Fat Sandwich Company

Update 4/3/12: Fat Sandwich's space will soon be a Jimmy John's.

In a word: A big, fat deal.

The specs: #0512  
Address, hours & details via Isthmus; reviews at Eat Your Broccoli, The Sconz, 77 Square, The Badger Herald, Yelp, EatDrinkMadison, DudeFoods, Taylor Takes a Taste, Jacki's Kitchen; official web site,

JM ate the Fat Tailgate with a fountain drink.
John ate the Fat MILF with a fountain drink.
Nichole ate the Fat Sorostitute with a fountain drink.
We split some mac and cheese bites.
The bill was $32, or $10.67/person, plus tip.
JM gave Fat Sandwich Company a B+; John gave Fat Sandwich Company an A- because he was in the mood (a D if he hadn't been); Nichole gave Fat Sandwich Company a C (see our grading rubric).

Latest Fat Sandwich news and reviews

Fat Sandwich, a campus-centric chain, came to State Street in the dead man's boots of another sophomoric innuendo chain, Lovshack. We were amazed at the tidiness of the place, actually. The sandwiches were wrapped nicely in waxed paper and invoked nothing so much as Subway with fries instead of lettuce. It's the anti-Jared diet: no sandwiches under 1200 calories.

Taking our lesson from the Pizza run (i.e., if an item appears in a restaurant's name, try not to veer far from that item) we all got fat sandwiches. Burgers, salads, wraps, breakfast (hangover helpers) and even The Truth (cheesesteaks) went unsampled, as did the Big Fat Ugly, a competitive eating challenge best left to others, maybe with some sort of intestinal parasite that lives on fried grease.

Nichole went for the self-hating-woman's option, the Fat Sorostitute: spicy chicken fingers, mozzarella sticks, jalapeno poppers, ranch and cheese sauce. John's Fat MILF had a modicum more lean protein in a few slices of cheesesteak meat. JM's tailgate was messy and a little hard to eat with Mini Corndogs sometimes cleanly sliced by his teeth and others falling out whole rendering the architecture of the sandwich jeopardized. The side of Mac 'n' Cheese bites was tasty and warm, though we remain unconvinced these would have made a good topping either.

The bread was the best part of each sandwich: these delicious Amoroso rolls must have misbehaved in a past life to end up here. We didn't get why the fries were tastelessly unsalted, since the built-in sodium overload would likely kill us anyway.

John summed it up thus: if the idea of Fat Sandwich is appetizing, you'll like Fat Sandwich. If not, stay the hell away.

Comments

[Jaimie]

I'm going to have to respectfully disagree. I think Fat Sandwich is terrible. The bread was awful and the whole sandwich was dry because of it. The sandwich was stale and I would never spend that much money on any sandwich again, for fear that it would be as bad as Fat Sandwich.

[Timmy]

Yes, I had exactly the same experience as Jaimie--stale sandwich! I'd consider coming here again at like 2 in the morning if I had just drank 6 beers though. I mean, that's the point, not food quality.

[Samantha]

The "fat sandwich" was in institute at Rutgers while I was there...apparently the phenomenon started in New Brunswick in the 70's and was made more popular in August 2004 when Maxium magazine picked up on a particular "fat" combination by a student named Darrel. He's quoted as saying "Like the typical college student, I was pretty much broke. I had been craving chicken fingers, mozzarella sticks and French fries all week long but I knew that I didn't have enough money to buy all three. I talked the guy behind the counter into putting them all onto a piece of bread for me. I guess it sounded like a good idea because the next 10 or so people all asked for the same thing." That story sums up the experience...greasy, oversized, filling to the point of bloating and cheap (a sandwich only ran $4 three a few years ago)...the quintessential drunk food.

I tried the fat b*tch (often renamed the fat beach from other vendors) from one of these original grease trucks. It was an experience. Glad I did it, but I'm not keen on consuming a week's worth of calories again. I would however be curious to see if Fat Sandwich Company is remotely close to the original.

[Kyle]

I am relieved, at least, that Fat Sandwich Company cites the Grease Trucks of Rutgers as the inspiration for this endeavor (see: their website, under History). It would have been annoying (to nitpicky me, anyway) if they had just seen the feature on Man v. Food and decided "Hey, this is something we can rip off!"

[Alison]

Wait. Are you implying that sex workers are self-hating? Or that sorority women are? Or both? Because I beg to differ...

[Samantha]

The Rutgers influence is apparent in their logo too...subbing an "F" for the Rutger's "R" of course. Makes sense now that I see one of the founders is from the New Brunswick area. I do enjoy their 'Sconnie take on the gluttonous sandwich combinations.

[nichole]

Alison, I suspect that you and I might be more allied in our views of sex workers and sorority women than my "self-hating" remark might have implied. I used the term because the history posted on the Fat Sandwich web site ("sorostitues [sic] whose names you would never remember, frat party hook ups that never should’ve happened") read, to me, as distinctly phallocentric.

More to the point - I have a hard time seeing how the term "sorostitute" could be used in any kind of positive or empowering way.

That's not to say that non-self-hating women can't enjoy a Fat Sandwich. But context and intention are important and the jock talk permeating the Fat Sandwich image, right down to the "haw haw aren't we cute" tone, rubs me the wrong way.

[Alison]

Ahh, Nichole. I get where you're coming from. I object to the term sorostitute, too (obviously!). I just didn't follow when you subsituted "self-hating-woman" for it. And yeah, the language on the menu seems not only a little twee but mildly offensive. Thanks for the clarification and keep on keepin' on!

[Jeff]

Thanks for doing this review. This place has always seemed empty every time I walked by it, and I wondered why. Now I don't have to find out why personally.

[Julie]

As a dietitian and great lover of food (even the occasional chicken finger or mozzarella stick), I cannot describe how greatly this concept disturbs me....

[chris]

if you wanna lose weight than it's not good to eat this type of food... try to avoid it...

[Spencer]

I am a little tired of people blaming the food they eat on them being fat. It is all calories taken in and calories burned. You can blame it on Taco Bell, McDonald's, KFC or you could blame it on your own laziness.

Fat Sandwich Company is trying to bring a unique food option to a place that is all about that. Ian's doesn't catch any flak for putting french fries on their pizza, because it is a Madison institution. What about the unholy love sconnies have for fried cheese curds? That isn't causing fat people all over is it?