Chef Andy is on song with sandwich shop
ANEW sandwich shop and deli has opened in Stockport’s old town, serving up huge sandwiches all named after songs.
Ate Days A Week has taken over an old chip shop on Vernon Street, opposite newly-opened The Glass Spider and a stone’s throw from the market place.
Headed up by former Cane & Grain chef Andy James, the restaurant and takeaway was another business to take shape over lockdown.
Andy said: “My plan was always to open my own site this year, but during lockdown when I wasn’t working I just started delivering sandwiches.
“It just went crazy! We were non-stop.”
Preparing everything in his own kitchen from scratch - down to the ketchup, gravy, pies, and slow-cooked meats - he started looking for proper sites and settled on 8 Vernon Street.
He said: “Stockport’s a great town with the architecture, it’s just beautiful. Looking out of our door up the cobbled streets to the market square, it’s just stunning.
“I’ve been coming to Stockport since I was a kid and to see how it’s regenerated in the last few years, it was absolutely the right place.”
Ate Days A Week’s sandwich menu has plenty of nods back to music, another passion of Andy’s.
You’ll find the Bartender and the Beef, a riff on Stereophonics’ hit song Bartender and the Thief, which is slow-braised beef, red wine-glazed onions, Welsh rarebit and red wine and shallot gravy.
Andy says it’s his nod to a French dip sandwich.
There’s also the I Ham the
Walrus - a honey roast ham, piccallili, fried egg and shoestring fries concoction served on rosemary foccacia.
Gourmey hot dogs include the Favourite Wurst Nightmare, a pork and chilli hot dog, topped with homemade curry ketchup and crispy onions.
“Anyone can make a sandwich,” Andy said, “So we just wanted to offer something different. It’s got to stand up and it’s got to be memorable.
“Everything’s made inhouse. We use fresh ingredients and that speaks for itself.
“It’s a restaurant standard of food but from a takeaway.”
The site used to be a fish and chip shop, and Andy plans to bring back the chippy offering soon, once the kitchen renovations are complete.
He’s also taken over the upstairs space, with a vision to turn it into a speakeasystyle cocktail bar in the near future.
For now, there’s enough seating for 20 people on the ground floor, where the walls have been spraypainted to look like flares in the crowd of a gig.
Andy added: “I’m excited but I am nervous! It’s my first time opening something actually with my own money.
“It’s probably the most dangerous time to be opening because no one knows whether we’ll actually be able to open one week from the next!
“But overall, I’m just really happy to be doing this.”
Ate Days A Week is open now at 8 Vernon Street.