its working-class Strip District origin story and its genuinely unique fries-inside sandwich format has made it one of the most regionally iconic sandwiches in the country.

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• Pat's King of Steaks

  Pat's King of Steaks, founded by Pat Olivieri in 1930 on the same South Philadelphia corner it still occupies, is widely credited with inventing the Philly cheesesteak after Olivieri reportedly grilled some chopped beef on a hot dog roll for his own lunch and a passing cab driver asked for one too. The stand's rivalry with Geno's Steaks, which opened directly across the street decades later, became a genuine only-in-Philadelphia landmark feud, with the two competing stands' neon signs facing off across the intersection and each maintaining fiercely loyal separate followings. Pat's ordering system, requiring customers to specify "wit" or "witout" (onions) quickly and clearly at the counter, became its own piece of local food culture lore, with a reputation for good-naturedly gruff service toward customers who order incorrectly or hesitate. Pat's combination of its direct claim to inventing the cheesesteak and its enduring cross-street rivalry with Geno's has made it one of the most historically significant single sandwich stands in American food culture.

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• Jimmy John's

  Jimmy John's was founded by Jimmy John Liautaud in 1983 near the University of Illinois after his father reportedly offered him either a car or $25,000 to start a business, and the chain grew into one of the largest sandwich franchises in the country built around a deliberately narrow, freaky-fast-delivery-focused menu. The chain's marketing built its entire identity around delivery speed, with "Freaky Fast" becoming its signature slogan and franchise locations competing on internally tracked delivery-time benchmarks, a genuinely different positioning strategy than most competing sandwich chains' focus on menu variety. Jimmy John's deliberately minimal ingredient list per sandwich, favoring a small number of well-executed combinations over an expansive customizable menu, represented a distinct philosophy from chains built around endless customization options. Jimmy John's combination of its speed-obsessed brand identity and its deliberately focused menu has made it one of the most recognizable fast-casual sandwich chains in the country.

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• Publix Pub Sub

  The Publix Sub, universally known across Florida and the broader Southeast as the "Pub Sub," is a made-to-order deli sandwich sold at the supermarket chain Publix's deli counters, and it has developed a genuinely unusual cult following for a sandwich sold inside a grocery store rather than a dedicated sandwich shop. The sandwich's specific preparation — meat and cheese warmed together before the vegetables and dressing are added — combined with Publix's consistent quality control across its hundreds of Southeastern locations, gave it a reputation for reliability that regular customers came to associate specifically with hurricane-prep grocery runs and everyday lunch routines alike. The Pub Sub became enough of a regional cultural touchstone that it developed an association with hurricane season specifically, since stocking up on Pub Subs before a storm became a widely shared, half-joking Florida tradition documented extensively on social media during major storm events. The Pub Sub's combination of its unusual origin inside a supermarket deli counter and its genuine cultural status as a Florida and Southeast regional icon has made it one of the most distinctive sandwiches in the country.

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• Ruffles

  Ruffles was introduced by Frito-Lay in 1958, building specifically on the earlier innovation of ridged potato chips that had been developed and patented by a smaller regional company, Bernhardt "Bert" Kittel, whose original 1954 patent for "Ruffles" ridge-cut potato chips Frito-Lay's predecessor company eventually acquired. The chip's ridged texture was specifically engineered to hold up better under thicker dips than standard flat potato chips, giving Ruffles a distinct functional advantage for dip-based snacking occasions that became central to the brand's marketing positioning. Ruffles grew into one of the best-selling potato chip brands in the United States under Frito-Lay and later PepsiCo ownership, and the brand has released numerous flavor variations over the decades while maintaining its distinctive ridged shape as its core defining product feature. Ruffles's combination of its acquired ridge-cutting patent innovation and its sustained positioning as the go-to potato chip specifically engineered for dipping has made it one of the most commercially significant potato chip brands in American snack food history.

• Fritos

  Fritos were created by Charles Elmer Doolin in 1932, who purchased a corn chip recipe and production equipment from a Mexican restaurant owner in San Antonio, Texas for $100, initially producing the chips in his mother's kitchen before founding the Frito Company to scale up production. The Frito Company merged with H.W. Lay & Company in 1961 to form Frito-Lay, combining Doolin's corn chip business with Herman Lay's potato chip operation into what became one of the largest snack food companies in the United States before PepsiCo's 1965 acquisition of the combined company. Fritos became particularly associated with Texas and broader Southwestern American food culture, and the chip's distinctive corn flavor and crunch made it a foundational ingredient in dishes like Frito pie, a casserole-style dish combining the chips with chili and cheese that remains a regional comfort food staple. Fritos's combination of its founder's humble $100 recipe purchase and its foundational role in Frito-Lay's formation has made it one of the most historically significant corn snack brands in American food history.

• Cheetos

  Cheetos was created in 1948 by Charles Elmer Doolin, founder of the Frito Company, who developed the cheese-flavored corn snack using leftover equipment from his existing Fritos corn chip production line, extruding corn dough into puffed shapes before coating them in cheese powder. The brand's mascot, Chester Cheetah, introduced in television advertising in 1986, became one of the most recognized animated snack food mascots in American advertising, known for his sunglasses and characteristically mischievous personality across decades of continuous television commercials. Cheetos became part of Frito-Lay following Doolin's Frito Company's 1961 merger with H.W. Lay & Company, and the brand's product line expanded significantly to include both puffed and crunchy variations, along with the notably spicy "Flamin' Hot" line that grew into a significant standalone sub-brand and cultural phenomenon in its own right. Cheetos's combination of its origins repurposing Fritos production equipment and its Flamin' Hot line's outsized cultural significance has made it one of the most commercially and culturally influential snack brands in American food history.

• Pringles

  Pringles was developed by Procter & Gamble and launched in 1968, engineered specifically to solve problems associated with traditional potato chips, including breakage during shipping and inconsistent shapes, by creating a uniformly saddle-shaped chip made from a dehydrated potato-based dough rather than sliced whole potatoes. The chip's distinctive tall cylindrical can, designed to prevent the crushing and breakage common with bag-packaged chips, became one of the brand's most recognizable and legally significant design features, and the container's inventor, Fredric Baur, was so proud of the design that part of his cremated remains were reportedly placed inside a Pringles can at his request. Because Pringles are made from reconstituted potato dough rather than being sliced directly from whole potatoes, the product faced early regulatory and labeling disputes in several countries over whether it could legally be marketed simply as a "potato chip" or required a different classification. Pringles's combination of its engineering-driven uniform-shape design solving shipping and packaging problems and its inventor's famously devoted attachment to the product's iconic can has made it one of the most distinctively engineered snack brands in the food industry.

• Doritos

  Doritos originated at Disneyland in the early 1960s, reportedly developed from surplus tortillas at a restaurant in the park's Frontierland area that were being fried and seasoned rather than thrown away, before Frito-Lay acquired the recipe and launched Doritos nationally in 1966. The brand became particularly associated with bold, unconventional flavor innovation, including Cool Ranch, introduced in 1986, and Nacho Cheese, and Doritos has continued releasing limited-edition and unusual flavor variations as a core part of its ongoing marketing strategy. Doritos became one of the most prominent brands in Super Bowl advertising specifically through its long-running "Crash the Super Bowl" contest, launched in 2006, which invited amateur filmmakers to create their own Doritos commercials for a chance to have them air during the broadcast, a genuinely unusual crowdsourced advertising model for a major national brand. Doritos's combination of its unusual Disneyland tortilla-chip origin story and its pioneering crowdsourced "Crash the Super Bowl" advertising campaign has made it one of the most culturally significant and commercially innovative snack brands in the industry.