Beyond the basics
PB&J and grilled cheese sandwiches are as basic as it gets. But a West Allis shop and at a food cart take them far beyond that.
Make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich or a grilled cheese at home? No need; someone will do it for you.
Peanut Butter & Jelly Deli
A frequent dining companion of mine remembers riding in a car with his siblings when they were kids, their grandfather behind the wheel. “Buy us a soda!” the kids would say. “There’s soda to home,” Grandpa replied.
When the Peanut Butter & Jelly Deli opened in West Allis this year, my thoughts went all Grandpa. Doesn’t everybody have peanut butter and jelly “to home”? Who would go?
Well, geez, just about everybody, or so it seemed when I stopped in for lunch on an August weekday. Families with kids, unsurprisingly, but also customers who appeared to be workers on their lunch breaks, and a retiree thoroughly enjoying his PBJ and milk.
The deli, a handsome little space lined with Cream City brick at 61st Street and Greenfield Avenue, has about 30 seats; it was two-thirds full that lunch hour. Owner Mike Hottinger might be on to something here.
Part of the appeal, aside from eating a food you’ve loved since you were a kid, has to be the choices. At home, the bread is what it is, and the jelly might be strawberry or grape. Maybe raspberry, if your family is extravagant.
At the deli, customers pick from sturdy Italian style breads in white or wheat, standard pan loaves, Texas toast, a bagel, sourdough or gluten-free bread.
If you’re designing your own PB&J ($4.50), you can decide among nut butters the deli grinds itself: regular peanut butter or honey roasted, cashew or almond.
Then there are the jams, jellies and fruit butters, the likes of which no one household would ever stack onto its shelves. There are 100 of them, a collection of standards and exotica like cranberry-cherry, gooseberry, and pineapple jams and pumpkin butter.
And, for an extra charge, additions like caramel sauce, cream cheese or bacon can go on a sandwich (bacon is the $1.25 add-on the deli suggests for The King, $5.25, a peanut butter-honey-banana sandwich like Elvis might’ve had).
I tried a few of the deli’s own combinations and agreed with Frequent Dining Companion, who looked as if he’d surprised himself when he said, “I’d have this again.” Among them were the Big Apple ($5.25), peanut butter with apple jelly and diced fresh apple, and Strawberry Lovers ($5.25), peanut butter, strawberry jam and slices of fresh strawberry.
Some combinations could help you ride out the afternoon on the wings of a sugar rush. Take the You’re Killin’ Me Smalls ($5.25), layers of Nutella and graham crackers with mini marshmallows over peanut butter. It’s a tasty combo; just have some of the cafe’s coffee or milk at the ready.
The deli presses and lightly toasts the sandwiches, warming the fillings; speak up if you want it otherwise.
The shop does have choices for someone who doesn’t want a PB&J — grilled cheese with jam, a daily soup — but this is no place for someone with a serious peanut or tree nut allergy. A sign on the door warns that the deli can take precautions against cross-contamination, but there are no guarantees.
Peanut butter doesn’t put me in imminent danger, so I can go for broke at the deli: a milkshake whirled with peanut butter and a choice of jelly ($3.25, or $2.75 for chocolate or vanilla).
6125 W. Greenfield Ave., West Allis. (414) 897-7987. thepbjdeli.com
Hours: 10 a.m.-3 p.m. Tuesday-Sunday. Sandwiches mostly $3.25-$5.75. Delivery through DoorDash.com (and EatStreet soon). The shop sells its nut butters and preserves to take home, and is available for private parties; the deli has a liquor license.
Munchies MKE
Munchies isn’t the first or only food cart or truck to specialize in grilled cheese sandwiches, but it does them exceedingly well.
Bread with substance. A buttery, crunchy surface. Enough gooey cheese that when you pick up the first half, you’ll want to video the stretch in slomo, just to relive it later. Or maybe that’s just me.
The cart, stationed Wednesdays at the Westown Farmers Market, is in its first year. It was started by friends who came up with the idea while studying business at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Dimitri Tsioutsiopoulos, Aidan Benkowski and Nicholas Jalensky. Another friend, Yuya Takeda, invested in the cart.
Tsioutsiopoulos said the friends saw food carts at a conference in Tampa and were inspired to start their own. His family is in the restaurant business (Brisco County Wood Grill in Menomonee Falls), and Benkowski’s family works with a cheese company. A grilled cheese cart seemed like a natural.
Of course, the cart has its Classic ($7), cheddar on Italian. I liked the way Munchies branches out, though:
One sandwich this summer bumped up the flavor of a gouda-cream cheese melt with spicy-sweet chutney ($8.50); lately, pepper jelly has taken the chutney’s place. Another sandwich enhances mozzarella on Italian bread with pesto and a bit of marinara ($8.50).
Munchies turns mozzarella on Italian bread into a pizza melt ($8) with the addition of pepperoni, Parmesan and pizza sauce, a good impersonation of a slice.
It still involves melted cheese, but the lone sub on the menu really is about the tender meatballs and the marinara ($10). Get it while you can; the menu changes now and again, and the meatballs might be the next to depart.
Eat those grilled cheese sandwiches straightaway at one of the park’s picnic benches; a large part of their appeal is the crispness, fresh off the griddle.
Sandwiches come with a bag of chips, and you can get $1 off if you can puzzle out the answer to Munchies’ riddle of the day, posted on the menu board.
“It gives people a reason to stop for a minute and just think,” Tsioutsiopoulos said. “It’s fun to hear some of the guesses.”
At Westown Farmers Market through Oct. 31 at Zeidler Union Square, off W. Michigan St. near N. 3rd St., 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Munchies MKE also caters. munchiesmke.com