Dagwood sandwich
A towering multilayered sandwich named after a comic strip character.
A Dagwood sandwich is a tall, multilayered sandwich made with a variety of meats, cheeses, and condiments. It is named after Dagwood Bumstead, a central character in the comic strip Blondie, who is frequently illustrated making enormous sandwiches. The character's creator, Chic Young, began drawing the huge sandwiches in the comic strip in 1936.
Quick Facts
- Main ingredients
- Bread
- meats
- cheeses
- condiments
Facts from the source article.
Products and restaurants
In 1951, Bob Weiler and Art Lang launched a Dagwood-themed restaurant in Toledo, Ohio, aiming to build a national chain. They hadn't secured a license for the Dagwood name, so King Features ordered them to stop using it. A separate eatery called the Dag-Wood Diner operated in Ann Arbor, Michigan, until 1971. Grocery stores have also sold assorted lunch meats under the Dagwood name.
In May 1999, a counter-service spot named Blondie's opened at Universal Orlando's Islands of Adventure, offering a traditional Dagwood-style sandwich and calling itself the "Home of the Dagwood Sandwich." A 20-foot plastic Dagwood sandwich hangs above its entrance. Denny's introduced a breakfast Dagwood in the early 2000s, which packed over a thousand calories and was later taken off the menu. Dagwood's Sandwich Shoppes, a Blondie-themed chain founded in 2006, opened franchises in Florida, Kentucky, Indiana, Missouri, and Georgia, but all had closed by 2011.
The chain faced financial troubles and never hit its founders' growth targets; two lawsuits accused it of mismanagement, fraud, embezzlement, and deliberately hiding its financial collapse. That chain's Dagwood weighed 1.5 pounds and included three slices of deli bread, Genoa salami, ham, pepperoni, turkey, cheddar cheese, provolone, lettuce, tomato, roasted red bell peppers, banana peppers, red onion, deli mustard, and low-calorie mayonnaise. The Cincinnati-based chain Penn Station East Coast Subs calls its build-your-own submarine sandwich a Dagwood, allowing up to five meats and any combination of condiments and vegetables.
In South Africa, Dagwoods are a common item at takeaway restaurants and roadhouses, from small street stands to larger chains. A South African Dagwood typically uses three slices of toasted bread, one or two hamburger patties, lettuce, tomato, and a fried egg. Additional toppings can be added, and the beef patty might be swapped for savory mince similar to a sloppy joe, but the fried egg and double-decker structure define the South African version.
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