Philippe's French-Dip Sandwich (1951)

[Laurence Horn]

At 12:04 AM -0500 12/31/03, Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote:
>   The first LOS ANGELES TIMES "dip(ped) sandwich" citation is only 1930.
>   Here's the important article--a better-late-than-never 1951.

What puzzled me about this place (which did have a nice old
sawdust-on-the-floor character, with wooden floors, pickled eggs and
pigs' feet in jars, and such) is why everyone I knew around there in
the mid-60s (native Angelenos) pronounced it as if it was "Felipe's".
Maybe it's just the local L.A. version of hyperforeignism, given the
proportion of Spanish vs. French influence around there.

L

>
>
>PHILIPPE'S FOUNDER RECALLS BUSY DAYS; Man Who Made First French-Dip
>Sandwich Sees Restaurant Bearing Name Close Doors
>Los Angeles Times (1886-Current File). Los Angeles, Calif.: Aug 27,
>1951. p. 27 (1 page)
>
>    Philippe Mathieu, now 74, whetted a carving knife and his
>memories yesterday and talked of the times when he sold the
>best-known meal in Los Angeles for 25 cents.
>    e looked over his shoulder at the years that have passed, and
>back to the days when crowds lined up outside his place at 500 N.
>Alameda St. to buy his meals.
>    "Sometimes," he said in his home at 1110 Marion Ave., "the crowds
>would be so big that people passing would call police, thinking
>there was a fight going on."
>       _French Dip Sandwich_
>    Those were the days when he was the poor man's Delmonico, the man
>who had thrust upon him the trick of devising the first "French-dip
>sandwich."  it was a trick that was to make him a modest fortune.
>It also was to make him work himself to the brink of the grave.
>    Most people nowadays think of Philippe's as at 354 Allen St., and
>that's where it was for 26 years.  Of course, now it has vanished,
>one of the victims of the wreckers and the bulldozers which have
>been sweeping away the relics and memories of yesterday to make way
>for the Ramona Freeway of tomorrow.
>    Philippe's was several places.  All of them have gone the way of
>the last, as rubble and debris cleared for the path of progress.
>       _From France_
>    Philippe came from Southern France.  At 14 he got his first job
>in Aix-en-Provence in a small "charcuterie," French for delicatessen
>store.  His pay was his food and care and nothing a week.
>    he went to Algiers and worked as an apprentice cook, again for
>board and room and nothing a week.  At 21 he spent a year in the
>French army.
>    He had had enough of poor pay.  But he worked two more years to
>get enoug money to come to this country.
>    "This is a wonderful country," he calls it.
>    he came in the steerage, and arrived in Buffalo 10 days after
>President McKinley was assassinated there.
>    He worked in lumber camps and then in a hotel in Buffalo, where
>he worked up in 15 months from dishwasher to second cook.
>       _Came Here in 1903_
>    In 1903 he came to Los Angeles and worked as night chef in the
>Angelus Hotel, then one of this city's leading hostelries.
>    Five and a half months later he had enough money to go into
>business for himself.  For $150 he bought a delicatessen store at
>617 Alameda St.
>    That was his start.
>    "I didn't make much money," he said, "and I worked hard.  But I
>knew I was on the right track."
>    The start of his sandwich business was unintentional.  His
>customers started it.  He had a row of open barrels each
>half-covered with planks.  Each barrel contained a different
>relish--pickled cucumbers, pickled onions. olives and such.
>(Col. 2--ed.)
>    He sold, of course, French bread.  And, also of course, cooked
>meats.  Customers would come in, buy a French roll or a loaf of
>French bread, borrow a carving knife and slit the bread open, buy
>meat and make their own sandwiches.
>    "They would have me dip into the barrels for their relishes and
>every customer would have a sandwich to his own taste," Philippe
>says.
>    He prospered, but very modestly.  But in 1908 he felt the future
>was secure.  He was in love.  He married.  She was Josephine Chaix
>and, of course, a Frenchwoman.  It was a good marriage.  It produced
>two daughters, Alice and Berthe, and in the later years of
>Philippe's places, all four worked.  They worked like beavers.
>Alice is now married and has two sons, Philiipe and Andre.  Bertha
>is a cashier in a 7th St. apparel shop.
>       _Starts Restaurant_
>    In 1908, Philippe decided that since his delicatessen customers
>seemed to like to eat in his place, a restaurant was the logical
>thing.  He opened one at 300 N. Alameda St.
>    The meals he served there have been the subject of many a
>reminiscence by Los Angeles oldsters.
>    He served his customers all they could eat plus a pint of what he
>still describes as "good claret wine" for two-bits.
>    Those were the days when the crowds fairly mobbed him.
>    In those days Philippe was buying 12-ounce loaves of French bread
>at 40 for a dollar.  he paid 4 cents a pint for milk and 13 cents a
>gallon for wine.
>       _On City Hall Site_
>    After four years he moved his restaurant to 136-138 N. Spring St.
>That's where the City Hall now stands.
>    His new restaurant was somewhat more pretentious than the old.
>It had a three-piece orchestra!
>    And he charged 35 cents for his meals!
>    The restaurant prospered bu Philippe wanted a rest.  After a few
>months he sold out.
>    But he grew restless and went back into business.  He and his
>brother Arbin set up a new delicatessen, this time at 817 N. Alameda
>St., but in 1916 they separated and Philippe continued in it alone.
>    Business got so good that Philippe needed larger quarters.  In
>1918 he moved his place to 246 Aliso St.
>       _Sandwich Is Born_
>    That was where the French-dip sandwich was born.  A policeman was
>one of its creators.  As Philippe tells it:
>    "One day a police officer asked me if I would mind splitting one
>of these large loaves of French bread and filling it with 'some of
>the delicious roast pork.'  I was not too busy, so I said, 'Sure.'
>Then he asked me to (Col. 3--ed.) 'please cut it in half.  I've got
>a friend outside who can eat it.'  Then he asked for some pickles,
>onions and olives."
>    Philippe charged 35 cents for the works and says that was the
>start of the "man-size" sandwich.  The next day the policeman and
>his friend returned with several other friends.
>       _Dipped in Gravy_
>    "Then we started making French-roll sandwiches for those who had
>smaller appetitites," he says.
>
>(To be continued--NYU Library is closing at midnight!)