Pauli’s, Boston, MA USA

Ordered from Pauli's in Boston's North End.

Covid had left Boston’s dining scene void of club sandwiches.

Hotel restaurants, mainly closed, had limited menus boasting overly creative and mostly unappealing lunch menu items that really catered to the dinner crowd. Cafes and restaurants frequented by commuters looking for lunch were shuttered everywhere throughout the city. At the end of the day, it was hard to find a club sandwich from a reputable establishment still open. A sad reality.

Google searching was no help, so I relegated my efforts to Grub Hub’s app, perusing menus from the top sandwich slinging businesses that would deliver to my WeWork office.

Pauli’s, with an insanely high rating on both Grub Hub and Google, made it to the top of my list. With Guy Fieri on their homepage, how could I go wrong? Located in the North End and thus not really the closest location to me, they would at least deliver, so I placed my order for their roast turkey club sandwich – one of their “signature sandwiches” – and watched the Grub Hub map patiently, finishing work and waiting for my meal to arrive.

Wicked fresh, crazy good, the label read as I unwrapped my club sandwich from Pauli’s. I was event more excited to dig into my first bite down. With the ranch dressing seemingly oozing out, I was worried each bite would be overburdened with sauce and alas, it did. The ingredients felt like they had been dipped in ranch before being placed into the fluffy Italian bread. I was getting ranch on my hands as I ate Pauli’s roast turkey club… but I did my best to bite around it.

Underneath all that cream lay decent ingredients that came together in a whirl of flavors and textures. The provolone vibed so well with the turkey. The Italian braided roll did a fantastic job keeping the ingredients together while adding a cushion of deliciousness around each bite.

I actually gobbled down the entire club sandwich, which made me think: the heavy handed amount of ranch dressing wasn’t the hardest to ignore, and did add decent flavor to the sum of all of its parts.

And as quickly as Pauli’s roast turkey club sandwich arrived, it was gone, and I was back to emails and calls in my WeWork cubicle, sipping coffee and wondering what to cook for dinner.

Location