Only In MA: Why Is The State Obsessed With Roast Beef Sandwiches?

"Only In Massachusetts" is an occasional series where Patch tries to find the answers to questions about life in Massachusetts. Have a question about the Bay State that needs answering? Send it to dave.copeland@patch.com.

Let's get one thing straight at the outset: I am not going to use this space to declare which of the dozens of mom-and-pop roast beef shops on the North Shore makes the best three-way. I have my personal favorites — I live within DoorDash distance of Harrison's Roast Beef in North Andover and grew up in Melrose, making me partial to Billy's Famous Roast Beef.

A note to newbies: Most — but not all— of the roast beef restaurants worth eating at incorporate "famous" into their name, as in "Billy's Famous Roast Beef."

Declaring one better than all the rest is a mistake that People magazine made in 2019, and not one I care to repeat. When People said Nick's Famous Roast Beef in Beverly had the best roast beef sandwich in the state, the Internet chimed in. Nick's, critics argued in more colorful language than I'm allowed to use here, didn't even serve its "super" on an onion bun, and its three-way was missing the mayo that is standard on the most common order of the sandwich.

So people in these parts are particular and territorial when it comes to a food as local as clam chowder and beans. That may seem odd to outsiders who don't see much difference in the offerings from one beef place to the next, and we'll unpack all that in a bit.

But first, some history.

Origin Story: Left At The Altar

No one disputes the claim that Kelly's Roast Beef in Revere "invented" the sandwich in the summer of 1951. The tale has been printed on their place mats for years, and like any good origin story, it may contain as much myth as fact.

According to legend, a couple from Revere called off their wedding at the very last minute. We don't know the name of the bride and groom, which of them got cold feet or why. What we do know is that the Carey family, who owned a function hall in Revere, was stuck with a giant roast beef that was to have been served at the reception. Not wanting the beef to go to waste, the roast was given to their son, Ray, who had just opened a hot dog stand with his friend Frank McCarthy on Revere Beach.

The two men sliced the roast beef as thinly as possible, stacked it high on hamburger buns and started a craze that has been ongoing for the past 70 years. Kelly's acknowledges that roast beef had been served on bread before the summer of 1951, but argues those were open-faced sandwiches eaten with a knife and fork.

Within a decade, Kelly's had changed its name to Kelly's Roast Beef and dozens of imitators had popped up all along the North Shore, in the Merrimack Valley and across southern New Hampshire. Some people —most notably Arby's, which admits to modeling its sandwich after Kelly's —tried to expand the concept regionally and nationally.

But most of the chains failed when they couldn’t find a foothold outside the North Shore. And, with apologies to Arby's, the only versions of the sandwich worth eating are those made by the small, family-owned shops in northeastern Massachusetts.

Have a question about life in Massachusetts that needs an answer? Send it to dave.copeland@patch.com.

Ordering Basics: The Three-Way

Purists will argue there's only one way to order a beef: with cheese, barbecue sauce and mayo, preferably on an onion roll. At shops on the North Shore, that's called a three-way.

Writing in Edible in 2019, the food scientist Kelsey Tenney noted the places that get mentioned most frequently in the argument about who makes the best roast beef sandwich tend to use Cain's Extra Heavy Mayo and James River barbecue sauce, and the single slice of white American cheese that is standard on a three-way is placed on the bottom bun, underneath the roast beef so it doesn't slide off.

Full disclosure: I prefer horseradish, mayo and barbecue sauce on my beef; the cheese gets lost in all those other flavors. But if you're a roast beef sandwich newbie, a three-way is the best bet for your first taste.

Others prefer just the roast beef on the bun with a gentle shaking of salt. My wife —who grew up in Pittsburgh and does not know better —orders hers with lettuce and tomato. For people who grew up here, though, horseradish is the only acceptable vegetable to top a sandwich.

The rest of the sandwich's ingredients are also mostly standard from place-to-place: roast beef from the top- or bottom-round, cooked rare and sliced as thin as possible. Most places offer three sizes: "juniors," on a plain bun and slightly bigger than a slider, "regulars" on a sesame-seed hamburger roll, and "supers," on the onion roll. The buns at the places most often mentioned in the debate for "best roast beef sandwich" often come from the Piantedosi Baking Co. in Malden.

Kelly's, it's worth noting, does not offer onion rolls. And it still slices the top round it uses in its sandwiches by hand, meaning it's beef is thicker than the places that use commercial deli slicers. That thickness is a good thing or a bad thing, depending on who you ask.

So if all the "famous" roast beef places are using pretty much the same ingredients, why the debate?

Tenney believes it comes down to the preparation of the sandwich and not the actual ingredients. Specifically, she focuses on the beef-to-bun ratio and noted there's a sweet spot between too much and too little of either B. Indeed, much of the 2019 online arguments about Nick's centered on whether it was too generous on the beef side of the ratio.

"The beef rivalry between towns like Salem, Peabody and Lynn is very real, and diners should be prepared to discuss the beef-to-bun (B2B) ratio if they’re going to engage in it," Tenney writes. "They’re really serious about their sandwiches up there."

Dave Copeland is Patch's regional editor for Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Rhode Island and can be reached at dave.copeland@patch.com or by calling 617-433-7851. Follow him on Twitter (@CopeWrites) and Facebook (/copewrites).